Low self-esteem day

I am having a low self-esteem day. Granted, it's been coming for several days now, but today has sent me over the top. It very well might be just plain and simple depression, but aren't the two closely linked?!

I am having a VERY hard time with this whole student complaint issue. It just makes me so angry that THIS guy of all students is complaining about me!!! I mean, honestly! I would have bet a whole paycheck that he hadn't read much of anything throughout the whole semester. Of course, at some point this semester, I even commented in class---out loud to the whole class----that I didn't think he'd read anything. Apparently, my comment upset him.

I was thinking this afternoon as I was driving back from Hickory that it is amazing how whenever a person is having a low self-esteem day, any negative comment from someone is magnified a thousand-fold. (More on how that applies to ME, personally, in a few.) So, it hit me that there is a big possibility that the day I was joking around in class about this student not reading much of anything might possibly have been a low self-esteem day for him. Rather than taking it all in stride as I thought he would, he was really hurt and deeply offended.

Rather than letting it go. He has held on to it and has allowed it to really get to him. To the point where he felt the need to go to DR. HINSHAW to complain. I honestly think that his hurt feelings are the heart of his whole complaint about me. But it's been buried in amongst other comments and complaints that he's shared with Keith Mackey. Only one of which has to do with the fact that it took Adrian so long to grade the few assignments students had to do for him during my absence because of my surgery.

Back to me and my low self-esteem day. Because I'm so down and depressed about this student complaint issue, I woke up this morning feeling like I could burst into tears. It didn't get any better as I arrived on campus for graduation this morning. Then, I was sitting with someone who finds it offensive for folks to cheer and make noise as the graduates walk across the stage, so, even though I had fully intended to applaud and shout for many of my students, I only did it for one.

Then, the students who were sitting the closest to me wanted to know why they didn't get the same out of me when they walked across the stage!!! I'm so co-dependent. It just about killed me to think that I disappointed them or made them feel less important than the one girl I DID actually shout and applaud for!!!

Needless to say, I raced out of graduation without speaking to anyone and left campus immediately rather than staying on campus for a little while and getting a little more of my work done.

I was excited about seeing IRONMAN 2 with Samuel and James this afternoon in celebration of Samuel's 9th birthday. Yes, his birthday was May 1, but it's not our fault IRONMAN 2 didn't come out until THIS weekend instead of last!!!! During the previews, I got to see my first look at ECLIPSE and it looks AWESOME!!!!! About mid-way through IRONMAN, I had been THOROUGHLY enjoying the movie, btw, the guy about 4 seats down from me said, "Shut up."

Who else would he have been speaking to if not to me? I gotta tell ya. I know I have a tendency to get carried away when I go to the movies, but honestly, today was a day when I was actually being really good! I'd only hollered really loud and obnoxiously during the ECLIPSE preview and had laughed out loud only a couple of times. So when I heard him tell me to shut up, it really hurt.

After having felt rotten for most of the day up to that point, I was really trying hard to pull myself out the funk I'd gotten in. I was enjoying my time with my son and I was certainly enjoying the movie. How DARE HE insult me?!

It was when I was in my car driving home that I had the epiphany.

This guy's comment in the movie helped push me over the precipice into the vortex of despair that I had been desperately trying to stay out of. I don't blame him. Not really. I mean, honestly, I was already so far off the edge, it only took a feather's touch to send me over. Besides, how was he to know that I was having a low self-esteem day?

Oh dear. Isn't that quite possibly what I did to this student I've been so upset about? What I mean is that it is quite possible that said student was having a low self-esteem day the day I teased him about not reading much of anything in class. I pushed HIM over the edge--maybe. I mean, think about it. This is a guy whose grades have never been that great. His GPA isn't such that he has demonstrated aptitude as one of the best students.

Does that mean he's stupid? Absolutely not. It's been obvious that he's a very smart guy. As far as SCHOOL goes, though, he's as lazy as they come. (Let me see how much deeper I can dig the hole I've dug about all the negative things I can say about this guy.)

What I'm trying to say is that maybe, just maybe, this student who has complained about me this semester has been dealing with low self-esteem issues and I was one of the people who made it worse rather than better. Instead of building him up, I helped tear him down even more.

Exactly how I've been feeling.

The difference between him and me, though, is that he took his frustration and discouraging feelings out on someone else--me--while I will be able to let all of this go and be back to my true "Pollyanna" self after I spend some time reading my Bible and worshipping. OK. And eating some comfort food! I will be able to overcome my feelings of low self-esteem because I know exactly who I am and where I'm going. That doesn't mean I am always full of the joy of the Lord, but it does mean that I do have the full joy of the Lord.

Thus, within a day or say, I'll be fine.

What or who does this student have? Friends and family, I'm sure. But we all know that quite often they're more of a sounding board when we're upset and frustrated about how someone has treated us. These friends and family members can even add fuel to our fire of negativity in their efforts to help.

Only by taking my problems to the foot of the cross can I overcome and experience God's oil of joy. PTL! So rather than being discouraged by the complaints, I am reminded, again, of just how fragile we all are. Even when we think someone is able to handle our teasing, we have to be conscious of the fact that EVERYONE has bad days....and we never know when those around us are having bad days.

This is a lesson I continue to learn and relearn and learn again. It's been hounded into me over and over throughout the years because, for some reason or another, I haven't TRULY learned it....at least, not well enough so that I don't do it again.

The final word is this: 1. Always remember that we don't really know what's going on with[in] the people around us. 2. We need to put ourselves in others' shoes. If we wouldn't like something, then it's pretty much guaranteed that they won't either.

I didn't like having my feelings hurt today during the movie when I was simply enjoying the movie. My student didn't like having his feelings hurt when he was just trying to participate in a college English class.

One final note: to this student as well as anyone else whose feelings I may have inadvertently hurt over the years, from the bottom of my heart, I sincerely apologize. I can't promise that I won't do it again, but I do promise that it won't because I MEAN to do it.

You don't need to apologize to me for hurting my feelings. I know you didn't mean to hurt my feelings just as I didn't mean to hurt yours....

(I sure hope this came across in the positive light I meant for it to! Also, if you don't comment or pick on my about my grammar mistakes, I promise that I won't ever say anything about yours!)