r/TeachersInTransition

I quit teaching a little less than a year ago and since then, I’ve been on a journey restarting my career trajectory and working towards a career I’m truly passionate about. So far, I’ve made great progress but there’s one thing that’s been hindering said progress.

I don’t think my nervous system has recovered from being in the classroom. I struggled immensely with anxiety and overthinking in my teens and early 20s. Then, in my mid 20s (before becoming a teacher), I recovered quite a bit and stopped going down frequent anxiety spirals. Then I became a teacher. I was “on”, overstimulated, and in “fight or flight” mode for 8 hours a day, then further stressed out from the demands of admin. During my time as a teacher, I didn’t have time to worry about various different things because all of my focus was on the stress of being in the classroom and dealing student behavior, demanding admin, demanding parents, and a million other things every day. I didn’t realize the toll this took on my nervous system.

I’m now out of the classroom and my day to day life is immensely calmer. But my anxiety has not slowed down. On a daily basis, I’ve been going down spirals, worrying about various different things, ruminating about mistakes I made in the past, and being totally unable to relax. Whenever I finally stop worrying or ruminating about something, my brain finds something else. It’s annoying!! I just want to be able to be happy but my brain won’t let me.

Last night, I woke up at 2 am from my 12th? nightmare about being back in the classroom. I lost track honestly. These nightmares have been happening on almost a weekly basis despite being out of the classroom for almost a year.

Genuinely I don’t know what’s happening to me and I’m wondering if any other former teachers have gone through something like this after leaving the classroom?

I Resigned my teaching position back in June. After a long and difficult job search I finally got a position as an analytical chemist.

It is the best job I ever had. I come in I get my work done I go home. There's no interacting with the public, no pointless PD no having to stop what I'm doing every 10 seconds to correct someone else's behavior, no pointless PD. If I have to stay late to get work done I'm paid for it. The management actually communicates effectively, and most importantly I feel like I'm treated like an actual professional adult.

6th year teacher here who is feeling burnt out. My first 4 years were at a high needs school with a lot of student behaviour issues. This led to me taking a job at a different school in an autism classroom. I didn’t last past a month there and ended up going on paid sick leave for 3 months. During that time I was exploring different career options but decided to keep pursuing teaching. I went on unpaid leave for the remainder of the year while subbing.

I took a job in an elementary school for this year…the students are pretty good but I am really feeling high anxiety from all of the extra admin stuff, paperwork, assessment, etc.

I’ve been getting teaching related nightmares fairly frequently and I always wake up with high anxiety. Sundays have been the absolute worst. My mood is negatively impacted and it is affecting my partner as well. I’m wondering if I should try to stick it out and hopefully things get better or if I should initiate a leave, while trying to transition to something else.