“I Didn’t Burn Out – I Incinerated.”

“I Didn’t Burn Out – I Incinerated.”

I was the kind of educator who cried after IEP meetings. Who took parent complaints home like barbs under the skin. Who paced the kitchen at midnight rehearsing conversations that never happened. You see, I am not just an educator. I am a caregiver-educator — a combination that caused me not to burn out, but to incinerate. Like many educators, I never clocked out of my caregiving identity. For years I carried the unbearable weight of emotional l…