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.
Many of you know that part of my PTSD recovery journey has been something else along with my weekly therapy and face to face support group participation. After my first 5 years of recovery, in 2001 I decided to help myself by helping other trauma survivors for a while. I did so as a hospital emergency room chaplain until 2010. It was hard at times to be around fresh traumas with my own PTSD, but it kept me committed to working on my own recovery, too. So it was a rich experience.
It was such a rich experience in part because I had a great chaplaincy teacher, my mentor. Even after my own health broke with incurable kidney disease in 2010 (partly from PTSD meds I took to do the chaplaincy job--another story) my mentor has stayed in touch.
Just now she emailed me of the sudden suicide one of my dear classmates who worked with me as a chaplain also under my mentor in 2003-2004. It's shocking. She was my exact age, 56. My classmate who just committed suicide was ordained in the same church, too, shared the same faith beliefs, worked and believed in hospice like me.
Even now after chaplaincy I am teaching community college nursing students 3 sections of a course in the care of terminally ill patients, all from what I learned literally working alongside my classmate who just committed suicide. As you know from my thread about my talks with my boss about tenure this week, I try to be open about my own PTSD and how it humbly informs my teaching.
I feel for my friend, colleague, and comrade in faith in her suicide and how much pain she must have been in even as she ministered to the pain of others. It must be hard for her family right now. It must be hard for my mentor, too, as her email to me about it mentions going now to the church memorial and also trying to be a support to those through our chaplaincy network to colleagues shaken by this suicide of one of our own.
I'm sad and shaken, so I thought I would reach out for support here now.
It was such a rich experience in part because I had a great chaplaincy teacher, my mentor. Even after my own health broke with incurable kidney disease in 2010 (partly from PTSD meds I took to do the chaplaincy job--another story) my mentor has stayed in touch.
Just now she emailed me of the sudden suicide one of my dear classmates who worked with me as a chaplain also under my mentor in 2003-2004. It's shocking. She was my exact age, 56. My classmate who just committed suicide was ordained in the same church, too, shared the same faith beliefs, worked and believed in hospice like me.
Even now after chaplaincy I am teaching community college nursing students 3 sections of a course in the care of terminally ill patients, all from what I learned literally working alongside my classmate who just committed suicide. As you know from my thread about my talks with my boss about tenure this week, I try to be open about my own PTSD and how it humbly informs my teaching.
I feel for my friend, colleague, and comrade in faith in her suicide and how much pain she must have been in even as she ministered to the pain of others. It must be hard for her family right now. It must be hard for my mentor, too, as her email to me about it mentions going now to the church memorial and also trying to be a support to those through our chaplaincy network to colleagues shaken by this suicide of one of our own.
I'm sad and shaken, so I thought I would reach out for support here now.
I'm so glad I have been coming here day by day for years now. I don't have to scramble to create a support network. This community is already there. I don't care what people might say about virtual friends not being real. It's not true. This is a true community of friends to me, in every sense. Thank you all.
Offline I've gotten support, too. I just got off the phone with a seminary classmate also of the class of 2001 who was with me in those days when I knew my now departed friend. That phone chat was really helpful, because on the phone I was able to say that I don't want to forget all the good stuff with the shock of the suicidal ending.
I know what people mean when they say suicide is the "coward's way out," but I don't reach that conclusion myself. I honestly don't. I wasn't there, I don't know what my friend was feeling in those final moments. I do know her life before that, and she was a brave and compassionate person who helped a lot of people in hospice, and that takes courage. So being able to affirm that on the phone to a friend from those days back in seminary in 2001 was really good for me.
Thanks for letting me pass that on to you all, too. I have found that the more witnesses to processing pain, the better the healing goes.
Gentle hugs!
Having a support group is a huge tool. Mingling with those that really understand first hand is probably the biggest help in recovery.
At the church where I spoke today I got to say something about her during the Joys and Concerns part of the service and got to light a candle for her. Surprisingly, that act and that little ritual really helped, because it gathered up all the support here and gave it public voice and validation. Thank you, everybody.
Then after church by old college roommate called on the phone from across the country. His daughter is a hospital chaplain, too, like my friend who just committed suicide, so when I emailed him about it that made him care all the more and call me. It really helped to talk to him, too.
All the support is much appreciated. Suicide is a hard one to grieve, and I'm glad not to do it alone, but with all of you.