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.
Hi, all. For those who are newer here and don't know my history, I grew up in a war zone overseas as a missionary kid and got PTSD there. Back in the USA, I became a hospital chaplain from my own PTSD recovery, working in an ER with trauma patients in Chicago. I got kidney disease and moved from hospital work to teaching nursing students.
One of the courses I teach a lot is about the nursing care of terminal patients. One of our textbooks is On Death and Dying by Elisabeth Kubler Ross, the book that gave us the 5 stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance). She is the doctor who founded hospice and terminal patient care, and she did it because when she was college age she was a volunteer in one of the Nazi death camps after World War II and the Holocaust.
That's why once a semester I take students on a day long field trip to the Holocaust Museum. It's impossible for me or for any teacher to describe the Holocaust in a classroom lecture, even using Youtube or movies. So I take them to the Museum.
When I was growing up as a missionary kid overseas, it turned out that my next door neighbor there was a Holocaust survivor. She was a Jewish lady who told me about it while showing me the tattoo on her arm the Nazis put there when she was in the concentration camp as a teenager. What was sad was that our South American country had turned into a dictatorship like the Nazis had, too, so she had jumped from the frying pan into the fire in escaping there from Europe.
TW
I was picked up by soldiers from that dictatorship's military on my own street in South America and made to kneel in front of the patrol while the officer leading it tried to execute me with his pistol. The pistol jammed twice, and he got impatient and didn't reach for a gun from one of his soldiers, so I miraculously survived meeting him that day. It gave me PTSD, though.
It's a heavy trip to undertake for me, thn, what with my PTSD and all, so I'm asking for your support as I go. I hope I can take care of myself and be a good teacher to others at the same time.
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Hey All...I hope that you have a lovely, peaceful beginning of your weekI have a bunch of chores that need doing but may put them off til tomorrow and just hang out with my landlord/roomie todayWhat about you?...Anything special going on?Have a great day and take good care of you!!..Xo
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Once again I've had a fever today. I'm not going to the hospital because that's a huge waste of time but I did schedule a dr appointment for Wednesday afternoon.
Sending you steadiness and much support in the face of this challenge.
Do you have a smooth stone or something you can keep in your pocket to ground you?
You can do this,muji.
Make sure you reward yourself with lots of self care afterward.
I love that you take your students to the museum, it is an important moment of time that should never be forgotten.
One, though, said my class was full of "it" (well, rhymes with "it.") I imagine I don't dazzle like I must have in the past when I was young a full of vigor and vim; I'm kind of a has-been to that student, I guess.
Anyway, I'm gonna do my best to suck it up for the field trip tomorrow and put my best foot forward bearing in mind what you've all said. I appreciate it, I really do.
I live alone, and not speaking about my feelings with anyone else at home, it's your comments that set the tone for my self-talk after work. Taking a smooth stone with me in my pocket to ground me is a good idea. I've got a piece of amber from Mexico that could fit the bill. My gratitude to y'all! :-)
Sending good vibrations to you for tomorrow