This is Part 1 of a three-part series…
Part 2: (7) The Secret Under My Bed
Part 3: (8) The Man in the Woods

A couple of months ago, I had what most would consider a pretty bad week. That week ended with me eventually losing my job and knowing for sure that teaching was not a profession I wanted to continue pursuing. Before we get into what happened, you should know that I’ve been microdosing lysergic acid diethylamide since the last weekend of April 2019 to treat my depression with amazing results. So good that within two months, I started applying to jobs because I felt like a completely different person. However, I lost my teaching job in September 2019 because I talked to two of my classes about my depression. I felt that having a heart-to-heart with my classes would hopefully humanize me in their eyes. I didn’t foresee myself losing my job over this talk. A speech where depression was not the focal point, but something I felt my students should be aware of. At worst, I would have been reprimanded for my actions and the e-mail I had sent my vice principal the previous week about one particular student in my 8th-period class would have been taken more seriously. During my first year as a teacher in the US, I felt like I didn’t address problems in my classrooms quickly and aggressively. I feel like I could have saved myself a lot of headaches if I had been more proactive during that first year. With this new year of teaching ahead, I saw a problem in two of my classrooms and I chose to fix it using my strengths: honesty and relationship building.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I might have taken my conversation with my two classes a little too far. Being a teacher is very stressful and mentally taxing and I wasn’t in the greatest place mentally. For some reason, my depression was getting a lot harder to manage. I wasn’t able to fall asleep at night, and whenever I did, I didn’t feel well-rested. I’m usually a patient person, but I was noticing little things bothering me a lot more than they should. Plus, I had just had a terrible therapy session the week prior to my “talk” that just unraveled my mental state.

The best way to tell the story of my firing is chronological, so I will be starting in June 2019, a little over a month after I started microdosing.

“We set the next appointment for the Tuesday of my second week of work. I also started keto (low carb diet) on this day. I had gained weight over the past two years and needed to fit into my professional clothes. At this point, I’m physically and mentally feeling the best I’ve felt in years.”

I spend the next couple of weeks painting and setting up my classroom. I had a lot of help from my sister and her boyfriend. I also volunteered for two days to help with student enrollment because they needed people who spoke Spanish. Plus, it didn’t hurt to set a good first impression.

I start new hire orientation/professional development days. I notice that I am having a hard time falling asleep and staying asleep at night. Also, for some reason, my depression is getting worse. I don’t know why. 

Important context: I increased my dosage to 10ug from 5ug starting on the first day of school because I’m scared of my depression getting worse. Also, I should mention that we have a new administration at our school. New principal, new vice principal, and a new counselor. The principal that hired me was the one from the previous school year. Also, the 8th-grade cohort has a reputation of being very rude and mean for the past couple of years. A lot of teachers who taught them in 7th grade left the school or the education field because of how wild they were. I felt like the level of intensity of my conversation was warranted. The two classes I had problems with were both 8th-grade regular math.

The increase in dosage has proven to be working. I don’t feel as bad as I did during new hire/orientation week. I really like my classes, however, I have some minor problems in my 4th and 8th-period class. 4th-period is a little rowdy and there are a lot of class clowns. I feel like by the end of the year that class would have been one of my favorites. In 8th-period, there are a couple of kids that I am already disliking. Especially one kid in particular who is a new student (I believe he was a returning student who didn’t come back after winter break while he was in 7th grade). I sent an email to the vice principal about this particular student asking for help but received a generic response to write him up. I didn’t want to do that because from my experiences at the high school I taught, writing up kids did nothing. The class also has many other kids that aren’t engaged and this class happens to be one of my biggest classes.

Monday – I tell my Principal that I have a therapist appointment the following day and need to leave as soon as the dismissal bell goes off. He says that there is no problem.

Tuesday (where everything started going downhill) – For some reason, someone thought it was a good idea to have Meet the Parents night during the second week of school. Do they really expect us to know the names of all our students after having them for seven class periods? Especially, when they know how hectic the first couple of weeks are for teachers. Anyways, I go to my therapist’s appointment and I have one of the worst sessions I’ve had in therapy in a long time. My new therapist was a little rude and inconsiderate. During our first session, I felt and appeared a lot better than during my second session. At the beginning of the session, she asked how work was going and I told her how I was not sleeping well and was having trouble getting through the day. She responded with something along the lines of having to suck it up and go to work anyways. Not the best thing to tell someone who has had suicidal thoughts. I’m not sure why she responded the way she did. Maybe she just didn’t want me complaining in sessions. She did say during our first session that she pushes her clients so that they can leave therapy as soon as possible. I feel like she pushed a boundary way too hard and too early. Either way, I return to school with about 45 minutes left before he start of Meet the Teacher’s night to compose myself before having to act like everything is fine and dandy to the parents I was meeting. Looking back, I should have not returned to work that night. I get through the night successfully all things considered. I go home and fall asleep immediately because I am so emotionally and physically exhausted.

Wednesday – Nothing of note happens at work. I have trouble falling asleep that night. I sleep for maybe three hours.

Thursday – I cry on the way to work because I’m so tired and exhausted. Nothing of note happens at work. I keep replaying the things my therapist and I discussed during our previous session. I am upset at myself for being such a pussy. For not having the courage to kill myself. For not even taking the first step in achieving my goal of ending my misery. I didn’t sleep well that night.

Friday – I cry on the way to work again. I don’t understand why I feel so shitty since I was feeling great not even two months ago. I had morning duty this entire week and my friend’s wife (also a teacher at the school) says hello to me while I’m at my duty station. I ignore her gaze because I’m afraid she will be able to tell that I have been crying that morning. That day we have our first quiz of the year. 4th-period acts very childishly during the quiz, but they still end up getting adequate grades. 8th-period’s behavior during the quiz is fine (I arrange my problem student to take his quiz in another classroom), but their grades are a lot lower than my other classes. While grading papers during the weekend, I find out that about half the class has not been turning in their homework. I decided over the weekend that I’m going to have a serious talk with both of my classes on Monday because this behavior is not acceptable. The following Monday is the last day I teach at that school.

“I am upset at myself for being such a pussy. For not having the courage to kill myself. For not even taking the first step in achieving my goal of ending my misery.”

On Monday of the third week of school, I talked to my 4th-period class about their behavior in my class on Friday during the quiz. I talked to my 8th-period class about their grades and attitudes in general. I talked to both classes about the choices they make and how those choices affect every single person in that class. I talked to them about my teaching methods and teaching philosophy. I do not like raising my voice and prefer to have a more relaxed classroom culture so students can feel more comfortable asking questions and coming to me for help. I want to enjoy their company and want them to enjoy my class. I want to create a meaningful relationship with every single student because I feel that students succeed more when they like the class and their teacher. Math is a subject that many students do not like and by the time they are in middle school many have told themselves that math is something they cannot do. I also told them about some of the reasons I left teaching and some of the mistakes that I made during my first year of teaching math. I told them how many kids I ended up failing at my last school and how much it affected me. I don’t like failing students, but I have high standards for myself and the students I teach. I apologized for not keeping up with my grading and how I was going to start calling parents this week because their grades were unacceptable. Finally, I told them how every single one of us in this classroom is going through something. Whether it is their parent’s divorcing, moving schools, absentee parents, anxiety, grades, athletics, bullying, etc. I told them how we have to do a better job of treating each other with respect. I told them that we have no idea what is going on in each of our lives and that is why I do my best to treat them with respect. They need to start doing the same with their teachers and with each other. Then, I told them about my problems with depression. I told them how bad it got in the past three years and also told them exactly what kind of depression I have. I told them that my depression is the one where I have suicidal ideations and I reiterated how I think about killing myself almost every day for the past few years.

Then I told them how I started a new “medication” in May and how great I felt for about two and a half months. I felt ready to start working again and began applying for jobs. However, the past month or so I had been having trouble sleeping and I was feeling my depression a lot more. I hoped that by sharing my struggles withdepression that I could form better bonds with my students. Plus, I was just getting used to the fact of admitting to myself that I have depression. Although I was hired as a math teacher, I feel like teachers are there to also teach them about life. I wanted to make sure they understood that the way they were treating me and the way they had treated other teachers in the past was not correct. Teachers are humans, too. They have their own lives with their own problems. The sooner children learn about empathy and that their actions have consequences, the better, in my opinion. Either way, I told them that changes were going to happen in my classroom. I was not going to live in a world where I woke up every morning hating going to work. I had already lived an entire year like that and refused to relive that year. I made sure they understood that my mental health was my priority. Right now I did not want to quit my job, but would not hesitate to quit it. I reminded them how important I felt 8th-grade math was and how big the jump next year would be when they took Algebra 1. I disliked the teacher I became at my last school. If they wanted to see that “a-hole” of a teacher all they had to do is continue acting the way they had been. I finished up by taking questions.

“Although I was hired as a math teacher, I feel like teachers are there to also teach them about life. I wanted to make sure they understood that the way they were treating me and the way they had treated other teachers in the past was not correct. Teachers are humans, too.”

The talk went great with my 4th-period class. It seemed like I had gotten through to most of them and I feel they had a better understanding of my boundaries. We had the best lesson of the year that day. The talk with my 8th-period went terribly. Students were rude. I was rude. And the talk we had ended with my worst student asking, “Why should I care about your problems?” I responded, “Because I am a human.” Then, I told him and the whole class that if anyone was upset with anything that I said today in class that they were free to talk to the principal. Because frankly, I’d much rather be in bed at home than in a class with them. I taught the lesson I had to teach them. Then I made them shut up and work on their work independently instead of the activity we had planned for that day.

I intended to go to the principal immediately after school, so I could explain what happened in 8th-period. However, I had a student stay for tutoring that day. About 15 minutes after the last bell, the principal came to my room to have a conversation with me. The principal asked me if I had told my students that I wanted to kill myself. I corrected him and told him that I talked with my 4th and 8th-period about their behavior in my class. I explained that I had told them about my struggles with depression and how those struggles included suicidal ideations. I reiterated that out of the 7 or 8 minutes I talked to them, that my depression was a small part of the conversation. I spent probably a minute and a half talking about my depression. The principal said that he needed to talk to HR, but that he thinks they would recommend I resign and to go see a therapist. I reminded him that exactly a week ago I had told him that I needed to leave immediately after school to go see my therapist. He seemed to get nervous and said he needed to talk to HR. He returned about 10 minutes later and said that HR said I should resign. I asked him why and the two reasons he told me were because (1) the parents would find out that I had depression. I told him that it was fine. I don’t mind people knowing that I have depression. He seemed flustered and said that (2) teen suicide rates were going up. I just stared at him. He then said that HR really recommended that I resign because then I would be able to leave on my own terms and be able to “tell my own story”. This kind of pissed me off. He continued saying that resigning would look a lot better than getting fired. I calmly responded by saying that education was not a field I wanted to continue pursuing. He looked perplexed and asked me what I meant. I told him that I had already left the teaching profession once and this job was just a stop-gap. I told him that I needed this job because not only was it better than being at home all day, but because I enjoy sharing my love of math. I then realized I should probably shut up and ended the conversation quickly because I still had a student that needed my help in my classroom.

“He then said that HR really recommended that I resign because then I would be able to leave on my own terms and be able to “tell my own story”. This kind of pissed me off. He continued saying that resigning would look a lot better than getting fired.”

We went inside my classroom and he asked the student when his parents were going to pick him up. The student responded and the principal told him to go wait out in the lobby by the front door. He then turned to me and told me that HR was going to put me on administrative leave while they investigate the situation. He then asked me to leave the building. I told him that on Mondays I had to copy all the material we were going to use for 8th-grade. He said that he was going to wait for me to finish. He leaves my room and I call my sister to bring me all the graded papers I have in my bedroom at home because I wanted to make sure everything was put in the gradebook by the time I left the building that day. I had a pretty good feeling that the day I left that building I was never going to be allowed back in.

My sister and her boyfriend arrive about 30 minutes later and I meet them outside. My principal, thinking that I was done for the day, also leaves for the day. I walk back inside and finish making my copies and put all my grades in the gradebook. After talking to the Hispanic cleaning lady, like I do everyday, I gather most of my personal belongings and leave.

When I get home I recount the events to my friend that I work with. I then contacted my teacher’s union and told them exactly what happened that day. I send an e-mail to my principal telling him that I am not sending him my resignation and that I had contacted my representative at my teacher’s union. My union representative and I emailed each other back and forth for the rest of the week. Finally, on the following Tuesday we end up meeting. He recommended me to resign.

I’ve spent the past few months trying to write this blog post. There is still more to the story, but I wanted to make this post mostly about the talk that got me fired. One of my goals for this blog is to hopefully destigmatize depression and continue the open and honest conversation that many have already started about depression. I know that when I was in my darkest moments that I relied on those stories to make me feel like I wasn’t alone. I gained courage from hearing about others talk about their depression. The reality is that many people struggle with it and a bigger majority can’t even comprehend how soul-sucking it feels. I hope both types of people read this post and the following two blog posts that are a bit darker. Writing about this has been hard and has really delayed the launch of my project. I do, in fact, believe that I took the conversation a little too far, but I was not the same person that walked into the interview room a few months before asking for that job. Also, the therapy session I had during my second week of school completely derailed the progress I was making. However, it still bothers me that I lost my job because I talked about my depression. Especially, for the two reasons my principal (HR) gave me which were (1) parents would find out and (2) teen suicide rates are going up.

Whenever I think about the absurdity of this whole situation, which is often, the only way I can respond is by laughing. When I’m taking a shower, I sometimes find myself thinking and sequentially laughing about everything. When I’m on autopilot in my car, I’m laughing. When I go on a walk or a run I wonder what people think of the overweight and out of shape guy laughing his guts out. Am I losing it? Nah. I’m just someone who struggles with depression and laughter is the best medicine. Well… the second best.