Last year was a tough year for me teaching alien subjects at my community college.  I teach Spanish from my growing up in South America as a missionary kid and I teach nursing students death and dying classes from having been a hospital chaplain between 2001-2010.  I'd been at the college for 5 years when somehow the mood soured at school, I guess in ways the national mood did, too.  In one semester last year a kid threw acid on the hood of my car.  In the next semester--3 days after the presidential election--somebody slashed my tire.  

It was really triggering to my PTSD.  This sort of thing hadn't happened to me in a long time.  The last time was when I started teching at all and that was when I taught high school way long ago.  Back then my first month as a teacher had been greated by someone who broke in my window on my car's passenger side.  

It being so long since then, I really had to step up my PTSD coping skills, especially my hypervigilant ones, to keep from falling into outright paranoia.  I replaced the tire right away because it was ruined and I needed to drive the car to work every tday, but I drove the car with the hood's paint pealing until I could budget to have it painted.  This month I pay my car off, which means since I don't have to make car payments, that money now can pay for the paint job.

I dropped off my car at the body shop to be painted today.  They'll have it ready Wednesday.  It's good finally to get that reminder of ill will off the front of my hood right in front of me when I drive around town.

Thanks for the support you gave me here to get through this year's automotive vandalism. You helped me have enough self esteem not to give up and to have my car repainted instead now.  

Has anybody else been PTSD-triggered by vandalism?