Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
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It happened again. Since I came here to DS PTSD to get help for myself and did, it seems like people who need help ask me and I have something to give them. That's pretty cool for someone who just was looking for help for himself to get through the day with PTSD.
Today it was a student who came to me after class crying. It turned out that her mom was put in a mental hospital this week. Since I've told my own story in class, she said she figured she could tell me without feeling ashamed about it.
I was able to put her in touch with counseling at the college if she needs it. I was also able to get the hospital's telephone number of the chaplain there if she needs a shoulder to cry on after visiting mom at the mental hospital next time. The dad left the family and there's no one else.
In the end she said she knew I was just her teacher, not her therapist. But she used to be a cutter, she said. So she figured if she could just talk to somebody like me maybe she could avoid trying to cope that way.
I do not think of myself as anything more than a PTSD patient who manages to hold a job teaching in spite of flashbacks every day. 3 years ago I lost my teaching job due to PTSD and had to start over, so I'm not in any great place beyond PTSD. But this thing of helping someone in spite of all that helps me right now, I've found.
Is this true? Beyond sentimentality, does it really help us to help others or am I kidding myself? Is this happening with anybody else?
Today it was a student who came to me after class crying. It turned out that her mom was put in a mental hospital this week. Since I've told my own story in class, she said she figured she could tell me without feeling ashamed about it.
I was able to put her in touch with counseling at the college if she needs it. I was also able to get the hospital's telephone number of the chaplain there if she needs a shoulder to cry on after visiting mom at the mental hospital next time. The dad left the family and there's no one else.
In the end she said she knew I was just her teacher, not her therapist. But she used to be a cutter, she said. So she figured if she could just talk to somebody like me maybe she could avoid trying to cope that way.
I do not think of myself as anything more than a PTSD patient who manages to hold a job teaching in spite of flashbacks every day. 3 years ago I lost my teaching job due to PTSD and had to start over, so I'm not in any great place beyond PTSD. But this thing of helping someone in spite of all that helps me right now, I've found.
Is this true? Beyond sentimentality, does it really help us to help others or am I kidding myself? Is this happening with anybody else?
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I haven't written in my diary on my computer since May because I thought that my computer was dying. I got away from writing but my computer is hanging in there. I think that I will start writing in it again. It's so therapeutic.
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First, I hope everyone is doing well, and continuing to fight that good fight! Keep up the great work on yourselves; I'm rooting for all of you!So, I started doing therapy at the beginning of the year, when I was in my most depressed state, but with my therapist, I made big changes and steps in the right direction. But, over a month ago, she couldn't take my insurance anymore, and I had to stop...
When someone tels me, "Tahnks for posting fun trivia" on the Fibro board check-in? Even that is helpful to me.
It hink helping others helps heal us because we're in a weird way giving to the world what was not given to us---a hand, a help, a shoulder, a moment's peace of mind or smile. When you live in fear and anxiety, and admit it? You're giving others the space to heal their fears and anxiety, too, is what I think happens, and so that shift in energy comes back to us on some metaphysical spiritual level.
I can't articulate it very well---crashing from exhaustion, I did a lot more than usual today physically---but to me it's like scattering seeds. They won't all sprout, but when one does? The flower that blooms brightens the world. Including my patch of it.
And maybe it helps heal us because it shows there should be no shame ot it. And we believe it when we demonstrate it by being brave like you are.
I am not that brave. I do it much smaller. But then, sometimes, I wonder if that's okay. Small stones can still make big ripples.
I've been programmed that I must achieve to have value
Leo, scatter them willy nilly! you never know what a difference it will make.
Muji, your getting good at this. Next a PTSD College course? Ha!
It boosts my self esteem more than a someone who is being paid to care possibly could.
It is my personal favorite of the Cosmic Mysteries.
I will take that class, Muji, if you are the teacher!
When I reach out to someone, I know that I am giving them something that at one point, I might have been in dire need of...allot of things that never came. I used to be a cutter too...I have allot of scars left from it. At one point I was very alone....not even my family was there for me, and it eventually lead me to slicing my wrist and almost dieing because I had drank too much in one sitting and was in too much pain....feeling completely alone.
I believe what you did could have been that one moment in time, that she really needed someone....and you gave her a seed of hope that she wasn't alone. Sometimes that is all we need to know to keep moving forward.
I admit that I did "came out" at work about my PTSD for myself, you know? In case I felt myself crashing again I could ask somebody at work for help next time. In 2011 I just sat in my apartment all alone while my world collapsed around me and I lost my job, everything. There was nothing to be done and nobody to do anything for me anyway. I hadn't let anybody in on my secret.
I ended up in the hospital in 2011 for my physical health and I came close to being back in the psych ward like I was in 2000. That 2000 visit was not a country club visit; it involved lots of Haldol, being stripped naked in restraints, and lots of stuff I promised never to go let myself sink to again. In 2011, I came close to sinking that low. I don't think I have the wherewithal to stand that twice.
So thanks for saying I'm brave. For me it took failing the other way to muster up the courage. I came out of the closet about my PTSD at this new job for me, originally. The job I lost in 2011 showed me it just wasn't working to hide in the closet about PTSD, speaking for myself.
And now being "out of the closet" appears to help others. Bonus, because I really didn't know what else to do any more.
So I admit that this helping other people helps me, yet it is an offshoot of a self-care master plan just to avoid at all costs ending up where I was in 2000 and not come close again as in 2011. There's self interest involved.
Yet, it seems ok. Even though it's self-interested self care, it seems not to harm others, and it seems even to help them one at a time. That's why I'm glad you all chimed in about how it works that way for you, too, on whatever scale you can do it, large or small.
arfie, I actually CACKLED loud, loud, loudly with laughter at the St Francis quote you posted:
"Preach the gospel (good news) constantly. Use words when necessary."
That's just brilliant!
I know for me, it gets me 'out of myself'.
There's a sentiment that comes from a program I'm in that states (not verbatim) " when sex is a problem, we search for someone to help".
Well, I think when that self loathing depression hits, when anything and everything in my life seems to be a problem, it is a great relief and uplifting act to help someone... with SOMETHING, ANYTHING.
It's uncanny how that works... but, it does.
So, I think about it like this - Everytime one of us from abuse, performs a random act of kindess...no matter how small, we are not only helping that person and ourselves, we are also kicking our ptsd right in the ass! We are breaking the cycle of abuse. We are saying that we will NOT do to others, what was done to us.
Suffice it to say Muji, that I believe helping others strengthens us and heals another tiny spot from our past.
I didn't finish my thought after the sense of awe Sorry about that. That sense of awe in helping someone is brain healing. Great chemicals flood the brain and body and we heal a little more. (I am sleep deprived again, but I will be better tonight with my meds now in hand.)