I just accepted a job at a new school and left the one I've been working at since late August. I gave two weeks notice, but told the principal I was leaving because I didn't have the support I needed to do my job (special ed ICT teacher, and my collaborating teacher refused to cooperate with me). He told me I had a bad attitude, I told him I didn't want to have a conversation about my attitude, since I was resigning anyway, and he escorted me from the building while having all of my school accounts deleted. It escalated really quickly, and I was in shock the whole time it was happening.

My husband and other friends don't really understand why I'm so upset. I have a new job, I have a few weeks off before it starts, and they feel like that's an ideal situation to be in. I'm devastated that the students, my fellow teachers, and my supervisor are all going to think that I just walked out without saying goodbye.

I thought I would be able to email everyone when I got home, but the email addresses there aren't consistent - some are first names, some are last names, some are last name and first initial - and they just autofilled in my school email account, so I never kept track of what each person's address was. On the school website, you have to go through a form if you want to contact someone.

I did find one colleague on LinkedIn, and he was also shocked and very sympathetic, but he works in a different grade, so doesn't really have any way to reach out to my students. He said the principal sent a boilerplate email Friday morning (I was kicked out of the building during my prep period on Thursday afternoon), saying that I had accepted another job and they all wished me well. I don't even have personal contact information for my direct supervisor, who I liked a lot, so I'm pretty sure she even thinks I just walked out without saying anything.

I'm completely heartbroken. It's not a warm and fuzzy school, and the counselor also just left, so I worry that no one is going to help my students work through any feelings they have about my leaving. Plus, I spent a lot of time very carefully building relationships with all of the special education students (I was working with 22 of them in two different ICT classrooms), and I can't get any of my friends to understand that it's really painful to suddenly have absolutely no contact with kids I've been working really closely with. Yes, it's only been 5 weeks, but it was 5 weeks I spent almost entirely trying to get to know them all and make positive connections.

The whole experience has made me don't-want-to-get-out-of-bed depressed, but everyone I know is acting like I'm being very weird about it. Am I actually overreacting? Or is it normal to be upset by losing those connections with the students? I don't think it's appropriate to make kids responsible for adults' feelings, but I still feel really really sad about not getting to say goodbye.