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 posted this weekend about how things in my own life were calm lately, feeling too calm, really. I think I found out what the cosmos had in store with that. I was meant to be calm to help someone else, maybe. But it's a big job and I can't do it without your support here.
Today a wonderful student I'll call J. came by my office crying. She's a 40+ year old non-traditional student in my community college class. She has spoken out very well in class on her PTSD recovery from being a battered wife. Excellent student, person, role model.
Today she came by my office on campus crying. Her daughter, who I'll call B., was raped this past summer, something J. hadn't told me before. Tomorrow the guy who raped B is going to court, but on a lesser charge than rape because it was date rape and the prosecutor doesn't want to charge the whole felony.
The rapist has been calling her and harassing her in spite of an order of protection, the prosecutor has been asking that B. get more evidence. Basically the case is a mess, and B. has PTSD from the rape that is being worsened by all of the mishandling of the case and the rapist's contacts with her by phone. That, in turn, has triggered J.'s PTSD as a mom.
J.'s son W. is also my student. He's a big guy, built like a football lineman, and he's enraged at how his sister B. is being treated. He's worrying his mom J. with his desire to go take the rapist out himself. An understandable feeling for any guy, true, but not helping at the moment.
When J. came by the office today to tell me and have a cry, we closed the door and had a prayer together. Nice, but it didn't comfort her in the least, and I wouldn't have felt that comforted by such a thing myself if I were in her shoes.
Would you all send prayers and/or good vibes to J, B, and W for the next few days? And for me, too, since they come to me to cry on my shoulder. It's all I can offer, really. All anybody can, I suppose. I wish I could do more. It's not enough, I know. But to be a companion to their suffering is all I've got, really. It's all I ever have, sad to say.
But at least I can tell them a whole bunch of people who have been through this kind of messy craziness are out there pulling for them.
Today a wonderful student I'll call J. came by my office crying. She's a 40+ year old non-traditional student in my community college class. She has spoken out very well in class on her PTSD recovery from being a battered wife. Excellent student, person, role model.
Today she came by my office on campus crying. Her daughter, who I'll call B., was raped this past summer, something J. hadn't told me before. Tomorrow the guy who raped B is going to court, but on a lesser charge than rape because it was date rape and the prosecutor doesn't want to charge the whole felony.
The rapist has been calling her and harassing her in spite of an order of protection, the prosecutor has been asking that B. get more evidence. Basically the case is a mess, and B. has PTSD from the rape that is being worsened by all of the mishandling of the case and the rapist's contacts with her by phone. That, in turn, has triggered J.'s PTSD as a mom.
J.'s son W. is also my student. He's a big guy, built like a football lineman, and he's enraged at how his sister B. is being treated. He's worrying his mom J. with his desire to go take the rapist out himself. An understandable feeling for any guy, true, but not helping at the moment.
When J. came by the office today to tell me and have a cry, we closed the door and had a prayer together. Nice, but it didn't comfort her in the least, and I wouldn't have felt that comforted by such a thing myself if I were in her shoes.
Would you all send prayers and/or good vibes to J, B, and W for the next few days? And for me, too, since they come to me to cry on my shoulder. It's all I can offer, really. All anybody can, I suppose. I wish I could do more. It's not enough, I know. But to be a companion to their suffering is all I've got, really. It's all I ever have, sad to say.
But at least I can tell them a whole bunch of people who have been through this kind of messy craziness are out there pulling for them.
She got to his boss, and got support and satisfaction in court, such as it is we all know. But J. was out of that anguish I saw in her when she came by Monday, saying even that praying with her then in my office (which I feared did not good) was a comfort as was knowing you all were sending good thoughts and prayers here. DS PTSD did some good in the real world beyond just us on the site this week. Thanks to all.
Child rapists live in constant danger in prison because many inmates have children on the outside they can't protect, so they don't much like living with them in the next cell over. Another inmate in the prison stabbed him and killed him.
We who were his surviving victims knew each other and knew he was murdered. None of us shed a tear, but on the other hand his death didn't make us whole, much as it may have been jailhouse justice. The damage he did to us outlived him. We still had to work on our PTSD recovery.
That's helpful for me to tell B. and her family, because in this case the rapist isn't getting heavy sentence he deserved. He's being charged more lightly by that foot-dragging prosecutor I mentioned earlier. But even when they get a heavy sentence like my rapist did and even when they get killed for their crime, as my rapist did, healing still has to be done.
That's why the victim's statement to the court was so important. The first step of that long journey from victim to survivor to thriver.