Just to give you a look in on the things I mean here is the homework list I have. Medical terminology I have a test every Monday & Thursday. Spelling words 100 of them Monday. Words to break down #ing 20-68. English class write 1 paragraph per week and a test on Thursday. Typing class timing tests Tues and Thurs. Computer concepts test Thurs. Read chp 1 and weekly exams. Then I have the daily care of my kids and myself. Then I also have these different agentencys to deal with and then I get to study for the next days school work. Maybe after that I will have time to myself.

Nadine, mother of six

Such heroism is exhausting and difficult to maintain for any length of time, putting students prone to acts of heroism at risk of immanent failure, perhaps even reinscribing a familiar pattern of heroic failure. Chandler suggests that this pattern stems from one of the legacies of trauma: learning that the daily routines of self-care can be (or necessarily are) put aside in order to cope with crisis. As a result, all-or-nothing
patterns of fierce self-awareness or self-neglect, daily care or slovenliness, chaos or boredom, violent control or self-abnegating affection, freedom or imprisonment, become established as a normal existence, especially with on-going trauma such as domestic abuse. Those either/or, all-or-nothing positions complicate the efforts of students who are struggling with literacy learning to persist in their efforts, perhaps deepening self-images as victims, especially if they view the inevitable mistakes or misunderstandings of the writing process as confirmations of “how stupid they are” even to try.