A teacher whose job sent her mental health spiralling had to fork out hundreds of dollars for a therapist because her school wasn't signed up to an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP).

The 32-year-old Aucklander, who does not want to be identified, said her school wasn't open to the idea that teachersmight need external mental health support.

"There was an attitude that said 'if we advertise the fact that we're supporting staff then we're creating a culture of weakness being acceptable'," she said.

Instead, she was left to battle anxiety and intense feelings of guilt and insecurity alone.

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"Having a panic attack in front of students is super ugly," she said.

Her days turned into a game of clock-watching, holding it together until the bell rangand then crashing. It affected her teaching "terribly", she said.

LAWRENCE SMITH/STUFF

An Auckland teacher says schools should provide external mental health support.

She confided in her manager, but theynever checked back in, she said. Anti-anxiety medication from her GP didn't touch the sides.

Teaching was a "really, really hard job to be weak in", she said, as teachers were expected to be rational authority figures.

Teachers were also competitive about who had it worse, she said, whether that was the longest hours, the biggest class or the tallest stack of marking.

That was rampant at her school, where she said teachers were expected to strive for unachievable targets while receiving little praise or encouragement.

"There's this idea, if I struggle and if I suffer and if I endure, then I've achieved something," she said.

JOHN BISSET/STUFF

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When shewanted to ask for help, school counsellorswerethe only option available. But she knew them, and they knew the people who she said were part of the problem.

"The idea that you can see your school support team for anything to do with work anxiety is ridiculous," she said.

So she found a private therapistat $160 a session. She had only been able to afford three sessions.

She said if EAP had been available, it "would have made the process of finding support [...]a lot quicker and smoother".

Therapy had proved incredibly helpful, she said. Her therapist had given her tools for maintaining positive relationships with her students and acting rationally when things seemed overwhelming.

They were skills that benefited her students, so she questioned why the school wasn't willing to support teachers to seek help.

An Official Information Act request to schools in Auckland revealed 10 per cent of secondary schools werenot signed up to an EAP programme.

Jack Boyle, President of the Post-Primary Teachers' Association (PPTA), said while there wasn't a black and white requirement for schools to sign up to EAP, they had a requirement to provide a safe working environment, which includes mental wellbeing.

Requiring teachers to go through internal procedures to get help created "arbitrary and unnecessary barriers" to support, he said.

All schools should provide EAP, he said, and one of PPTA's recommendations was for theMinistry of Education to have a single EAP contract to which all schools were signed up.

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Auckland teacher says job sent her mental health spiralling, but her school wouldn't help - Stuff.co.nz