We had parent conferences at my high school last night. Of the parents who came, there was a common reason as to why all of their children are failing my class: apathy. Unfortunately, I have a lot of students who just don’t care about their grades. Ten or fifteen years ago, if a student did not complete an assignment, there would be begging, pleading, tears, etc. for them to make it up. Now, even in my honors classes, if a student gets a zero, they have little to no reaction. They just accept it. They do not seem to care. Luckily, most of my students really do want to do well, but it is a recurring problem I have experienced and it is increasing each year.
I am experiencing a form of this in my own life right now when it comes to my relationship. My therapist mentioned it a few weeks ago as an observation. She said that I am in a “state of apathy” and I have thought about it a lot since then. And I agree. When I was getting divorced, I cried and cried and cried. I cried until I literally could not cry anymore. I was pure emotion and very little logic. I lived in fear, uncertainty, sadness.
My boyfriend has been struggling with work, his alcoholism, his depression and it has been affecting our relationship and me more than I have really been willing to admit. It is really hard to watch the person you love just self-destruct. I feel helpless and oftentimes I feel like his caretaker, not his girlfriend. I feel like because I don’t know what to do (even though deep down I know what I need to do), I have just gotten to a place where I feel like I don’t care. He sleeps all day…whatever. He drinks…I just leave the room and watch tv by myself. I don’t cry, I don’t even really get mad anymore. I just feel…nothing a lot of the time. I don’t know if it is a self-defense mechanism to help me cope with it or if my feelings have truly changed. Naively, like most other people, I keep thinking (hoping, waiting) that things will get better. But it has literally been years and I think I have sort of given up.
I don’t know what’s worse, being upset all the time or just putting a wall around my heart to not feel anything?
Anxious ACOA 