Sarah Jules Writing

Than to spend your whole life in the wrong room.

Ten years ago, I was offered my first teaching post. I was one of the first in my graduating class to be offered a job. I was over the moon. On top of that, I was set to graduate with a Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Achievement and start my Masters degree in September. Three years of intense study and long hours felt like it was finally paying off.

And then it didn’t.

I found myself stuck in an incredibly toxic workplace. I can’t even begin to describe what it was like to work in that school. I lasted 10 weeks.

I felt like my world was falling apart. I’d spent the last three years of my life training to be a teacher. I was one of the top of my class. I knew I was a ‘good’ teacher. I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and then spent the next two years trying to make teaching/education work.

Two and a half years after graduating with my BA, I had my first breakdown. I was 22.

I then spent a year trying to pull myself together while finishing my masters. On my partner’s suggestion, I signed up for some freelancing websites. Seven years later, here I am.

It’s not been an easy road. I’m still learning how to balance work and life. After burning out last year, I finally feel like I’m where I’m meant to be.

Something I realised in therapy was that I never really liked teaching. I had a countdown for every teaching practice because I enjoyed being in university far more than on the placements. There’s a reason teachers are leaving the profession at an unprecedented rate. But that’s not the point of this post.

The point of this post is…

If I’d have walked away from teaching sooner, I would probably have saved myself from a lot of trauma, trauma that still impacts me to this day.

So why didn’t I?

I think part of it was a sunken cost fallacy, and part of it was that I didn’t want to ‘fail’. I was so concerned with what others might think of me if I didn’t end up teaching, that I convinced myself it was what I wanted to do.

This post from @toyoufromsteph came up on my Instagram feed at the perfect time. It took me a long time to admit that I got it wrong. I walked through the wrong door. Now, ten years after graduating, I am no longer in the wrong room.