Quiting Your Job

Post Reply New Topic

I'm seriously thinking about giving up my job as a teacher. I didn't know I had aspergers before I became a teacher, but little did I know what the job entailed and the daily pressures that come with it. Even neurotypical people find it a struggle. I worked as a graphic designer prior to teaching and didn't have to meet clients or anything, realistically it was the dream come true job for somebody with aspergers. But unfortunately the recession has forced me into a "reliable" job. I'm at a stage where I would choose happiness over stress and an impending nervous breakdown. I was never the best communicator, but somehow can manage if it is talking about art and design. I work as a part time artist too, but looking at getting an MA to lecture part time, thinking that this might suit my obsessive topics of interest. I've realised over the years that part time work suits me better. Anybody in a similar situation?

I'm a nurse, but because I have to pay the rent or be homeless, I can't indulge in my artistic leanings. I guess there are tons of people in this same boat. To wit: the millions who played Powerball last week. The winner actually quit his job on the spot.

Well it's what I'd do if I won the lottery. Luckily I've a very small mortgage and don't intend to change houses for the foreseeable future. I would imagine that nursing is equally as stressful as teaching considering that you're dealing with patients and staff on a daily basis?

Teaching is really stressful, that is one thing I would have liked to experience prior to spending time and money getting a degree in education. I love art and I love kids, and that is not what is keeping me from using my degree. If I had done the student teaching experience earlier in the course plan, I would have realized that full time days working in a school would be exceptionally draining. I got sick all the time, partly from being all the germs but also partly because I was so run down and had no immunity or ability to stay healthy because of the levels of stress.

Maybe you could use your education to develop programs of subject matter class work, that teachers could turn to in order to present it to the classes. a lot of teachers hate making lesson plans that meet all of the state guidelines, etc, but that was one of my favorite parts- thinking about the subject and how to apply it to specific goals and also add in other related subject matter and activities. Teachers will spend their budgets on tools like this that help them organize and format their lessons so they dont have to spend all of their time writing lesson plans from scratch.

You know what's one of the biggest headache in nursing? The guilt-trodden families who walk in expecting miracles for their severely injured, disabled, demented or non-healing aged family members. Nurses are not magicians. They maintain; occasionally, they heal. Can you imagine? Grandma gets brought in after 50 years of sucking down 2 packs of cigarettes a day. Now she can't breathe and needs a ventilator, then she turns to you and says, "Heal me." Sorry. Some types of damage are irreversible.