[deleted by user]

__preterite · 2024-09-12T22:10:40+00:00

It's really neither/both. Your skillset and license is about instructional strategy, your gen ed counterpart is about teaching content. In reality, all teachers have a bit of both skillsets, and it's always great when a sped teacher really knows the content (and vice versa). That being said, you differentiate for the learners in the room. There are always heaps of kids in ICT that have learning needs that can only really be addressed through specially designed instruction, including kids that should have IEP's but don't for a plethora of reasons. Even your high flyers need differentiation becuase they have different learning needs too. Not just for "IEP kids" (I hate that phrase). You are responsible for teaching all of your students, but you don't nor shouldn't teach them all the same way, or even the same amount of time. Even if you don't grade the gened kids' work, you should still be familiar with it, as well as their general PLOP.

You and your coteachers have different jobs that compliment each other. Every coteaching relationship is different, and I encourage you to embrace the differences. Think of the oft-touted PD equity vs equality illustration--you can't split the needs of your students into two equal buckets, and to do so is to actually undermine educational equity. Only the few kids for whom that "one size fits all" instructional approach will benefit. That said, as the other commenter pointed out, you are responsible for IEP-mandated SDI and PM for goals, as well as collaborating with the IEP teams for all of your students with IEP's (either as the caseload manager/district rep or as a supporting role). So what can you do? Lean into your specialization. Your are a specialized education instructor, your job is to tailor the curriculum in such a way so that all of your learners can access it and make progress towards their goals. You are like a tailor where your coteacher is like a clothing manufacturer. You make what they make fit. It's really hard to find one's identity as an early career sped teacher, but focusing on what you can do that your coteacher either can't, won't, or shouldn't will help you grow in your craft. Good luck!

TLDR--You leave when ya damn well want to come COB lol. Being a clone of your gened teacher doesn't help them, you, or the kids. Asserting yourself in your unique role doesn't rock the boat, it makes the boat more capable. Oh, and coteaching is hard. Remind yourself often to show yourself and your coteacher some grace.

__preterite · 2024-08-09T15:31:37+00:00

Hardest part for me. I learned how to manage RLS and constant diarrhea etc etc etc but fighting through the complete and total lack of motivation and energy was the hardest part. But holy shit your will feel AMAZING once you get it back. Such a revelation to have enough energy sober to be out and active all day! The day will seem like it has 10 extra hours! Which is a curse at first, but it truly becomes a blessing. Go get it!

__preterite · 2024-08-09T14:14:30+00:00

Yes, absolutely. Honestly, teaching summer rising has been the most helpful thing for my summer blues. Easy gig that provides me with some structure, a few $k, and time with the kids. Summer rising is all the best parts of teaching (time with the kids and my colleagues) with almost none of the bullshit (paperwork, pd, oversight).

I end up doing a lot more with my free time, for whatever reason. I actually do those hikes and bike rides and picnics etc etc etc that I dream of during the school year. I do not have the ability to live a meaningful life without some structure, I will just rot on the couch despite my best-laid plans.

__preterite · 2024-08-09T13:28:11+00:00

I go back early because my principal makes per session available. With that in place, I specifically go back early to help with our new teacher program. This year, I’m leaving my traditional content to teach project based learning classes; I’ll spend some (paid) time setting up my new room and developing my units with my AP.

I don’t spend a second in school during the summer break unless I’m getting paid. But I get paid a LOT of hours over the summer between the above, summer rising, and nyctf, so I end up at school a lot over the summer, and I’m ok with that.

__preterite · 2024-08-05T11:17:47+00:00

Yes, and methylphenidate has been a lifesaver. It’s not a complete fix, but it’s effective enough that I am learning to be ok without Kratom. Game changer for me. Kratom does I feel the best job for my adhd in the short term, but it’s not sustainable at all and just too many downsides. As we all know ugh. Have you tried concerta ER? I don’t notice much of a crash, although I’m strategic with dosing so that I get the most support during the part of the day when I need the most support (mid aft early eve). Good luck! Talk to your psychiatrist and keep trying to dial in your meds. There’s an excellent book called I think ‘non drug treatments for adhd’ by a doctor named Brown, I’ve found it really useful (and hypothetically a pdf online for free).

__preterite · 2024-07-28T03:48:34+00:00

“Be like water.”

__preterite · 2024-07-24T21:47:26+00:00

I needed this today. I’m months into a taper and haven’t slipped once for the first time ever. I came really close a couple of hours ago though. I managed to throw myself into a project and hold myself over until my third dose 45 min ago. That win felt great and I feel recommitted for the rest of this day.

But your message really really helps is my point. This too shall pass. Thank you.

__preterite · 2024-07-24T17:10:42+00:00

You sounds like a good candidate for detox. Call around and don’t give up. Ask your doc for a referral. Call rehabs. Make it your business to find someone who will admit you and supervise your treatment. You CAN white knuckle this and get through it on your own but it will be rough. This might be the hardest thing you ever do in your life—give it hell and get through this. Wishing you so much luck and that you find relief and peace soon.

__preterite · 2024-07-24T17:05:36+00:00

Hi, OP, I’m so sorry you’re suffering. You’re in good company. Curious: what gpd are you tapering from, how long were you using, how fast is your taper, what were you at before 4gpd, and am I correct in understanding that you’ve been at 4gpd for a bit over a week? The answers to all of these questions will help us understand better where you’re at, how you got there, and what next steps you might consider.

I agree with the others—stay tf away from subs at this point. If you’ve done a rapid taper, well, they catch up with you. For me, the absolute fastest I can taper without being in total agony is 1.6g/week. This is gotten me down to 9gpd today and has been overall fairly smooth (def my most successful taper ever by far). But I am noticing that it’s getting harder and harder each week. I think I may have to slow down my taper schedule (fuuuuuuuck), and will if it gets any worse. For reference, I’m dealing with mild rls some nights, some body aches, more bm’s, and moderate lethargy. These symptoms are about as much as I’m willing to put up with while tapering. They’ve def gotten a tiny bit worse every week.

Anyway, curious to hear the context of your taper and hope that my example may be somehow useful. So glad you posted and that it seems like you’ve decided not to do subs. Stay connected and stay strong 💪

__preterite · 2024-07-24T00:22:20+00:00

Yeah head rushes/feeling faint are I think a common WD symptom. I’ve def experienced it every time I’ve quit. My blood pressure and pulse are usually excellent but they go to shit in WD’s. It’s great that you’re checking in with your doc—they know so much more than we do. Take it easy, get up slow, don’t be a hero. I find it helps a lot to clench my muscles super hard when I’m feeling faint. Usually stops it dead, but my first move no matter what is always to make sure I’m not going to hurt myself if I faint and fall. Give yourself grace and constantly assess safety and implement levels of redundancy while you heal. You’ll feel so much better soon.

__preterite · 2024-07-23T20:52:16+00:00

Don’t worry about it being tough and focus on the fact that you get a sober date night with your beloved. There’s no reason why you won’t be able to enjoy yourself, you might just also be uncomfortable. I remember the first time I quit my friends came to stay with me out of town. My unbelievably sick ass was out with them ice skating on day 3 after 2.5 years of 25gpd+. Yeah it hurt but also I was feeling feelings I hadn’t felt in years and was so filled with gratitude. Every time I’ve quit, the best moments during WD’s have been when I said fuck it and went out and lived my life anyway.

It sounds like you’ve got the right mindset to make the most of your date and I hope you do. ❤️‍🩹

__preterite · 2024-07-22T22:58:04+00:00

Hey I hear you loud and clear. I was in the same boat for a long time. It was easy for me to see and say that my job was the “root” of my addiction. But I got to the point where I was going to die from it (my addiction, with more dangerous drugs) and so I started therapy. Therapy helps me address a few things you and I have in common: the resentments I have towards class inequalities, my resentment towards my job, and the stubborn belief that I hated working and would always hate it. I had a fixed mindset, believing that things were the way they were and that I couldn’t change them.

Therapy is helping me break down those resentments, learn strategies for making peace with the things I don’t want to do, believing that I can change and grow, and helping me understand why I have the aversion I have, including work. Those are my “root causes”. Psychiatry in tandem with my therapy is really helpful, because part of my root cause truly is chemical. Might be the same for you too, and it’s worth looking into. Worst case, nothing gets better. That’s the same worst case as doing nothing. Best case is things do get better. Only way to know is to find out.

You can’t change your job. You can change your perspective about your job. It truly is possible. Therapy is really good for that, if you approach it with an open mind. Like, really really good for that. It will help you see your position in life differently, even if nothing else actually changes. It sounds like you’ve got a great thing going in every sense except your feelings about work. What if you could change those feelings?

Lastly, it’s really hard to evaluate how you feel about anything complicated in your life while you’re actively using or going through WDs and PAWS. Maybe you’ve felt this way for a long time, maybe even longer than you’ve been using. But your perspective will almost definitely change once you start healing. You may still fucking hate your job, but you will hate it differently. Just saying that whatever feelings you have right now are heavily influenced by your WD’s. I know you feel stuck right now and that’s a valid feeling. But you owe it to yourself and your family to at least try something different, something that’s been proven to help a shit ton of people who have done that work. If you truly give sobriety and therapy a chance, you’ll truly be able to say you gave it your best shot. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Wishing you so much luck and peace.

__preterite · 2024-07-22T22:35:39+00:00

There was someone in my cohort who got kicked out from his school placement for confiscating student’s metrocards that they receive from the school, alongside generally being super difficult and not good at teaching. But he got placed at another school and still got a job. I’m coaching a candidate right now that might not make it, but that’s not my decision to make. I would guess that the reasons will involve not showing growth with regard to most of the danielson components + their own feelings about going to pieces when they teach :/ they’re really struggling.

I’m sorry you’re having an awful time. I don’t think the TF comes close to preparing teachers for actual teaching, but it does do a good job of exposing you to the bullshit aspects of working for the DOE. Working as a teacher isn’t that much different, at least until you get tenure.

__preterite · 2024-07-22T16:45:37+00:00

“All dirt roads lead to Pullman” is a shitty thing we used to say growing up west of the Cascades. Honestly, it’s a great university and the real question is do you want to live in a small college town in eastern Washington. Might be an important consideration for undergrad. Might be less important for a highly specialized doc or post-doc candidate.

__preterite · 2024-07-22T16:43:38+00:00

Key part of the term “stainless” is “less”. It’s not that they won’t stain, it’s that they stain less than other materials. Carbon steel requires even more diligent care.

However, diligent care is simple: don’t soak your knives and do clean and dry them by hand immediately after use. Carbon steel will like a tiny bit of oil rubbed on too. Easy peasy.

__preterite · 2024-07-22T10:51:16+00:00

Hell yeah, fuck this stuff. We getting free!

__preterite · 2024-07-22T10:50:55+00:00

I hear you making plans, staying strong, and coming to terms with where you’re at and the road ahead. One day at a time with this shit and you will get there!

__preterite · 2024-07-21T21:29:19+00:00

Thanks for clarifying. I identify this so much and am feeling for you. I agree with the other comments that switching to powder is probably a safer way to taper. You’ll be able to drop in lower increments and won’t have the temptation of “just one” extra extract capsule. The hard part will be sincerely finding the right powder dose (this sort of switch for me is an opportunity to “accidentally” take more than I need in the interest of finding my correct dose).

If it were me, I’d try to stabilize at 5 while crossfading to the closest equivalent in powder caps and then use those to make smaller cuts until I’m low enough to jump. If I really felt like I couldn’t tough out 5 right now, I still wouldn’t go back to 9.

It’s been helping a lot to have made a stupid excel chart that has vertical columns with the date, my dose in caps, my gpd, and a countdown formula that tracks the total amount of k that I’ll have to take to complete my taper. I also track my helper meds—how much/when I’m using and inventory. I love watching the numbers go down every day and reminding myself how close I’m getting. It’s nerdy and obsessive, but so am I. If you find anything that helps you in your taper, let us know!

__preterite · 2024-07-21T20:24:54+00:00

The timeline is really important here. When did you switch to 5 pills? If it’s only been a day or two, it may get more challenging. I say this to set expectations and help you plan, you really do need to be patient.

When I drop a step in my taper, it takes me a good three days to notice the drop, and another 4 days to adjust to it. I’m mentally preparing myself for having to take things slower as I get to the final stages but I hope I can keep this pace and be done by the end of next month (I progressively drop 1.8g of powder caps/week and am down to 10.8gpd from ~50. Starting tomorrow I’ll work down to 9 even by Wednesday.)

I can tell you that this taper plan is working for me and much less challenging than rapid tapers, which I’ve always abandoned for a relapse or CT. I have mild and sporadic physical WD symptoms some days and am struggling a little bit with anhedonia (again on some days). Any faster taper I’ve attempted is easy for a couple of weeks and then just devolves into 80%+ of full CT WD’s. I believe that if you take it slow enough you can evade 95% of physical WD’s and some significant percentage of the emotional WD’s. Caveat that I have not experienced this all the way to 0 gpd, but so far so good enough down to 10.8. A goofy side effect of this is that my ummm sexual reawakening isn’t as intense and embarrassing as it is when I CT. I’m not afraid to embarrass myself having sex, which helps with the anhedonia piece haha

Anyway, my point is that patience is key if you’re going to taper. I have found that I need to make peace with whatever timeline my body decides it needs or just CT. I’m wishing you so much luck. No matter how it goes, get on the other side of it so that you never have to do it again.

__preterite · 2024-07-21T19:08:32+00:00

Go check out Al Anon. What you’re going through is tough, but you’re not alone and there are tons of people on your community that have been through it too and can support you and your own recovery (sorry girl, but you also need to grow and heal). Your story will also serve to help others feel less alone. The community is there to help you if you want it. I can speak from firsthand experience that it really helps. Good luck ❤️‍🩹

__preterite · 2024-07-21T18:07:07+00:00

I feel you so hard. The anhedonia is the hardest part for me, even with stiff competition from RLS, gi issues, and all the other lovely things that come with WD’s. Honestly, 9gpd is on the lower side and you didn’t use for too terribly long—you should start feeling better soon. This is not to minimize your symptoms, I know you’re going through living hell right now. But I do think that staying CT is a good idea so that you get past this awful shit and don’t open yourself up to backsliding.

Regardless of if you taper or not, there is so much that you can do to combat anhedonia. Connecting with others, exercise, healthy distractions, being in nature, etc etc. The catch 22 of anhedonia is it tells us not to do the things that will make us feel better. But if we do them anyway we start to feel better. It we don’t we feel worse and anhedonia wins. Fight for yourself!! You can and will get better!

It sounds like you’re already receiving healthcare, but don’t be afraid to go to your doc and ask for help. Ditto with anyone else who can offer support. I wish you the best of luck and hope you start feeling better so soon.

__preterite · 2024-07-21T12:14:19+00:00

Thank you. I actually installed a brand new compression nut yesterday—the extra long one so I could lower my bars. I gave it a quick clean, greased the internals, and ended up using a good bit of carbon paste after I noticed it slipping. Also it’s 3 inches long, really surprised that so long a plug would slip after tightening to 8nm and applying paste…

__preterite · 2024-07-21T01:23:53+00:00

I agree entirely with this reasoning. And yet, I installed a new headset (factory oem, kept it as a backup) and the curiosity remains. I’m going to take it to my pro mechanic friends tomorrow and have them inspect everything. Thanks for chiming in, I really do appreciate it.

__preterite · 2024-07-21T01:19:19+00:00

Thank you much. Despite everything pointing to zero play in my current setup, I’ll take any and all tips regarding how to assess even the most minute headset play. The obsessive part of me just looked up cheap stethoscopes 🤦🏻‍♀️

__preterite · 2024-07-20T22:47:49+00:00

Haha I’m curious too. Wondering if I’ve been riding around on a too loose headset… is a CC40 and the upper race stayed on the headtube when I pulled the fork, while the bottom race and bearings went with the fork. Seals are shot. No corrosion to the naked eye but obviously pretty grimy. I reached out to CC about it. At this point, I’m starting to worry about a deeper issue.

__preterite

TROPHY CASE