I’ve been a teacher for more than 20 years and loved it. I had promotions every couple of years and was happily making my way up the ladder. This year, however, I was made redundant because of restructuring and this has thrown me into a feeling of complete confusion. I have tried to find roles at the level I was working at, but have not been successful. It has left me feeling lost and unclear.
The last five years within education have felt fraught. I left the previous school I’d worked at because I felt the headteacher was unable to support me following the death of my mum. The school before that I left after whistleblowing on a senior leader for bullying. I am worried the repeat issues and feelings of being unhappy all come from me, and somehow I am seeking out conflict or issues.
I have a happy life with my partner and three children, as well as fantastic friends and siblings. But work is important to me and being out of it makes me question my identity and whether I can cut it in school settings.
It sounds as if the first 15 years of your career were pretty linear and then a lot has happened in the past five years. When things happen relatively intensely, it’s easy to feel out of control. And when we feel out of control, we tend to go inwards to coping mechanisms we learned long ago – and a common one is to blame ourselves, because blaming ourselves is easier than raging against the world, which feels too big to harness. Not being supported during bereavement and having to leave because of someone else’s bullying are examples of an environment that did not support you, rather than you being the catalyst.
I went to psychotherapist Mark Vahrmeyer who said: “It doesn’t mean you are manufacturing conflict. Sometimes, conscientious people doubt themselves in poorly led institutions and doubt their own perceptions. But if these experiences repeat themselves, sometimes we have to think about whether work settings have become a stage on which older relational patterns are replayed: authority figures who fail us, structures that don’t protect, loyalty that isn’t reciprocated etc. You may be allowing anger to turn into self-doubt.”
We both wondered whether something shifted after the loss of your mother. “It may have reactivated a deeper experience of being left alone with grief,” said Vahrmeyer, “in which case the institutional failure will carry an intensity beyond immediate facts.”
It also felt as if your work and your identity are very fused, as happens with a lot of people. “Your work may have become a place where you secured worth, and uncertainty was warded off,” said Vahrmeyer. So now it’s as if you’ve lost a version of yourself – no wonder you feel completely confused.
Vahrmeyer also asked, “From a redundancy point of view what has it injured the most: your income or your routine? What feels most unbearable: being without work, a plan or a clear sense of self? And what did career progression protect you from feeling?”
Your life outside work sounds rich and full, which is great, and this side of your life can help stabilise you now. You may have fallen out of love with teaching, which happens, but you’re so enmeshed in that world it’s maybe hard to see what else you want to do, so you’ve reframed it as you can’t cut it – yet you did cut it for the past two decades.
I’m not a careers adviser, but I wonder if you can sit with the confusion a bit (you didn’t mention you were desperate to work for financial reasons so I am assuming you have a bit of respite) to work out what your inner voice is telling you to do next? Does it feel a betrayal to leave teaching? Traumatic as everything sounds, you will get through this. Periods such as these can often lead to enormous growth.
Every week, Annalisa Barbieri addresses a personal problem sent in by a reader. If you would like advice from Annalisa, please send your problem to ask.annalisa@theguardian.com. Annalisa regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions. The latest series of Annalisa’s podcast is available here.
