On the evening before school starts back for the year, I usually hit a patch of anxiety that keeps me awake into the wee hours of the morning. 

Today, my brain has hit fast-forward and has dumped me in that patch just about as soon as I woke up. 

I know it’s not logical. I know I am good at my job. I love my workplace, and a number of my colleagues are also my good friends. I love teaching. I’ve done my preparation.I know that I will go back tomorrow and everything will be okay. 

Today, however, my brain is playing a different tune. I am plagued with anxiety and feelings of inadequacy. I am fearful of nothing in particular and everything in general. I know I can do it but I feel as though I can’t. 

This is what happens when anxiety, introversion and impostor syndrome get together for a wild party: they don’t get messed up, I do. 

What many people don’t realise is that many of their own kids’ teachers go through the same thing every year and every term. Some experience it much more frequently, even daily. 

To look at them, especially at work in the classroom, you’d never know it. But it is real, and it is genuinely awful. 

I don’t know what the solution is. The only thing I know how to do is hang in there, try to take care of myself, and keep going like I always do.