Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
Find support with others who have gone through a traumatic experience. Whether you have chronic or acute PTSD, we are here for you.
Thanks to everyone who "gave me a hoot" this week and helped me get my 300 page tenure document in on time without self sabotage.
I just turned it in! Yay!
I have a history with self sabotage and tenure. I had tenure in 2000 at a university, so I've been through this process. But office politics broke out in the department I worked in, and my "FIGHT OR FLIGHT" PTSD response kicked in hard. I chose FLIGHT and self sabotaged my whole life. I quit tenure, which was especially important job security for a guy like me with PTSD. But I quit and fled.
I went into a downward spiral from there. I lost the condo I had bought, at my next job I failed to even complete one whole semester, I ended up in divorce, and soon I was in the hospital. I mean total self sabotage for real, and not in a subtle way. Nose dive to asphalt. Splat.
So this is my second chance 16 years later. I got in trouble with the temptation again to choose FLIGHT last week and self sabotage again. I was really tempted even though I have worked for 5 years now at my community college for tenure again. The thread where I asked for help said "Need a hoot," putting it playfully, but it was serious.
So I want to thank you that I may have gotten my life back on track again, even though I still have PTSD. You helped me last week with the support I needed not to quit right at the finish line.
I am not guaranteed tenure by any stretch of the imagination. It just means a lot that I just turned my 300 page tenure report. I needed your support rather than throw the last 5 years of work away because of my FLIGHT response from PTSD. Now it I do get tenure I promise not to throw THAT away this time like I did in 2000.
Anybody else ever have this FLIGHT impulse I've got? At work or in relationships or moving to a new town?
I just turned it in! Yay!
I have a history with self sabotage and tenure. I had tenure in 2000 at a university, so I've been through this process. But office politics broke out in the department I worked in, and my "FIGHT OR FLIGHT" PTSD response kicked in hard. I chose FLIGHT and self sabotaged my whole life. I quit tenure, which was especially important job security for a guy like me with PTSD. But I quit and fled.
I went into a downward spiral from there. I lost the condo I had bought, at my next job I failed to even complete one whole semester, I ended up in divorce, and soon I was in the hospital. I mean total self sabotage for real, and not in a subtle way. Nose dive to asphalt. Splat.
So this is my second chance 16 years later. I got in trouble with the temptation again to choose FLIGHT last week and self sabotage again. I was really tempted even though I have worked for 5 years now at my community college for tenure again. The thread where I asked for help said "Need a hoot," putting it playfully, but it was serious.
So I want to thank you that I may have gotten my life back on track again, even though I still have PTSD. You helped me last week with the support I needed not to quit right at the finish line.
I am not guaranteed tenure by any stretch of the imagination. It just means a lot that I just turned my 300 page tenure report. I needed your support rather than throw the last 5 years of work away because of my FLIGHT response from PTSD. Now it I do get tenure I promise not to throw THAT away this time like I did in 2000.
Anybody else ever have this FLIGHT impulse I've got? At work or in relationships or moving to a new town?
I think people self harm for several reasons (which I am not going to list), but for me it was to feel a physical release for the thoughts/emotions I couldn't express. I needed to feel * something * so to that end it was nice to feel *anything *. It's similar I think to Dante's Inferno. The people who died by suicide are trees being attacked by Harpies. It is only in pain that the trees can speak at all, and I identify with this. Similarly, I could only feel when I was in pain, and I needed the physical pain to get through my emotional trauma. On the bright side, I have not self-harmed since I was eighteen.
It may be different for you Muji, because self-harm and self-sabotage are different for everyone who experience them (so please feel free to ignore anything I said that does not apply to you).