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.
Remember back when gay folk had to live more closeted than today? When gay people had "gaydar" like radar and could sense which heterosexual allies to trust with their personal info and vice versa?
Something like that seems to happen from my PTSD recovery. Without my sending out any conscious signals, every so often a total stranger trusts me with something confidential beyond even my role as college instructor and former hospital chaplain.
It happened this week. A new student sought me out. They are a recovering addict many years clean now, but legal info on their past got to the wrong people at my college. This person came to me and told me their story and asked me to vouch for them.
I checked their story out, and I went through the right channels and vouched for them, and the situation that made the recovering addict student was resolved. It wasn't a big deal, really, but I wanted to talk about it here because I just know it happens to others here, too. I'm not saying it justifies suffering the trauma that gave us PTSD's pain for life. I just think it is one of those "gifts" of PTSD that I think we turn for good in helping each other here and others beyond.
Something like that seems to happen from my PTSD recovery. Without my sending out any conscious signals, every so often a total stranger trusts me with something confidential beyond even my role as college instructor and former hospital chaplain.
It happened this week. A new student sought me out. They are a recovering addict many years clean now, but legal info on their past got to the wrong people at my college. This person came to me and told me their story and asked me to vouch for them.
I checked their story out, and I went through the right channels and vouched for them, and the situation that made the recovering addict student was resolved. It wasn't a big deal, really, but I wanted to talk about it here because I just know it happens to others here, too. I'm not saying it justifies suffering the trauma that gave us PTSD's pain for life. I just think it is one of those "gifts" of PTSD that I think we turn for good in helping each other here and others beyond.
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Years ago, I won a mirrored armoire from my job. It's in my bedroom but I rarely stand in front of it. Yesterday, I had to have a dexascan done so I had to change into a gown. There was a full length mirror in the changing room. I'm aware that I gained 5 to 7 pounds over the last year from cheating on Keto but I didn't know what it looked like. It was a reality check.
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"don't be a hate hole" has been one of my recent mantras which seems to be escaping my mouth more and more often. it emerges when i am faced with the endless list of chores i would rather not deal with. insurance. head lice. bureaucracy. in-laws. the list goes on and on and on and on, ad infinitum.reality checks requested. am i making sense?"ever'thin they is but loving leaves a rust on your...
One reason I think this might be is because I have a hard time with trust, I possibly go overboard demonstrating that I am a "safe" person. Perhaps it's not even that conscious, more like I offer the vibes that make me feel safe around the people I do trust, and others pick up on it.
I feel safe here (even when my feeling on the rest of the world border on paranoia), so my guess is there are many on here who tend to find themselves confided in by others.
The second one is sort of flip side of coin, where our own vulnerability is sensed by aggressive others. The last few years I was teaching I sometimes felt like the limping wildebeast in the heard, viewed as easy prey for getting jerked around. This may (only a conjecture) be what Canuk was hit with today.
Seems like everything w/ an up side also has a down side.
I often wonder about effects of children in war zones maybe because as a child my worse nightmare was of war going on in my front yard..full blown one.
Inside my house and other places i normally feel safe, at times it was like war zone trying to keep myself away from relatives that prey on small children.
All i know is that from my experiences as child, i always was more aware of my surroundings all the time, learned to read emotions in people or feel them i guess is better word.
Positive side, i bonded with animals and also learned to read them very well and what i thought all people who work with dogs, horses etc just felt, i know can tell person who has PTSD by fact that most are tuned in to their animals feelings more.
I have often wondered whether I wear an invisible sign on my forehead that attracts trouble when I least expect it.
I choose to do the right thing for the person asking for help, and it has led me to new and safer direction for my healing as well.
Thank you for sharing.
I love the way you put it, Mujica.
Yep. :)
I like to look at it as though I've been forged into a new and useful form. Sure, my brain is a bit scrambled, but I know how to cope with it after a decade of therapy, and meds permanently... and now I actually have a useful skill to pass on to others in how to cope with an increasingly chaotic world.