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.
I just wanted to update everybody on how grief is going concerning my friend's suicide last week. It shook me and our circle of friends because she was a hospital chaplain like me and a seminary classmate in 2001.
Posting here and getting over 20 great, supportive DS PTSD replies reassuring me really helped get over the initial shock. It also helped me take the next step of asking for support from offline friends.
So Saturday I spoke by phone to a chaplain friend from those seminary days and processed the shock in that phone call. Then on Sunday my old roommate called me long distance from Minnesota to talk about it.
In both conversations it was up front that one reason we were talking was that a suicide that close to me might shake me up so I would be suicidal myself. I wasn't, and we talked about why not, a lot of that being that I've found new coping skills for my own moments of despair in therapy since 2007 and since following up coming here in 2012 to DS PTSD.
We talked also with compassion instead of just anger and fear about why my friend was suicidal, though, and how painful it must have been. I spoke about how I don't want the rest of her life's good work as a chaplain in hospice to be forgotten because her own life ended in suicide.
All of that was an extension of coming here right away. You rock, DS PTSD. Thank you!
Posting here and getting over 20 great, supportive DS PTSD replies reassuring me really helped get over the initial shock. It also helped me take the next step of asking for support from offline friends.
So Saturday I spoke by phone to a chaplain friend from those seminary days and processed the shock in that phone call. Then on Sunday my old roommate called me long distance from Minnesota to talk about it.
In both conversations it was up front that one reason we were talking was that a suicide that close to me might shake me up so I would be suicidal myself. I wasn't, and we talked about why not, a lot of that being that I've found new coping skills for my own moments of despair in therapy since 2007 and since following up coming here in 2012 to DS PTSD.
We talked also with compassion instead of just anger and fear about why my friend was suicidal, though, and how painful it must have been. I spoke about how I don't want the rest of her life's good work as a chaplain in hospice to be forgotten because her own life ended in suicide.
All of that was an extension of coming here right away. You rock, DS PTSD. Thank you!
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Due to my increased paranoia, anxiety, and a panic attack over the weekend, my psychiatrist has put me back in a full dose of Zyprexa until further notice. Every time I think I'm getting ahead something happens and it's back to square one. I knew he was gonna do this but I can't help feeling disappointed. It is what it is.
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Well, good morning to you!Today is National Roller Coaster Day. Are any of you going?It's also National Tell-A-Joke Day! Come up with some and share!I'm not bright with jokes these days, but I'll start:"Today I ordered a chicken and an egg from Amazon...I'll let you know." :D
I sometimes do not know what to say when it comes to someone committing suicide because the pain to get to that point, well I know it.
A lot of times is people that are very caring who are not only feeling their pain but the pain of the cause that they care so much about.
Like a lot of the Docs that tended to the wounded of both sides in Irak and other wars.
Sometimes the pain is just unbearable and they should not be judged for how they die. But honor for how they lived.
GEntle hugs and continued purrs,
Leo
You've helped me not be overwhelmed by the fear of it so I could have the strength to hold on to the good memories of my friend, which is what I would want if it had been me or anyone else among us. No matter what our end, the honorable path of our journey does deserve to be remembered, and that remembrance is what friends are for.
You all are true friends to me in remembrance of her, and you never even met her, you just do it by faith in my request. How noble is that? Deeply and truly noble, in my book. Wow. Thank you all.
Now that you are starting to process it all, I can validate your feelings.
I didn't even know Robin Williams, yet when I heard the news some 8 months ago, I was like, "Nooooooo!"
I'm here if you want to talk.
Now I think it may have been a blessing to make that change. I hated it so much at the time. But my friend who committed suicide had been a hospice chaplain helping terminal patients for 10 years. Maybe it contributed to her suicide with burnout? I don't know, but I count my blessings. In the teaching job I have I pass on what I learned in hospital chaplaincy, but I have time to come here for my own healing. I didn't have time to come to a place like this as a hospital chaplain, with 36 hours on calls and that hectic life.
I'm really tired tonight, because Wednesday is the day I add teaching an evening class to my day time teaching load, so I teach from 9am to 9pm. But I realize that I still have time to be here everyday and that keeps me and my PTSD on track for recovery. If I were still a hospital chaplain, as much as I loved it, I wouldn't have this kind of time to dedicate to my PTSD recovery and to have you all as my support.
So as much as I often wish I were back there being a hospital chaplain like I was before kidney disease ended that for me, I think I can count my blessings about where I am. Seeing my friend's suicide, I think I'm right where I'm supposed to be for my own wellness, teaching at my community college with time to be here at DS PTSD. That's one way of making her suicide mean something positive for me.