Teacher seeking advice
I’ve been a Middle School teacher for a while now. There is another teacher that has hated me for a few years now. I worked next to them my second year teaching. Let’s call them Pineapple. Pineapple made my life miserable and even screamed that they hated me so loud I could hear them through the wall one day. This happened while my students were elsewhere but they could hear Pineapple down the hall. My students would constantly tell me the things Pineapple and another teacher would say about me. I wouldn’t say negative things back and I always tried to get my students to not talk about others. I always figured they would get tired of being mean to me and do something else. It was so bad that my students would tell the principal and the hall leader what the other teachers were doing to me. Pineapple and the other teacher would check my trash and tell the principal I was having parties when it was really just my lunch in the trash. Many of their accusations were false or exaggerated against me. It put me in a dark place where I thought I was a bad teacher, but my students loved me. I’m AuDHD and some social things I don’t always get, so I thought I had done something to them without realizing it. I replayed every conversation I ever had with them in my head, and every interaction I had with them I tried to be completely cordial. Anyway, fast forward to two years after all of that and I’m working on a different hall and I feel like I’ve made a few friends around me. The teacher across the hall, let’s call them Sunflower, is nice to me but they are best friends with Pineapple. Sunflower tells me how I annoy Pineapple for existing and how Pineapple is jealous of our friendship. I limit my time with Sunflower when Pineapple is near so she doesn’t have to choose sides. I didn’t want Pineapple to feel threatened by me. I also do some craft work for another teacher on another hall and free work for the school for this teacher. Let’s call her Pink. Then, there is a guidance counselor who seems not to care for me. We can call her Green. Other than me being clueless sometimes about things, I have no idea why she dislikes me. I also work with two other ladies in this story. One of these teachers we can call Sea Turtle and the other is Cool Ocean. Both of them are awesome. The main event that occurs happens today, the last day of school, at the faculty lunch when the kids are gone. I message Sunflower to see if she is at the event when I was in my classroom, she says she is there in the cafeteria. I make my way to the event. Sunflower is next to Pineapple who is seated awkwardly with her feet in a chair. To the left of Pineapple’s feet is Pink. Then Sea Turtle is seated next to her kids and there are no more seats at this table. I ask Sea Turtle if I can pull up a chair and she says sure hunny. I sit down. Not even 2 minutes pass before Green comes up and says let’s sit over here to Pineapple and Sunflower. They move and Pink moves over there, too. Pink tells Sea Turtle to move over there and she acts like she didn’t hear her. Then, Pink messages and calls Sea Turtle to move over to the new table but she declines because she felt it wasn’t right to leave me at the table alone. Cool Ocean shows up and sits across from me and Sea Turtle for a while with her kid. All the kids are awesome during this. Everyone is released to get food and we get in line. It’s only after I go sit that Pineapple and everyone who was sitting with their group get up. I realize as they go up to get food that they moved to the other table to slight me. I say out loud kind of in a daze “I think they moved because of me.” I am hurt by this and I learn from Sea Turtle that Pink was trying to get her to move over to their table for a while. They wanted me to sit there alone. I realize they wanted me humiliated and friendless. I don’t really know what to do now. I’m heartbroken and hurt. I’m dealing with so much at home that work was my refuge. I can count on Sea Turtle and Cool Ocean but wow this hurts. The problem I have now is what do I do? I have some craft work that Pink wanted me to do, should I bag it up and put it at her door with a note saying how wrong that was and for her to find another person who can do what I do to fix the items? I’ve done work for Pink in the past and I don’t even charge for my time, just for materials. I know that my friendship with Sunflower and Pink is gone. I don’t really know what else to do other than hide and hope the issue goes away. I don’t want to be seen as a problem by admin.