Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Support Group
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Ever since last May, including all summer in Mexico, one way or another I've been putting off having some outpatient oral surgery. Tomorrow is my day of reckoning.
TRIGGER WARNING
I've got to have a broken root canal extracted. Then in 4 months when the spot heals, I've got to have an implant.
It's expensive work, but it needs to be done.
The thing is, I had a rough day at work today. My young boss intercepted me in the hallway and told me my community college president's office heard from an unnamed student of mine that I wasn't using email and online technology enough. It was disconcerting to be dressed down in public like that, and bewildering that the complaint went anonymously over my head after only one week of school.
My college just bought a new online system, so they're really urgent about our using it to justify the expense. I understand their point of view, but I teach nursing students bedside care of terminal patients, and for 8 years it's been understand that it is a face to face skill, not an online one. I do teach an online course, but that didn't seem to matter to my young boss, though. It seemed the idea was set against all evidence that I'm an old faculty member who is resisting using online technology.
That seemed really unfair, given that in addition to teaching online, as my boss well knows, I'm here every day as a CL online at DS PTSD, too. But so it goes. I came home, then, and made sure to send an email to each student of my 5 classes I teach, and also to post an announcement for each of the 5 on the Brightspace website for each class. It took hours.
My boss knew I was going to have to take a sick day tomorrow, but didn't say anything about it. Now I'm wondering if my needing a dental implant doesn't confirm my boss's view of me as an old guy who is over the hill. I'm not crazy about having all of that on my mind tomorrow as I also cope with my PTSD triggers prompted by the outpatient surgical experience. Support welcome.
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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.
You have a young boss, and he is probably still learning how to manage people. It is an art more than a science and it can not be taught in MBA school. If the complaint is anonymous then I would give it little credence as the poster did not feel confident enough to confront you the teacher. I feel the same as you do with a young boss. Often I want to pull her aside and give her some experience but they are now in charge, so I go along. I bite my tongue daily.
So good luck tomorrow. Please know that you have helped on this board.
Thanks.
I’m 36 tomorrow. I have two broken teeth that had root canals. I got the root canals when I was 22. They failed within 6 months of each other. So it’s not age. It’s just use and the nature of dental procedures. They don’t always last.
Mine need to be extracted too. I plan on doing it at the end of the year. I’m dentist phobic so it’ll be a challenge.
Good luck tomorrow. You’ll feel better after it’s done.
As for the dentist, as you know from some of my previous postings, I dread them. Id rather see 100 doctors, and i dont like going to the doctor either, than to see one dentist. Its an instant trigger to me. You have my deepest empathy and always my continued support. I find using my mental thought process to recreate in my head only my favorite pieces of music helps me get through sometimes. Like i literally begin playing moonlight sonata in my head. And sometimes its movies scenes. I like totally concentrate on recreating the scene. For instance, take a scene in the wizard of oz. first i lay downthe green grass, the the yellow road, then i brick that road, then i put lollipops and then flowers, then munchkins, and finally step by step create dorothy toto tin man scarecrow and the cowardly lion. Before im finished skipping them all down the road to the tune of ease on down the road, the dental visit is over. It works for basic exams and cleanings the best, but it helps with the harder procedures a little too. For those i break out Stallone’s Rocky. Something empowering about a man so in love with a woman he screams her name “ Adrienne” <3
Triple hugs of prayers and good thought wishes and support~
I did this when I had to get repeat steroid injections in my back. I always sang the same song, recreated the music video in my head. It was a song I loved. Now I can't listen to it because it became a trigger for remembering the injections. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. But music does help a lot. Maybe you can play it on your phone with headphones during the visit with the dentist.
I appreciate the read you all gave me on my boss. As I've said here before, I'm hoping to retire to Mexico in 2 years, but though 2 years will fly by, right now it's also not here yet and I don't want to make any announcement yet.
The picture is complicated by the fact that my community college where I teach is, like lots of schools, having enrollment problems. So older faculty like me are being offered incentives to retire so the college can save money--and the younger administrators can save their own jobs.
They're in their 40s, and have over 20 years yet before they can retire. The emphasis on new technology at this school year's start seems to be the result of a decision they've made over the summer. It appears that they want to try to attract more enrollment by being a school on the cutting edge of instructional technology. Hence the sharp reaction to any hint from a student about an instructor like me not being on board with the latest technology.
The trick is to avoid getting into a panic from all of these pressure, isn't it? As always, I remind myself that PTSD is, in the end, an anxiety disorder. Dentist anxiety, retirement anxiety, enrollment anxiety, technology anxiety--one can feed the other and escalate. Escalating anxiety seemed to have overtaken my boss yesterday. I don't want to join in because with my PTSD it can escalate out of control.
I'm grateful to you for helping me separate the two anxieties that were getting intertwined on me. They're two separate issues:
1. the short term dentist anxiety about today's procedure, and
2. the long term anxiety about the timing of retirement and a retirement announcement.
It's good for me to follow the aphorism "one day at a time" with is, isn't it?
I think that your boss is often passive/aggressive.... If when you're leaving you are asked for your thoughts on teaching there I would bring it up..... She's done this sooooo many times and I think she does it in order to trigger you
Not cool and actually cruel..... She needs to get over herself..... Another hug.....xo
If when you're retiring you asked to submit some info about your stay at this school I would write how unpleasant she's often made your stay there..... I've had a boss like her.... We've discussed it and they really shouldn't be in a position of power
I know, then, it can be stressful for her to be a boss at my community college because it was stressful for me back then at my university. However, as you say, she has "done this sooooo many times." When I went up for tenure again at the community college level from my hospital chaplaincy career in 2016 I revealed my role here as Community Leader on DS PTSD. It fulfilled my community service requirement for tenure. So she does know about my PTSD diagnosis.
Sorry you've also had a boss like this. It's a shame because I'll bet you liked your job overall like I like mine, all except for that one critical component. I know you understand from experience.
My outpatient oral surgery was a little harder than I expected it to be, and the surgeon sent me out the door with a letter requiring me to stay home from work Wednesday and Thursday to return to work Friday. I posted my doctor's letter in our college's new online Brightspace system and copied it to all of my students and my boss via email. It gave me a chance to show I, as an old faculty member approaching retirement, could use our college's new online technology after all.
I'm truly grateful for your support. My mouth is sore from today's outpatient oral surgery, but my mind is no longer troubled about taking time off work for it and my heart is at peace, thanks to you all.
I hope you can get in some good days of rest & that you start to feel better
Gentle hug <3
Hope the Labor Day holiday helps her cool off. Again, I have tenure, so I can't be fired, and my job performance evaluations are 80/20% favorable for 8 years now, so being the target of dislike can only lead to dislike, not affect my employment status. And I'm looking forward to retiring year after next anyway.
Can't figure out what has my boss so motivated.... It's been this way for 3 years now since I came out of the closet about PTSD to document my Community Leader role here at DS to fulfill my community service requirement for tenure, which I got for the second time in my career (first time at a university).