burnout

February 2026

I started teaching high school math nineteen years ago, in February of 2007. Just before the start of the 2022 - 2023 school year, in a state of burnout caused by the combined trauma of having to be the public face of major changes to the math curriculum that made some very privileged people very angry, the whole shitshow of the Covid pandemic and remote learning, and a series of personal crises, I moved to the Cape to teach middle school math for a year. I requested a one year leave of absence from my job in the hope that I could have the security of returning to my position while keeping the hundreds of hours of unused sick time I had acquired. My request was denied, though, and I moved to the Cape anyway, aware of how tenuous my health and wellbeing were. Living by the ocean and teaching younger students in smaller classes in a much smaller school definitely helped calm my overtaxed nervous system, and I returned the following year, hopeful that I had healed enough. My amazing department chair has worked hard in the time since to give me a minimally stressful teaching load and has been incredibly understanding as I have spent the past two years gradually coming to understand myself as a neurodivergent person while slowly burning out again waiting to get an evaluation to confirm my belief. Because everything about the American health care system is unconscionably awful, I only just got evaluated for autism and ADHD two weeks ago, but I will soon finally have an official diagnosis.

This is a huge relief, because it turns out that a lifetime of unknowingly masking a disability I didn’t know I had and regularly pushing way past my limits has left me with noticeably impaired cognitive and executive functioning. I regularly forget words or forget what I am saying in the middle of a sentence, I often have trouble accessing information that I know is stored in my brain, and I frequently experience decision paralysis and emotional, cognitive, and sensory overwhelm which, if unaddressed, usually lead to meltdown or shutdown. I’ve also mostly lost my ability to mask. What this means is that right now I can no longer do my job competently or without risk of causing myself significant harm.

I have been contemplating possible income sources for myself moving forward and feel confident that I will find what fits me and my broken brain, but I am acutely aware of the need to not push myself right now and to give my nervous system the time it needs to really heal while I do the work of integrating my new understanding of myself as a disabled person. If you have surplus cash and feel like lending me a hand by sending me some on Venmo, I'll gladly give you a free haircut or a free math tutoring session or a free copy of my first book (if I can manage to ever get it out of my head) or something like that, once I’m back on my feet. Thanks for reading, friends, and for helping, if you're able.