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.
This may be OT (off topic) but as I'm going up for tenure at my job I've come out of the closet at work about being a DS PTSD member. For going on five years now, I teach nursing students 5 courses of year of death and dying classes at a community college.
My decision to "come out" was because we have a unit on traumatic death in our course. In my teaching I wanted to be transparent about how important I think support groups are to working through trauma grief. DS PTSD has made a huge difference in my life, and I wanted to spread the word that it could in theirs, too, and in the lives of their future patients.
So far so good. I've had a little blow back from some people, but it has passed, and people generally seem ok with it. I have had about 5 students come to my office privately to talk about it. I stress how though I was a hospital chaplain and I'm their psychology class teacher, disclosing that I'm in DS PTSD only means I'm a peer support, I'm not a therapist. They seem to accept that well.
Yesterday I had a student come by my office who was in particular pain. She took my class last year, and has kept in touch. But this week her adult daughter attempted suicide. She, the mom, had to get the police meet her at her daughter's house, break a window, gain entry, and take her daughter to the hospital to have her stomach pumped. Her daughter survived, but mom, my student, is deeply shaken up by it.
My student, the mom in the situation, wanted to talk to me yesterday in my office about how this shook up her faith. As a hospital chaplain, this was a familiar conversation I had with many people. It would shake up my faith, too. I let her know how it's ok to be angry with God like in the book of Job, to question God in such situations. Some people even lose their faith in God. Even that doesn't mean they have to be alone. If they wish to, they can gain a stronger faith in God later. But the point, I said, is that we don't have to go through these things alone. That's how DS PTSD works for me, I told her. I really have faith in the people here when they say they KNOW how I feel, because they've been there.
She wanted to pray at the end of our talk, and we did. Now I ask for your thoughts and prayers for her, too. And also for me so I can support her and other students like her, even as I stress I'm only a peer support. It's still worthwhile, even if only as a "wounded healer," as they say. For me, taking DS PTSD out to my offline world keeps my own PTSD recovery here going out there after I turn off my computer. Thank you.
My decision to "come out" was because we have a unit on traumatic death in our course. In my teaching I wanted to be transparent about how important I think support groups are to working through trauma grief. DS PTSD has made a huge difference in my life, and I wanted to spread the word that it could in theirs, too, and in the lives of their future patients.
So far so good. I've had a little blow back from some people, but it has passed, and people generally seem ok with it. I have had about 5 students come to my office privately to talk about it. I stress how though I was a hospital chaplain and I'm their psychology class teacher, disclosing that I'm in DS PTSD only means I'm a peer support, I'm not a therapist. They seem to accept that well.
Yesterday I had a student come by my office who was in particular pain. She took my class last year, and has kept in touch. But this week her adult daughter attempted suicide. She, the mom, had to get the police meet her at her daughter's house, break a window, gain entry, and take her daughter to the hospital to have her stomach pumped. Her daughter survived, but mom, my student, is deeply shaken up by it.
My student, the mom in the situation, wanted to talk to me yesterday in my office about how this shook up her faith. As a hospital chaplain, this was a familiar conversation I had with many people. It would shake up my faith, too. I let her know how it's ok to be angry with God like in the book of Job, to question God in such situations. Some people even lose their faith in God. Even that doesn't mean they have to be alone. If they wish to, they can gain a stronger faith in God later. But the point, I said, is that we don't have to go through these things alone. That's how DS PTSD works for me, I told her. I really have faith in the people here when they say they KNOW how I feel, because they've been there.
She wanted to pray at the end of our talk, and we did. Now I ask for your thoughts and prayers for her, too. And also for me so I can support her and other students like her, even as I stress I'm only a peer support. It's still worthwhile, even if only as a "wounded healer," as they say. For me, taking DS PTSD out to my offline world keeps my own PTSD recovery here going out there after I turn off my computer. Thank you.
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Here is my new brother, copper :) He's so tiny! Moo and Tuck were ok with him on first meeting. Rocket due to his severe aggression will never meet Cooper.
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https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTDeA9Wxg/
That is mostly second-hand information. An engineer doesn't run into the problem much in personal therapy. Until the meeting room toilet clogs. . . Or a co-worker has a personal crisis. . . Or we have a nasty flashback on a roof-top. . . or. . .
Gentle support while you sort your own peer/pro boundaries, muji.
I used to be a speaker for the Mood Disorder Assoc of Ontario and I really enjoyed it... I found that after each talk there would be people wanting to stay afterwards to talk privately usually about the depression side and either that person or someone that loved had been struggling
This was really a time when I realized that maybe this isn't so bad... It gave a reason for me to have this and use it...... Another hug and a blessing.... TY for what you are doing ....xo
I think you did very well with this. I agree, when this happened to me there were so many people here who supported me and it was so very important and special to me. My faith is a different one, but it is still faith and goodness. Sending support and good thoughts to her
Minister 2 took the bait, though. Two years later when a church related college offered me a position as department chair, he made a phone call to them. He divulged my diagnosis to them over the phone with such spin that the college withdrew its contract offer. I could have sued, but I was not out of the closet yet. Plus documented proof of a phone call is obviously difficult to establish, so I had to go back on the job market.
Hence I've come out of the closet going up for tenure with my diagnosis on the record with my own spin for a change. It's tricky, too. But not only does it protect me from the academic blackmailing I experienced in the past, it also opens me up to inviting others to speak to me so I can offer them peer support, prayer, and a referral to our college's counseling service. Students get 5 free counseling sessions with their tuition at my college, and since I teach psychology there my dean is happy to follow up on referrals from me.
So my request for prayers and support is not for sorting about boundaries now, but living with these new ones. I've found that when you come out of the closet about PTSD you eliminate the change to be judged on stigma but you do invite scrutiny to be judged on behavior.
Therefore, I had to commit to squeaky clean living above and beyond, which may not be fair, but I'm willing to do. I've been celibate for 5 years now, so there's nothing to judge about my sex life. I've been a teetotaller for the same period of time, so there's nothing to judge about drinking or using drugs. Not just staying away from things such as pot, but my kidney damage these five years has kept me from being able to use prescription PTSD drugs, too, so there's nothing to judge there, either. I've had to put more work into learning how to express myself when appropriately angry because the public expects those of us with PTSD to be easily triggered to anger.
Prayers and support for being out of the closet and exposing that I'm just a human with a survivor's diagnosis that's nothing to be ashamed of, hoping to pass that on to others around me. It's not a recent idea to be a "wounded healer," it originated with Carl Jung, and he reported that Freud himself believed it was true of us all. We just have a hard time admitting it, it seems. I came into contact with the idea as a hospital chaplain through theologian Henri Nouwen's book by that title.
It's an experiment in progress. It may not work out. If it doesn't, I'll get denied tenure and get a job somewhere else back in the closet again across country somewhere. It's a big enough country that I found it was possible and did it last time when that minister outed me and I lost that department chair job. For now, though, we'll see how this works out. So far so good. Wish me luck. I turn in my tenure documents after Christmas break and the process begins, to continue until a decision is announced in May.
We all walk around trying to look "okay" and nobody knows what's going on under the surface. A college is just the kind of place to push the envelope on that, and students are at an age to really profit from that kind of exposure.
As for your student, when she questions God, please remind her that her daughter was saved and did not die. She might want to thank God for that. Obviously there are deeper issues there or the daughter would not have attempted suicide, and this is a God-given opportunity to address them instead of living with regret for not having known. It may demand much courage from her in facing whatever the issues are.
Gentle support while you find what works for you.
J.
In the process, I bumped into the works of a fellow my Ecuadorian network credited with translating the 12 steps into American Spanish. Since I know you speak Spanish, I thought I might share one of my personal favorite of his recordings. Just one of my infamous brain farts. Ply gas mask, if needed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gAAwFZuKIQ
On the other hand, about 20 people were excited and came up and said so afterwards, with some 14 going to lunch to talk for hours. That was nice. Several told me they were in Alanon, arfie, so still guarding your anonymity, I told one of them about you and how you share Alanon meditations with us here. So I was glad to come back and see you, too, had been reminded of your Alanon work. Seredipity, huh?
Thanks for the good thoughts, everybody. It was great to brag on you in gratitude for all you've done for me in my PTSD recovery, especially in the last year.