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've had another tough week and I need support to end it well tomorrow. I was diagnosed with bronchitis yesterday, and took a rare sick day. Today I kept an appointment with a surgeon to see about having surgery in May. While driving to my appointment I had a life and death phone call from a student in crisis to top it all off.
I've had 2 calls this week from this good student who took my community college death and dying class last Fall. In the first he told me his sister died of a heroin overdose, and to tell his teachers about it so they'd know why he was absent from a day of classes for her funeral, which I did. Today he called to say he was depressed, couldn't get out of bed until 2pm, and felt at risk.
Concerned he might self-medicate with heroin like his sister who overdosed on it, I got going. I know our college's counselor, so I got him to make an appointment with him for tomorrow for talk therapy. Concerned about the street drug vs. legitimate antidepressant issue, though, I did more. I called my own psychiatrist and asked if he could see my student asap.
My psychiatrist obliged and did his intake right over the phone. That done, then I had to report to my boss at the college to document it all for legal liability. That's how the plot thickens to put me in crisis not only concerning my acute bronchitis, but my boss and PTSD stigma.
I came out of the closet about my PTSD when I went up for tenure at my college in 2016 and got blowback in the form of twice as many interviews before the tenure committee than required of anyone else. In them, insulting questions were asked that showed a clear PTSD stigma. My teaching evaluations and credentials were impossible to dispute, so the tenure committee voted me anyway, although they wrote for the record that they did so with, in their words, "grave concern" about my PTSD disclosure.
At that time in 2016 I accepted tenure, saying some day I would probably need a disability accommodation to stop teaching overloads because of PTSD at my age. I sat the college vice president and the head of human resources down and had it put on the record. However, in 2017 when I did invoke what was written, the response was as if it caught them by surprise, and my boss required that I put it all on the record again in the presence of a dean in October 2017.
I give all of that background here to say that documenting to my boss now that I helped a student by referring him to my psychiatrist is likely to be met with hostility tomorrow. My boss covers her own back and throws others under the bus rather than risk her career whether anyone is in crisis or not.
Two students this week who made lots of noise requesting simple help with other Spanish courses I teach got all kinds of attention from my boss, but she will not be happy to hear about this more important help for a student who is really in crisis.
I'm asking for support in the blowback from her I can expect tomorrow, even though I'm glad I heard back from the student at the end of the day that he's safe and seeing both a talk therapist and a meds doc. I know I did the right thing, but in a workplace in which no good deed involving my PTSD goes unpunished, I'd like some support.
Please don't just tell me to get a lawyer; I've decided to take the approach instead of getting through 2 more years of teaching until I retire. As an alternative, I also have had 2 interviews in the last 2 weeks with other colleges for jobs where I might be promoted to Chair if selected. So I'm asking for support for a non-lawyer approach.
I am feeling well enough with my bronchitis after two days of antibiotics to handle teaching tomorrow. However, there are no antibiotics for PTSD stigma I can take to prepare me if my boss responds to my PTSD's mention in helping this student the way she has to mention of my PTSD in the past. For that the antibiotic is your support.
Specifically: I hope she doesn't haul me in before the dean again like she did last October when I requested my PTSD disability accommodation. Please hope so with me. Fingers crossed.
Muji
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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 will be okay, you have the wisdom and experience to deal with this. YOu have been very kind and helped this student. Feel proud of what you have accomplished....well done!! hugs
((((( hugs ))))
Healing hopes for all. No exceptions. Extra healing hopes for the boss? Sounds like she needs them.
The lady doth protest too much, methinks. ~Shakespeare (Hamlet)
to me you have a clear understanding of what could happen tomorrow with your boss. how the politics of the system is played out.
You work and who you are as a person is an example of courage,determination,faith, and resilience. I think you and others like you should be recognized for what they do for others. and for our society.
Some people get...others don't or don't want to .
Glad that the young guy is getting help.
Take care and believe in yourself. ☼
I wish you were my professor I was taking my Rn exams and a person walked into the room a spitting image of my ex who I had gone into hiding from for 5 years already. My PTSD too over my body, I started to cry and shake profusely. it got to the point they asked me to leave the class. I could hardly walk. I ended up collapsing out side the door and taken to emerg by ambulance. The next day I explained to my professor what happened , she saidand I quote" shit happens suck it up or don't become a nurse" I wasn't allowed to do my exam for that year and had to redue the whole class to do exams the following year. the next year the same Professor was thee. she looked me square in the eyes and said" so your back let's see if you can pass the exam without making up more excuses. I could not give them proof of my being underground because that would put the program that saved many woman and children at risk P assed with Honors and after that I wrote a letter to the head of the hospital explaining PTSD and how it can affect people. I also told him that I was forced to take another year of nursing because of that Professor who demanded proof in which I could not give because it could harm other woman. it just so happens that the head of the school had a daughter who had been abused by her spouse and died. So when he heard my story he paid me back for my extra year of courses and he reprimanded that Professor.
so my PTSD helped change the school they then added Ptsd as a medical reason for missing classes as long as there was proof medically by three professionals. If it could help one person it was worth it. so when your Ptsd starts to cause problems think of my story and I hope it will calm you down. I worked as a registered nurse for 15 years until I got permanently injured at work. I have a spine injury and nerve damage. But I have given my name and address to the faculty to help anyone who has Ptsd and has issues with courses. It is shocking how many people have different forms of PTSD. My heart goes out to you. You did the right thing I am glad you didn't get fired, because that could have happened. I am sure that you are a very good teacher. I am here if you need a shoulder to lean on. Gentles hugs Casey.
I ahd a prof who, at my oral defense, asked me when I'd lost my mind along with my focus. I was able to answer, thank God, "Halfway through my writing the introduction, my sister died very unexpectedly," but I can't recall another damn thing about that defense. (I later found out the dean, whom I'd told, with everyone on the advisory board, in my *own notes sent with mhy own drafts of the chapter*... told that guy to go eff himself and similar nasties, b/c you do *not* do that to students). I still got an excellent grade (two fo three professors agreed it was A work, and Snotmouth gave me a D, and od you know, that's why I graduated one level of cum laude lower, and he also wanted me out of Phi Beta Kappa? B/c the dean of the dep't told him, privately, to not be a jackass to students during oral defense. The story went very very public b/c of the prof who trashed me and felt pissed off that the dean called him on it. ....
Flash forward to just two years ago. This a-hat prof? Teaching for Great Courses/Teaching Company. I was like, "Are you fucking kidding me? How did that guy....?!"
Many the mysteries of the academic sociopolitical world, Muji, and if you survive them, you'll have survived war of a whole other kind, I suspect. I'm talking 'conspiracy theory Mothman was the CIA' level of shitty tricks and terror and I've no idea what else. Nor do I want to.
Not hijacking, but wow. I had such fondness for all but 2 profs/teachers in my entire *life*, y'know? So I admire that you're the same kind.
That gives me even more confidence that my problem is understood here and that your support and advice is right on target for me to walk into my building at school with it today, whatever happens.
Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to school I go....trying to whistle with confidence, your support as the wind at my back. Thank you.
Thanks, I'm really glad that student called me at the end of the day as I rode back from my doctor's appointment and told me he was ok. We even had a laugh on the phone. He's seeing the therapist today and my psychiatrist took him as a patient to give him antidepressants. So I can go into the weekend not worrying he'll turn to heroin like his sister did, what led to her overdose. ''
I would have worried all weekend that might turn up dead, too. I was the pall bearer for a depressed kid. I was the last person he talked to before he overdosed. I still miss that guy, and if I could keep from losing this one it was worth it to me.
I'll expect punishment, though, from the boss. Your description is right on, I'm afraid. She has got her priorities all backwards, her ambition has made her blind. She sees anything I do that does not serve her ambition as a threat and in opposing me involves deans and upper bosses she wants to impress.
It's a shame, because I'm grateful she was the one to hire me seven years ago in the first place, I owe that to her. But she's turned into a greedy career climber. It's a lesson to me in what ambition can do to a good person.
Thanks for your encouragement as I go to face the music at school this morning.
Muji
Much of the time I think it sux so then we have to make a choice when certain things come up in life
You've made the kind and humane choice.... I think you've made the right choice and kudos to you for your courage....
Another hug and a blessing..... Please let us know how it goes when you can.....xo
I’m so saddened by all these accounts of stigma. Big hugs to everyone who shared. You are all beautiful souls.