Part 1 of 3: Sources of Overwhelm–School

“The good life is one guided by love and inspired by knowledge.”

Bertrand Russell, What I Believe

I’ve loved school since I can remember. I love the order and predictability of a classroom. I love the joy of learning new things. I love the intellectual community. I suppose I want to get that out there before I share a few of the times when school was overwhelming for me (though I’d never say I got to the point where I hated it).

The goal here, more than anything else, is a bit of an accountability catalog for me. For various reasons, I can feel myself coming back to the familiar sense of overwhelm I’ve felt before in school. And so, it’s helpful–for me–to share when things have felt like they’ve spun out of control before.

my first memory of overwhelm involves schoolwork

I was around five years old. I remember it was near the beginning of the school year in first grade. I was working on spelling homework which I wrote in my black and white composition notebook. I had erased and rewritten the words so many times. I remember the goal was to use the words in sentences, but thinking back, that seems too advanced for first grade. So I don’t remember exactly what we were working on.

I do remember how I wore a hole through the page with my eraser. I remember bringing the tattered notebook to my mom, who was in the kitchen making dinner (or was she in her office and she came to the kitchen?) And then I remember sinking to the kitchen floor in tears at having “failed” at the task.

Memories like this one pop up on and off again through grade school. But interesting enough, I think as I grew, my focus shifted from academics to social relationships in a way that helped counteract the pressure to be great at school. That pressure didn’t totally evaporate of course—my friends growing up were very smart—so there was some implicit pressure to be like them. But there were also concerts to go to. Birthday parties to plan gifts for. And sneaking out from our parents’ houses at sleepovers to take aimless walks around the suburbs.

It wasn’t until college when I started putting more academic pressure on myself.

forgetting my laptop charger: overcommitting myself

In the fall semester of my junior year of college I decided to take twenty credit hours, which, in addition to coursework, included being a student clinician for the first time. Here’s a taste of what that semester looked like class/clinic-wise:

1. Child development
2. A clinical practice course
3. Creative writing
4. Contemporary American literature
5. Sustainable design
6. A class about the housing crisis
7. A speech therapy client I saw twice a week and wrote 2-3 page lesson plans for each session.

One of my strengths/weaknesses is that I am often curious in all directions. And this semester was a clear demonstration of that. I am grateful for the collective learning that happened during this semester from being in all these courses. But by Thanksgiving, they had caught up with me, and it showed.

It may seem trivial, but I realized I’d overdone it when—after my college boyfriend had driven me back to campus from our hometown about an hour and a half away—that I’d left my laptop charger at home. My dad solved this immediate sense of overwhelm by repeating the drive we just took (and back) to bring me my charger. (Thanks Dad!—I suspect my parents learned early on how to cope with my overwhelm and for that I’m beyond grateful.) But this forgetfulness was a signal I’d pushed things too far.

grad school: not being able to see the end

The next time this feeling would resurface loudly would be about three years later. It was in the middle of my master’s program. The moment that sticks out was after having finished working on a group presentation (also near the end of the semester, close to Thanksgiving). Once my friends left the conference room we were working in, I remember curling up under the table and crying. This time the source of overwhelm was harder to pinpoint. Many things were going on that I couldn’t quite handle.

I didn’t see this kind of overwhelm as similar to the one I’d felt in undergrad.

I was taking many courses, working as a student clinician, and working in a research lab—so there was I a lot I had committed to—no doubt—but there was something more than that.

What was really driving the overwhelm, looking back, was this feeling of being in the middle of something (my master’s), and not being able to see the end of it (even with just two semesters left). I’d lost the big picture and couldn’t see beyond the details of the moment.

I remember the relief that would wash over me, just a few months later, when I started working in my first externship. No assignments, only one supervisor (as opposed to four) critiquing me that semester, and the joy of really being able to feel what it would be like to work on my own as a clinician all helped (plus I also suddenly had the time to go to the gym with a good friend!)

looking forward: starting a phd program

I knew I wanted to start out with this post on overwhelm because I knew it was something I wanted to guard against in my PhD program, where I am now. It was one of the reasons I was so hesitant to leave my job as a clinician and go back to school. Because of these times—in school—when I felt like I was drowning.

Nonetheless, I’m grateful I felt the heavy times, the times when I pushed myself too hard, if only for having taught me I never wanted to live a life where I feel that way again.

It took me many, many of these experiences to finally say, “I don’t want this for my life anymore.” It took additional wisdom and privilege that comes with growing up (and my whiteness) to say “I don’t want to live a rushed life.”

And a bit of what feels hard is that I had to experience the feelings of overwhelm, of having overcommitted, overextended myself, over, and over again—

to learn.

But while that feels hard, it’s harder still to know we’ve built a world where my experience is normal.

Part of understanding overwhelm is imagining a life—and by extension—a world that can be different. As much as I love reflecting on my own experiences, I also like trying to imagine what I can change in my life to make it more calm, more focused, and less overwhelming (which is what I hope to use this space for).

Thanks for reading, and don’t hesitate to share your experiences of overwhelm and how you’ve coped. It’s not lost on me that this time–in the middle of a pandemic–is a tremendously overwhelming one. Perhaps now, more than ever, I’m drawn to finally write these things down.

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A note on privilege: I realize it is a privilege to have been overwhelmed by too much school. I always had a stable home life, which allowed me to focus on school. I also was able to work over summers in college (rather than during the school year), affording me more privilege. I am a white, middle class person who grew up in the suburbs. My parents easily cherry picked a good public school district for me and had no trouble buying a house in that district. And my college and grad school experiences flowed on from this privilege (combined with some work on my end). While I see value in sharing my experiences, I know I do not live in a bubble, and I owe it to people without the same privileges to also be able to build less overwhelming lives. This is why I support things such as healthcare being a human right, a living wage, and reparations payments.