I didn’t have a ton of EDS problems in K-12 school. I had some issues with POTS (postural tachycardia—getting dizzy/lightheaded or passing out from standing up) but I rarely pass out, and I had plenty of ankle sprains and kneecap subluxations. Mostly I remember just being young and strong enough to keep going despite these things.

My elementary school was an alternative school, which was good for me in many ways—it was physically structured in a way that let me move around a lot and the curriculum had enough freedom that I found learning to be fun. I’m curious if my mom has more comments about it. Did I have trouble with pencil grip or other motor developmental milestones?

My short experience as a high school science teacher was less fun. I found the job physically excruciating—I was on my feet all day, talking all day, and there was never a chance to go to the bathroom. And the work never ended—evenings were filled with grading or lesson plan/prep. I’m also not great at telling people what to do, so I never got the hang of classroom management. I’ve never been as tired as when I was teaching. I’d get up every morning and 5 and I would half lay down on the kitchen counter while making coffee (standing next to the counter, but laying my torso/head down on it). The crushing anxiety of not having a lesson plan gave me enough adrenaline to keep working all evening, but it was not a sustainable situation for my body. I had nausea constantly and could hardly eat from it.

It’s “funny”, because my body was part of the reason I’d gone into teaching. During my PhD work, I started having a lot of problems because I was sitting at a computer all day every day. My back and neck were in pain all the time and I felt like my head was too heavy for me to hold up. I knew I had terrible posture, so I started working with someone using the Alexander Technique, a kind of mind-body approach to posture issues, because the problem can be both body and mind/habit/thoughts. What I remember most about those sessions was sitting or standing and the therapist telling me over and over again that “there is enough UP”—like she was encouraging my body to recognize that there is enough upward directed force in my body to keep me upright. Now that I know about my connective tissue disorder, all I can think is, “no, actually, there ISN’T enough *up*!”—my ligaments and tendons really AREN’T providing the “up” that they do for everyone else. Somehow this makes me laugh and feel better, I guess because I can stop blaming myself as lazy for having poor posture. There is still a habit component of my poor posture, but it’s also not entirely “my fault”.

Anyhow, the outcome of a year of those AT sessions was I just decided I shouldn’t have a job where I sit all day ….so instead I trained to teach high school where I was standing all day 🙄 I did not last long as a teacher for that and many other reasons!

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