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.
Holy cow! On my vacation it seems that my karma is to meet and chat with more folks with PTSD like me. On the way down it happened during my layover in the Mexico City airport. I posted about it earlier this week and you gave me lots of support. It had to do with a US military veteran amputee who was down on his luck so we chatted there for a while.
Just now I came to my hotel lobby because there were places to plug in to charge my laptop. I only chose where to sit based on how far my laptop's cable extended. I happened to sit, though, next to 2 ladies from San Antonio who just survived a fatal boating accident yesterday just outside of town here in San Cristobal, Mexico. They were on a river tour, and their boat ran into another boat and capsized. The two ladies I talked to were trapped beneath the overturned boat along with another lady passenger. The two ladies I spoke to managed to swim out from under the boat, but the other third lady didn't know how to swim and she drowned. One of the two ladies I spoke to was with the third lady when she died from drowning.
Needless to say, being on vacation, seeking only to charge my laptop, and being only a PTSD patient myself, all I could do was listen. One of the two lady survivors seemed fine, but the other lady survivor spoke to me of having insomnia, nightmares, and trembling all last night. I told her as a patient with PTSD that was what I felt, too, when I went through a traumatic incident (carbombing) and that, as a patient, I'd recommend seeing a trauma therapist back home in San Antonio. She might want to see if those are PTSD symptoms, I said, stressing I'm not a doctor. Plus, if they pursue any legal remedy for what they went through, it would be documented.
Wow, I'm just coming down from that intense conversation. I've had a great vacation here in San Cristobal and I leave tomorrow. But before I return to vacation mode, I wanted to share about having met my 2nd possible PTSD person on my vacation this week. I'm glad I have a place to go when things like this come up. And they sure seem to come up when I'm definitely, definitely not in PTSD mode.
Again, DEFINITELY not seeking out such conversations. The first time was on an airport layover, the second time this time was plugging in my laptop to charge it up in my lobby.
Does this happen to anybody else?
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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.
Stay aware, muji. Safe travels.
Have a safe flight home.... Big hug.....x
I'm glad there's not some signal I'm sending out or anything spooky like that. It's good to think that all that happens is that having been here on DS PTSD where we talk and listen to each other, then once someone does raise an issues of theirs on their own, there's an ability to listen from experience here.
Because I like to have fun on vacation as much as the next person, to experience joy as much as sorrow. My vacation's coming to an end, and I have had a good time. So much so that I already reserved a room in my same Mexican hotel for when I'm done teaching summer school in July. YAY!
Thanks again for letting me know this sort of talk happens to you all, too. Always grateful for that feedback that puts things in meaningful context.
Safe journey home mate
Love Manda XXX
My son knows the kids involved and works and drives skidsteers, so even through he was not there he is having some difficulties with this. A couple of his friends were at the party and saw the aftermath while waiting for the paramedics to get there. We have some messed up kids right now and I know some of them will come to me because of my own experiences and because I work on the support line.
Anyway, in answer to your questions, yes, I can always find people like me. I can spot them too and I don't really understand how or why but I just seem to know if someone is suffering even if they have a smile on their face. I am not sure if it is a case of there are a lot more of us PTSD, traumatized people around then anyone knows about or if it is we just have some kind of kindred spirit that says, "I can talk to this person and they will get it, they will understand, it is safe".
Anyway, I am glad you were there for these ladies. Your understanding and excellent response to suggest they get home and see a doctor was spot on. You did not diagnose, you said it perfectly. Have you ever thought about volunteering for victim services or a crisis line? I think you would be amazing.
Good work Muji. You were in the right place at the right time and likely saved that woman a bunch of heart ache and grief while she tried to figure out what was going on with her.
Case in point, when I moved to a new town someone told me to contact this yoga therapist, it felt good and I put her number in my purse. I lost the number. I few months later I was flying out west to go skiing. The women beside me was busy reading and studying, but I had a gut feeling to talk to her. I waited until she didn't look busy and we chatted...she was the yoga therapist . I find her beside me on the plane across the country. Oh weird is that. She by the way, did help me with her great talents.
Yeah, CC, it seems that PTSD is around us more than folks imagine. I didn't mention something else. Musk ended up sitting on a plane next to a yoga instructor she needed to meet. It seems I ended up sitting next to someone I was meant to meet. He's an anthropology prof at a private, elite college who was coming down to Mexico to work on some Mayan ruins for the week.
In my first career before leaving it to become a hospital chaplain, I was a lot like him, a Latin American Studies program director at an elite private university. I gave that up to work with trauma survivors as a hospital chaplain for 10 years. Now I teach nursing students at a community college from my hospital chaplaincy.
This prof I met on the plane and I had dinner alone together. I pay my bills on a public community college salary instead of the private university salary I used to have. At times like that sometimes I have wondered if my career change was wise or not.
Dinner with my new prof friend sure took care of that. He and I are the same age, so it was like looking into a mirror at what would have been if I hadn't made my career change. He confessed to me that he is SO unhappy with the private elite college professor life he has. That it's a lot of campus politics and posturing that doesn't have personal meaning for him any more.
I sat there listening and realized that while I may miss the money, as far as meaning goes, my cup runneth over. Both with us here on DS PTSD, and at my school, and on those weekends when I speak at churches. If there were a way to have money and all of that meaning, too, that would be perfect, true. But in a world where we have to make hard choices, I'm glad I made the one I made.
I saw my prof friend again this morning as we boarded our plane to fly home. He back to his life, me back to mine. It made me be honest with myself beyond nostalgia about what once was or envy about what might have been. I was honestly glad about the life I had to go back to.