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.
Last night's wrap up in my gratitude journal entry read, "I am grateful for a day teaching online without having to go in to school to work because working from home online via computer has meant I was out of reach of the abuse there." Now here it's Friday and I do have to go in to school to work within reach of that. That's why even though I was bone tired I woke up worried at 5am with only 6 hours of sleep. I had dreamt that a foreign woman living in my town got sick of the xenophobia and workplace harassment for having civilian combat PTSD like I have and moved away.
My subconscious spoke to me in the form of that foreign woman in my dream because I happened to overhear my local foreign gas station owner speaking in his native language to a foreign woman friend yesterday when I stopped by his gas station to fill my car up with gas. As I pumped my gas and listened, I found myself feeling jealous that they, who are more foreign than I am and who survived a war zone like I did, could handle living in my town now better than I could. I thought that maybe that was because they make more money than I do.
But no amount of money could compensate for this xenophobia and PTSD stigma harassment I have had to endure in at my school as a foreign language instructor with PTSD from living in a war zone abroad. No wonder there was a 4 year gap between when my predecessor at my school retired and their hiring me. Nobody wanted the community college job. As I've said here before, my tires have been slashed 3 times, acid has been poured on the hood of my car in the school parking lot, a bullet has been fired through the driver's side mirror of my car--and that's just a catalog of insults against my motor vehicle. Those against my soul and psyche number in the thousands. It's amazing that I've been able to manage any sanity at all. When bosses at my work found out that I had PTSD, instead of support they wrote me a letter of "grave concern" instead.
The fact that I survived torture under a dictatorship on the mission field growing up as a missionary kid is the only explanation I can offer for how I am somehow surviving. So here I am again, as I'll be back again and again, asking for your support today I'll get through one more day and one more week. In 3 weeks I get away for a rest to Mexico, and 16 months and I retire there. Support welcome again for the day by day daily strength to get me there. Thanks.
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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.
Spencer.
Do you know what I found once getting to school today?? My "big" window (of maybe two feet) was egged. Frozen solid and disgusting looking. Can't imagine what you go through, but know education can be tough.
Hang in there. We are with you.
Huge hug.... I am so very sorry that you've had to go through this misery my friend.... Another hug and a blessing....xo
i'm so sorry for all you have been through,and go through day after day.
You so do not deserve this.
Much support.
I wrote this thread this morning first of all so I could vent my anxiety well enough to go function at work without just bottling it all up alone. It worked. I did my job.
I wrote this thread this morning second of all to make myself accountable to you all as my peers in PTSD recovery, too. I saw that worked, too, in how you posted support here today for me to find when I got home. :-)
So I learned today that if I ask you for your support and accept it, then that means I'm responsible. It means not just throwing up my hands in despair at work on the one hand. On the other hand it means not just lashing out at someone at work. Just snapping at a student, staff member, faculty member, or administrator would make my justified stressed out feelings illegitimate.
Rather than having the stress and its source beyond me at work be recognized, if I bottled this up until I despaired or snapped at somebody, then my feelings could be dismissed with PTSD stigma as just a temper problem and my own emotional problem alone. Instead, I shared my stress with two coworkers at school this afternoon. One of them offered to meet me tomorrow to help me get extra online work done our bosses are adding to the mix this year.
I'm not alone because I have you, and that's half the battle in looking ahead to when I can retire to Mexico in 16 months. Bless you all, truly.
There is something severely wrong with the people you work with. If they have an issue with somebody with PTSD, how could they possibly handle students who have it as well?
I'm so grateful to be able to count on asking for help in the morning with faith in my peers. Faith that is so rewarded by that very same evening.
Thank you, thank you all.