Quicksand: It Was Never About the Sand

This week on Teachers in Transition, I share a deeply personal story about a medical event that forced me to confront a difficult truth: sometimes our greatest strengths - resilience, endurance, and the ability to adapt - can become our greatest blind spots.  It’s so personal that even the show notes are in first person!

Using the GenX childhood metaphor of quicksand, I explore how teachers gradually normalize exhaustion, chronic stress, and declining health until they no longer recognize what's happening. I also share the frightening experience of a vasovagal syncope episode after a "perfect storm" of circumstances and the lessons it taught me about paying attention before our bodies demand it.

In this episode you'll discover:

• Why "Teacher Tired" isn't always just teacher tired.
 • How resilience can accidentally hide a growing problem.
 • Why the best career decisions aren't made from survival mode.
 • A practical Teacher Hack to help you recognize when you're slowly sinking.
 • How a Battle Buddy can help you notice what you've adapted to.
 • Why asking better questions can be more important than finding one perfect answer.

If you've been wondering whether you're burned out, exhausted, or simply running on empty, this episode is for you.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

Psoriatic Arthritis
Learn more about psoriatic arthritis, including symptoms, diagnosis, treatment options, and living well with the condition. 
https://www.psoriasis.org/about-psoriatic-arthritis/

Vasovagal Syncope
Wondering what happened during the fainting episode I described? This Cleveland Clinic article explains vasovagal syncope, common triggers, warning signs, and prevention strategies.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/23325-vasovagal-syncope

Ted Lasso – "Be Curious, Not Judgmental"
One of my favorite scenes from Ted Lasso and the inspiration behind this week's reminder to respond with curiosity instead of defensiveness.
https://bouldercrest.org/resources/ted-lasso-be-curious-not-judgemental/

🎵 Rush – "Sweet Miracle"
If you've ever wondered why Rush lyrics occasionally sneak into my vocabulary, this song has quietly lived in my head for years and it applies beautifully to this episode.

Apple Music:
https://music.apple.com/us/song/710036902

Spotify:
 https://open.spotify.com/track/0YKb38t83LD65mQps699y9

A Personal Note

Please don't let my story discourage you from donating blood.

My experience was unusual because a whole bunch of factors lined up at exactly the wrong time. That's really the point of this episode.

If you're healthy and eligible, donating blood is still one of the simplest and most meaningful ways to help another human being. Find your local blood bank and consider making an appointment.

A great place to start is:
 https://americasblood.org/

Sometimes one dramatic story can overshadow a thousand quiet successes.

I don't want that to happen here.

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Connect with Vanessa Jackson

• 💌 Email: Vanessa@teachersintransition.com
• 📱 Call or Text: 512-640-9099
• 📅 Book a Free Discovery Call: teachersintransition.com/calendar
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The transcript to this podcast is found on the episode’s homepage at Buzzsprout

Transcript

Hi! Welcome back to Teachers in Transition. I'm Vanessa Jackson, your host.  I taught in the classroom for 25 years before leaving the classroom and working in corporate America.  Now I work for teachers – helping them figure out what’s next.  

If you're new to the podcast, Welcome!!  I’m especially glad you are here! This is the place where we help teachers explore what's next, whether that's finding more joy where you are, discovering a new career path, or simply looking at all-too-familiar challenges from a different perspective.

Today, we're going to talk about why quicksand turned out to be a much bigger problem in life than any of us Gen X kids expected, and why your greatest strength as a teacher can sometimes become your biggest blind spot.

Then, in this week's Teacher Hack, I'll share one simple strategy to help keep you out of that quicksand.

And finally, in our Career Transition and Job Search segment, we'll talk about the difference between running away from teaching and running away from exhaustion...because those aren't always the same thing.

Let's dive in!

When I was a kid, it seemed like quicksand was going to be one of the biggest hazards of adult life. It was everywhere.  It was on TV, adventure movies, cartoons…even Gilligan's Island had quicksand. If you grew up in the '70s and '80s, you just assumed that sooner or later you were going to have to figure out how to escape from it. As it turns out, most of us made it to adulthood without ever encountering a single patch of quicksand. My entire generation kind of laughs about that now, right alongside all the other things we were told as kids that never quite panned out like “you’ll never have a calculator in your pocket all the time!” or “your eyes will get stuck like that if you keep  rolling them like that”. For those of you who can’t see me because you’ve got the audio-only version?  You guessed it!  I rolled my eyes. 

The funny thing is, I don't actually think we were wrong about quicksand. I think we were just looking for the wrong kind. The most dangerous quicksand I've ever encountered wasn't made of sand at all. It was made of tiny changes that happened so gradually I never realized I was sinking. That's the scary part about metaphorical quicksand. It doesn't swallow you all at once. It lets you adjust and compensate...one micro measurements at a time.

I've been thinking about that a lot this week because, as I have shared, I've been on a bit of a health journey this year and I’ve freely shared because I think hiding things makes it seem shameful somehow. Back in January I had a hysterectomy, and I still think it was one of the best decisions I've ever made. If I could go back and do it again, the only thing that I’d change would be that I’d’ve done it sooner. 
 
 What I didn't know at the time was that the surgery had kicked my psoriatic arthritis into a flare, and that flare didn't arrive like a lightning strike. It was more like quicksand.

Here's where I think this connects to teachers. We're incredibly good at adapting. In fact, I would argue that adapting is one of our superpowers. The copier breaks? We figure it out. Half the class is absent? We figure it out. The lesson you spent all weekend planning somehow falls completely flat? We adjust on the fly and..,figure that out. That's what we do, and we're proud of it. We solve problems all day long without anyone ever realizing there was a problem to begin with.

The problem is that our bodies don't care whether we're good problem solvers.

As my autoimmune flare slowly got worse, I kept explaining everything away. I thought maybe I needed to get  more sleep – even though I was having trouble sleeping. Maybe I needed to eat more protein. Maybe I just wasn't working out enough. Maybe I needed to be more disciplined. And then Walking got a little harder. Exercise got a little harder. I was taking naps almost every day, but I kept assuming there had to be a simple explanation because that's what I would've told somebody else.

Meanwhile, I have a Garmin watch (I know many of you love Apple watches, but I’m a Garmin girl) My Garmin was quietly trying to tell me a different story. My stress stayed high. My sleep wasn't restorative anymore. My Body Battery never really recharged. It was never even getting to a quarter-charged. Looking back, the data was trying to get my attention long before I was willing to listen. The irony is that my watch noticed I was sinking before I did. I just didn’t realize what it was telling me.  

That's what quicksand does. It doesn't announce itself. It looks exactly like regular sand until you realize you're standing knee-deep in it.

Sometimes your superpower can become your blind spot.  Endurance and resilience have been some of my personal Wonder-Twin superpowers most of my life. I keep going, and I get the job done. 

The more I've thought about it this week, the more I've realized I was asking the wrong question.

I kept asking, "What caused this?"

Was it the surgery? Was it the autoimmune flare? Was it not sleeping well? Was it stress? I was looking for one thing I could point to and say, "There. That's the problem."  Because I would like to avoid that in the future. 

But I don't think that's how this works.

As I've been piecing everything together, in medicine there’s a phase when looking to figure out what is wrong that says that when you hear hooves, you think horses, not zebras. In other words, look for the common explanation not chasing rare diseases. I knew there were no wild zebras causing issues, but I was starting to wonder if perhaps there wasn’t more than one horse involved. 

Which is why I keep coming back to the quicksand metaphor. You don't notice yourself sinking because every inch becomes the new normal. You don't wake up one morning waist-deep in your quicksand. You wake up one morning and realize you've been standing in it for months, but you’re not quite sure how you got there. 

And then just when I thought I had a planned path of the quicksand that had been engulfing me with increasing intensity of the last several months, things got... worse.  Saturday started out as a really meaningful day.

That morning I was playing piano for a celebration of life service at church. If you've never been the musician at a funeral, it's hard to explain the role. You're not the center of attention, and that's how it’s supposed to be. But you're carrying the emotion of the room the entire time. You're watching people grieve. You're trying to support the people in the room. You're concentrating so you don't miss an entrance or lose your place. By the end of the service, you're tired in a way that doesn't really make sense with your step counter.

Afterward, I grabbed some lunch because I had another plan for the afternoon. I believe in donating blood whenever I can. (And I encourage everyone to do so if they can!) My blood type is one that blood banks are always happy to see, and since I had a window where I was eligible, I wanted to use it before my new medication regimens kicked in (from that quicksand experience) and prevented it. 

The donation itself couldn't have gone any better. I have one of those easy veins that every vampire loves. Everything went quickly. Everybody was friendly. They thanked me for coming in, handed me the usual instructions, and I walked out thinking I had done one more good thing that day.

Then I stepped outside.

It was one of those Texas afternoons where the heat doesn't just hit you. It wraps itself around and through you . I started walking toward my car, and almost immediately something felt...off. The best way I know how to describe it is that my feet suddenly felt farther away than they should have. I know that sounds strange, but I've had a few of these episodes before over the years that I recognized the feeling almost immediately.

I remember fumbling with my keys because all I wanted to do was get the car started and get the air conditioning going.  I got the car started, leaned the seat back, and turned the air on full blast.

And then everything went …dark.

When I started coming back around, I knew exactly where I was, but I wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders yet. If you've ever had anesthesia, it's a little bit like that. Your brain is awake enough to have thoughts, but not awake enough to trust your thoughts.

And my very first thought was, "Okay...how do I get home?"

Not, "Maybe I should call for help." Not, "I should go back inside the blood bank." My brain immediately went into problem-solving mode. ‘Cuz it’s my superpower. I actually caught myself thinking, "Well, maybe I can drive a little ways. If I start feeling bad again, I'll just pull over."

Now, before you start yelling at your podcast, yes...that was a terrible idea.

Fortunately, the rational part of my brain was slowly coming back online. I sat there for several more minutes with the air on my face, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized there was absolutely no way I should be driving. There was no way I *could* drive.  So I did something that I almost never do.

I asked for help.

Since everyone else I knew was out of range and otherwise unavailable, I called my brother, In my 54 years of life, I have never reached out to him in a state of such vulnerability and simply asked for help.  He came to get me, drove me home, and all I wanted in the entire world was to crawl into my own bed, turn the room into an icebox, point a fan directly at my face, and sleep.

That's exactly what I did.  To say I am grateful he was available undersells it. Otherwise, I'd have had to call 911 and my brother understood me when I was not all there in a way a dispatcher couldn't have. 

The strange thing about these episodes is that when you wake up later, you don't just bounce back to normal. I always describe it as feeling like I've recovering from the flu. I've heard it described as a Vasovagal hangover. It's like your body did the whole turn-it-off-and-on-again thing that we begrudgingly try for computers after trying everything else first.  My brain gradually comes back online, but my body is still running several steps behind. Everything takes more energy than it should. You're tired in a way that's hard to explain unless you've experienced it yourself.

So that's where I spent the next day.  Being as gentle with myself as possible with support from my family for driving and chores. 

Not panicking. Not blaming myself.  Just resting...and eventually starting to wonder what, exactly, had happened.
 
 The next day, after I'd had a chance to sleep, I noticed something that has happened before. My brain came back online before the rest of me did. Physically, I still felt like I'd been hit by a truck. Everything took more effort than it should have, I felt like I was dragging myself through Jell-o. I wasn't about to go for a run or a marathon or even drive across town. I wasn't even sure I could make it across the backyard.

But there is always one part of my brain that stays coldly logical, even when everything else is falling apart. I've named it The Observer. It wants to understand everything. It asks "why" about absolutely everything. It has never met a mystery it didn't want to solve. Looking back, I probably shouldn't be surprised. I started reading mystery novels before I could ride a bicycle.

And The Observer wanted answers:  "What actually happened?"

At first, I was looking for one answer because that's what we like. We like neat little explanations. Was it donating blood? Was it the heat? Had one of the medications caused a problem? I kept trying to find the reason, because  again, if I could identify one cause, then surely I could prevent it from ever happening again.

But I don't think that's how this works.

Earlier I commented about the axiom: "When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras".  I wasn't worried about zebras. I was starting to wonder if maybe there was more than one horse pulling the wagon.

The more I walked back through my weekend, the more horses I found.

I'd been dealing with an autoimmune flare that had been getting worse for months. My body had recently gone through some pretty significant medication changes. Saturday morning had been emotionally demanding in ways I didn't fully appreciate at the time. It was one of those brutally hot Texas afternoons. I donated blood. I already knew I had a tendency toward the occasional fainting episode under the wrong circumstances, although to be fair, they've always been in a plane until now. 

If you handed me that list one item at a time, I probably would've looked at every single one of them and said, " eh, That's manageable."

What I completely missed was that they weren't arriving one at a time.  They all showed up together on the same day.  

I was looking at a whole team, all pulling the wagon in the same direction - right into a trap of quicksand. 

As I started walking back through everything that had happened, I realized this wasn't just my story.

I think this is exactly how teachers get into trouble.

Not because we're careless. It’s actually the opposite. We're incredibly resourceful. We adapt. We compensate. We push through. Those are the very skills that make us exceptional educators. They're also the skills that can quietly hide a problem from us for months.

Think about the first few weeks of every school year: Nobody sleeps enough. Everybody's feet hurt. Your voice is tired.  Your shoulders ache (or your knee, your back, or neck. Or whatever...).

You're carrying things you haven't carried all summer. You're walking more steps than you've walked in months. You're making hundreds of decisions before lunch. By the time you get home, you collapse into a chair and think, "Ain't no tired like Teacher Tired."

And let's be honest, "Teacher Tired" isn't a phrase that developed by accident. Every teacher listening to this knows exactly what those two words mean. It's a very specific kind of exhaustion. It's physical. It's mental. It's emotional. It's decision fatigue all rolled into one.

Sometimes "teacher tired" becomes the explanation for everything. You stop noticing that your knees hurt a little more than they did last month. You stop noticing that you need another cup of coffee just to make it through first period. You stop noticing that you're canceling dinner with friends because you're just too exhausted. Every little change makes sense by itself, so you adapt. Then you adapt again. And then you adapt to the adaptation.

And That's why I keep coming back to quicksand.  You don't notice yourself sinking because every inch becomes the new normal.  Before long, you're not asking, "Why am I so tired?"  You're asking, "Why can't I keep up anymore?"

Maybe you're not losing your work ethic.  Maybe you're losing your reserve.  Maybe you've been standing in quicksand longer than you realized.

That's the part I wish someone had told me months ago. If your body keeps quietly changing the terms of the agreement, don't automatically assume you're the problem.  Don't immediately decide you've become lazy.

Or weak.
 Or undisciplined.
 Or that you've somehow lost the work ethic that carried you through every challenge you've faced before.

Ask better questions:
 Could something else be going on?
 Could your body be asking for help in a language you've gotten so good at ignoring that you don't even recognize it anymore?

I know that's not always an easy question to answer. Sometimes it's something simple. Maybe you're low on Vitamin D. Maybe you're iron deficient. Maybe you've been burning the candle at both ends for too long. Maybe there is a sleep problem. Sometimes it's something much more significant.

The point isn't that you should diagnose yourself.

The point is that you shouldn't dismiss yourself, either.

Teachers spend their entire careers paying attention to everyone else in the room. We notice when a student is struggling. We notice when a colleague seems off. We notice when someone needs encouragement, a snack, or a quiet word in the hallway.

We're just not nearly as good at noticing it in ourselves. Your superpower can become your blind spot.  If that line lands a little close to home today, I want you to hear one more thing: Be as nice to yourself as you would to a best friend going through a hard time.

Quicksand looks exactly like regular sand until you start to sink. If it took you a while to realize what was happening, that doesn't make you foolish. It makes you human.  

Teacher Hack (Timestamp: 17:50)

This brings me to our Teacher Hack of the week. Our Teacher Hacks are designed to save you in one of the three ways we pay for things in life: time, money, or stress. This one's all about saving you some stress.

As you're heading back to school, find yourself a Battle Buddy.

Now, if you've listened to the podcast for a while, you know I've talked about Battle Buddies before. The military figured out a long time ago that people make better decisions when somebody else is watching their six...er...their back. I think teachers need that, too. But this time, I want you to find a Battle Buddy with a different assignment.

Ask them to pay attention to you. Not your lesson plans. Not whether you've graded your papers. Not whether you're drinking enough water. Ask them to notice you.

Give them permission to say, "You don't seem like yourself lately."

Or...

"You've looked exhausted for a couple of weeks."

Or...

"When was the last time you went to sleep at a decent hour?"

Here's the thing: the people around us sometimes notice the slow changes long before we do. They see us by comparison. We see ourselves in our adaptation. Every day feels almost like the day before, so we normalize one more ache, one more skipped meal, one more restless night, one more afternoon where we collapse on the couch.

Sometimes your Battle Buddy won't be another teacher at all. In fact, sometimes that's even better.

It might be your spouse. An adult child. A neighbor. A friend from church. A friend from church.  A friend who sees you often enough to recognize when you've stopped looking like yourself, but who isn't living inside the same teacher whirlwind you are.

And if they tell you they're worried...

Don't get defensive. Get curious. (Channel your inner Ted Lasso.)

Let your own inner Observer ask, "What are they seeing that I can't?"

Because sometimes the first person to notice you're standing in quicksand isn't the one standing in it.

They're the one in the best position to throw you a lifeline.

Practical Jobs and Career Transition Help (Timestamp: 17:57)

And now we're going to move into the Career Transition and Job Search segment, where you get some practical tips and advice to help you navigate a career change.

One of the hardest parts of career transition is figuring out what you're actually trying to escape.

Are you trying to leave teaching?  Or are you trying to leave exhaustion?  Those aren't always the same thing.

If your health is quietly changing the terms of the agreement, or if you're so burned out that every day feels like survival mode, it's incredibly difficult to make a clear career decision. Everything looks bad when you're running on empty. It's a little like going to the grocery store while ravenous and walking out the proud owner of aisle four.

So before you make a permanent decision about your profession, make sure you're paying attention to yourself as carefully as you're paying attention to your résumé. I don't think these are decisions you should make entirely by yourself. They're usually better made in conversation with another person.

If you have someone in your life who can be that neutral (but invested!) voice, that's wonderful. If not, that's one of the things I do  - especially in a complimentary discovery call. Sometimes all you need is another perspective to help separate burnout from a genuine desire for change.

If you're considering a career transition, absolutely start exploring your options. Learn what's out there. See what skills you might need to pick up.

Just don't confuse exhaustion with clarity.

Sometimes the right answer is a new career.  Sometimes the right answer is a new school.  Sometimes the right answer is better boundaries, better healthcare, better sleep, or maybe getting an illness that's been quietly stealing your energy under better control.

The point is this: Make the biggest career decisions of your life with as much of you available as possible.

You'll make better decisions from solid ground than you ever will standing in quicksand.

Closing (Timestamp: 21:59)
 
If today's episode resonated with you, there are a few ways you can help me.

First, if you know a teacher who needs to hear this conversation, please share the episode with them. I think it’s an important one about health.  Word of mouth is still the biggest way this podcast grows, and ya never know whose day might change because you hit "send."

If you feel led to support the podcast financially, you can do that for as little as $3 a month. That support makes it possible for this little mission to keep growing. It's one of the reasons we're now branching into video podcasts and a YouTube channel, so we can reach and even help more teachers.

If you're in that place where you're wondering whether it's time for a career transition, I'd love to talk with you. I offer complimentary discovery calls because sometimes you just need another set of eyes on the situation - someone who's invested in helping you find the right answer, whether that's staying in education, changing schools, or building a path into something entirely new.

And finally...I'm writing a book.  You might have heard me mention it!

It's still making its way through the publishing process, but as we get closer, I'm going to be looking for people who believe in this mission enough to help launch it into the world. We'll be using a  something like a crowdfunding model that's a little different from traditional publishing, and I'll be sharing a lot more about that over the next few weeks because the timing really matters.

I appreciate each and every one of you.

Thank you for choosing to spend some of your precious time with me and Teachers in Transition.

Until next week...  Pay attention to the little things.  They have a way of adding up. Sometimes for the better...and sometimes they're the first sign you're standing in quicksand.

 CONNECT WITH VANESSA

• 💌 Email: Vanessa@teachersintransition.com
• 📱 Call or Text: 512-640-9099 
• 📅 Book a Free Discovery Call: teachersintransition.com/calendar
• 🔗 Bluesky: @beyondteaching.bsky.social
• 📸 Instagram & Threads: @teachers.in.transition
• 👍 Facebook: Teachers in Transition
• 🐦 X (Twitter): @EduExitStrategy

That’s the podcast for today! If you liked this podcast, tell a friend, and don’t forget to rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts. Tune in weekly to Teachers in Transition where we discuss Job Search strategies as well as stress management techniques.  And I want to hear from you!  Please reach out and leave me a message at Vanessa@Teachersintransition.com  You can also leave a voicemail or text at 512-640-9099. 

I’ll see you here again next week and remember – YOU are amazing!