to feel quite shocked that DH has PTSD from teaching?

[FunnysInLaJardin]

Its feels pretty awful tbh. He has just today received this diagnosis and has been referred for priority EMDR.

He has taught for 25 years in a secondary school, and got out last year due to clinically diagnosed burn out.

I knew it was bad, but I never realised it was this bad.

How can this be allowed to happen?

So sorry that’s awful.

Surprised to hear you havent got a PTSD diagnosis. Everyone is different of course so the same trauma won’t affect us all the same, but a friend of mine got a CPTSD diagnosis as a result of childhood rape and some violence she suffered as a young adult. She got the diagnosis, therapy and EMDR fairly quickly once she started NHS therapy and she’d never been under any MH intervention before.

I got eupd diagnosis instead as soon as that's on your record the nhs hate you and arent interested in the actual diagnosis. Iv had counsellors, gps , cpn ect say sounds like cptsd but it was never ever made official by a physchiatrist so never got put on my records or treated. Because of my diagnosis I'm not allowed talking therapies which is under primary care as I'm to high risk so only have access to secondary care which is the cmht to help and that's more focused on medicating you and helping you function in day to day life rather then actual therapy.

My point is that the SYSTEM needs to change. Individual teachers can and do leave. It doesn't solve the systemic problem of how teachers are treated in the UK.

It's so rare to see older teachers in the classroom.

Absolutely I think everyone agrees their is a problem my point is it's not up to the individual to fix. So all I'm saying is if it's having a serious impact on your health leave and I don't mean that like oh if it's really that bad leave. I'm genuinely saying do not end up in a situation where your harming yourself or having panic attacks multiple times a day no job is worth that.

EUPD diagnosis seems to be more often applied to women, I’m so sorry.

You can’t just leave when you’ve a mortgage to pay. Also when your confidence hits rock bottom it’s hard to even think about changing jobs.

@Differentstarts I think it's become much clearer as you've posted that you're coming from a place of concern and advising people to protect their mental health. Perhaps because your traumas (which I'm so sorry about) are in the past and you can't step away from them as an unwell teacher could step away from work. That stepping away is so difficult though, beyond the financial side, because most teachers have gone into the role with an element of moral obligation to their pupils. Especially when they see the struggling with poverty and traumas like the ones you went through. Even when their own mental health is at rock bottom they know the kids, have a relationship with them and feel awful about letting them down.

The media coverage doesn't help when one strike day is seen as ruining children's lives. And things like discussing shortening summer holidays because so many children aren't fed or looked after when schools are closed. It all reinforces the notion that teachers and schools are the only ones holding the fort for disadvantaged kids. All that makes it very hard to step away even if it's making you ill.

Quite, it all feels rather familiar...

This 100%. That diagnosis was already in the psychiatrists head before I opened my mouth as I was a young female. If I'd been a middle age man that conversation and diagnosis would of been very different. A eupd diagnosis is used to blame patients for things they had no control over.

I have two relatives in a similar situation - both have significant physical and mental health issues caused by the stress. This is not new though. I have two older relatives who retired from teaching decades ago, also with wreaked health. One has been on antidepressants for nearly 30 years from the last years of teaching onwards. I only taught for 5 years, 25 years ago and I still get nightmares. We also have a friend, still teaching, whose leg was badly and permanently damaged from breaking up a fight. It is a hell of job.

The unions are usless, too political and not practical enough. They also won't work properly with the Tories - how does that help their members when the Tories are bound to be in power for a good deal of most teachers' careers?

Many teachers don't help themselves though. Look at the vitriol in Katharine Birbalsingh's timeline - serving teachers insult her when she does what most schools do not - get excellent results for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Phillipson was on the TV yesterday saying this was a priority - they have a school modelling this and yet just kick it and its staff. Some (not all be any means) teachers and all the unions would rather kids did less well than they 'compromised' their politics and the self-image they get from that. The rest of us get caught in the cross-fire.

I've been obsessively looking at job adverts all summer. I'm not getting anywhere and feel so overwhelmed. I'm really not enjoying being off. Im going to try and not look/think about it til Monday but it's exhausting.

Tell me you vote Conservative without telling me you vote Conservative.

My union was brilliant in the 25 years l was a teacher. Why would they ‘work’ with a Tory government? They don’t exactly support teachers, and mainly it was the government refusing to engage. And Gavin Williamson (with his whip) during the pandemic was just beyond the pale.

And as the parent of an ND daughter who became a school refuser due to teaching methods like you mention above, yeah l would have preferred her to do less well in a less rigid environment. As it is she’s been out of school 2 years and missed all her A levels.

All the PTSD symptoms my husband and I have experienced came from systematic bullying from senior leadership, not the children.

That comment is massively out of touch. How much do you think teachers earn? If you're living in the SE on a teacher's wage, you are already living in a tiny house, eating unbranded food and wearing charity shop clothes.

It's not "less holidays." Those holidays are for the children, teachers have to work through half terms and holidays, they get maybe 3-4 weeks in the summer before having to start prep and classrooms to go back in September. Do you think when the children turn up on the first day back after Christmas or Easter, the teacher swans in at 8:30am to find all the planning and resources ready to go and the classroom decorated by fairies? That's on top of working 60 hour weeks. The biggest group of people leaving teaching are mothers with children, because you don't get any time with your family as a teacher.

You cannot support a family on minimum wage. For most people in their 30s and older, restarting your career from the bottom is financial ruin. The alternative choice isn't unbranded food, it's no food and potential homelessness for you and your children.

This what I saw in our school too. The teachers were nice but the behaviour of the SLT was eyewatering.

I think the problem is partly that outstanding schools are not inspected. I think the inspections should go back to be being regular even for outstanding schools.

But if you had a mental breakdown you wouldn't have a choice so surely having a plan before that happens makes sense

I have no idea how to restart a career at 45. I'm not a keen 21 year old recent graduate with tons of energy and don't have the career experience in other sectors ...

You can't "plan" for a mental breakdown, people are trying to leave teaching all over the country but if it's going to leave you unable to feed and house your kids you have no choice.

If you have a mental breakdown you have no choice. A different job will feed your family how do you think every other person on the planet who isn't a teacher feeds their families and pays their bills

Every word of this, yes. Great post.

The thing is, if I - as a long term, senior teacher with a PhD and a history of a professional job in industry followed by over a decade of teaching - tried to apply for eg retail or low-skilled care work (the only easily available employment locally), I would be immediately rejected as overqualified. If I said ‘I need this because I am close to a breakdown’, they are even less likely to employ me. Being rejected for roles so far below my competence and qualification is yet more harm to fragile mental health.

Yep I've applied for v basic jobs and got rejected as overqualified and can't get even other jobs as not got relevant experience.

I am really really struggling to escape. It's not as simple as "just get another job" at all. It truly isn't. I'd welcome help transferring or retraining but even threads on here end up in "have you tried supply /what ahoy tutoring..."

They start a career in their early 20s and are more secure by the time they have a family to feed. Any family with the main earner or both on minimum wage is likely to be getting support from UC and/or social housing which takes a long time to put in place and people who have never used it often don't know what or how they can access it. AFAIK you can't get help if you've quit your job either. Everyone I know on min wage with a family is seriously struggling and having to make choices between heating and eating, even with government support. It's not realistic to make that choice for your family unless you are forced into it by a breakdown. No-one in this economy during a COL crisis is planning to have their kids survive on min wage.

And people plan their lives around their jobs. Do you think someone in teaching who experiences mental health difficulties can just snap their fingers and their mortgage disappears, any payments for holidays booked or cars can just be cancelled, they can sell anything nice they've ever bought for cost price?

As others have mentioned too, your notice period in teaching is usually 6-12 weeks, dependent on the time of year. Have you ever tried to secure a job and told them that you won't be able to start for 12 weeks?

Yeah it’s not always easy to just get another job partly because in the UK at least employers don’t seem to understand transferable skills. I’d apply for so many jobs when I was trying to get out of HLTA/cover supervisor work and they’d say I didn’t have the experience on that particular field. And paid internships for the industries I was interested in were aimed at much younger graduates.

I had to go to uni and do a masters to enter a new industry after being a youth worker and HLTA for most of my adult life in my late 20s/early 30s.

Thankfully in the months leading up to that I got some call centre work after the cover supervisor work had dried up and summer holidays came, to help save for uni but I mainly relied on my student loan to pay tuition fees and living with family to cut costs. That’s not practical for everyone.

And also the call centre work was massively stressful as well, customers constantly ranting and raving, sometimes making threats or just verbally abusing us, timed toilet breaks, being spoken to rudely by team leaders, constant pressure to keep call times down despite the systems being so clunky and slow.

So it’s not always as simple as leaving teaching to get a “stress free” minimum wage or “unskilled” job. The alternative jobs can be really stressful too.