When I was healthy I was a hospital chaplain, so after my kidney crash now I teach death and dying classes nursing students at a community college.  Summer school started last night, and our topic included "reading the human text," meaning not just the words people say but their tone of voice, facial expressions, etc.

Right in front of me during the class there was a pair of nursing students, one who is graduating, one who is really pre-nursing, not admitted yet.  The contrast was striking.  The one who is graduating shared about how a family member of hers died of pancreatic cancer 3 months ago, really enriched the class.  The other one either threw shade of what others said, or sat there with tears in her eyes, then every time someone noticed she cried she said "I don't want talk about it" as if they were being nosey.  I thought to myself, hey, if it makes her cry, I wonder why she would sign up for a class about death in the first place, you know? 

I was like that latter one too, once, a come-closer-go-away person in a whole lot of denial about what was eating me up inside but pushing people away.  It made me think about myself here on DS PTSD, and how my signing up to be here was a statement about being ready to ask for help in and of itself.  Then I learned to get support and give support and I became more like the first nursing student, the one that's graduating, able to share about myself without falling apart or becoming defensive.  As my therapist said, as we talk things out repetition brings mastery, we gain authority as author of our own story.

Seeing myself in those two students was a really cool moment of reflection.  There's a lot of emotional push and pull inside of us in PTSD recovery, isn't there?