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.
Another news story in USA Today brought on anxiety about my plans to retire back to Mexico where I grew up, with Uruguay, as a missionary kid. I got PTSD in my family's years of missionary service during 6 years of civil war in Uruguay south of the border. I had two near death experiences during those years. One was in a car bombing when I was 9. The other was when a military officer tried to execute me after a torture session and his gun jammed twice when he pulled the trigger. In between were years of other bombings, kidnappings, killings, and seeing people shot and killed through the eyes of a child.
My PTSD therapy involved counseling from a VA doctor who treated me for anxiety like he treated combat soldiers, and it worked. He got me to where I could go back south of the border to do exposure therapy where those traumatic combat experiences happened to me as a child. It worked so well that not only did it relieve my fears, it also helped me embrace the good times I had growing up abroad on the mission field as a kid, too.
In 2009 I went back to Uruguay and saw my childhood friends who survived the war with me there, too, and got their support for my PTSD recovery. In 2016 my former roommate from college in the USA went all the way down to Uruguay with me and did my exposure therapy with me literally by my side. That's when I knew my PTSD recovery was far enough along for me to think not only that I didn't have to avoid travel south of the border, I could actually go back there for good when I retired.
In addition to my full time week day job, I took on another part time job weekends so I could afford to revisit where I grew up in both Mexico and Uruguay to consider locations for retirement. I settled on Mexico for two reasons: it was closer so that my USA friends could come see me there, and it was cheaper, too.
This past March, then, when I visited I rented a small apartment there. I signed a lease for the year because I wanted to nail down my retirement home for July 1, 2021 when I got vested 100% in my pension. Since my job as a community college instructor gives me summers and Christmas break off, I planned to live in it all summer of 2020 and this coming winter break, too.
That didn't happen this summer when the border was closed due to the pandemic. I lost money on summer plane tickets I'd bought. I had another plane ticket to visit Sept. 13 and the border was closed again for that, too.
The whole while my Mexican landlady and I have been in touch by phone, and I've been keeping the rent payments up on my home there in Mexico. Today, though, I got this bad news.
I'm with the folks now in this USA Today article in that this border closing stuff is weighing on me. It's getting to me with my PTSD recovery, too, and making me anxious about my retirement plans that began in my 2009 visit 10 years ago when I met with my childhood friends who survived the civil war there together as school kids. I know it might sound immature of me, but I've done everything right in my PTSD recovery, I've done all of the meds, the therapy sessions, the support group meetings, all of it. So why is this happening to me now?
As I've mentioned here, I have kidney disease from misdiagnosed diabetes during which I was taking too much Seroquel for too long for my PTSD nightmares. There I got hurt while doing the right thing for my PTSD, too. Now this? I have fended off suggestions that I take disability to make it all the way until retirement July 1, 2021. I need to retire for my health, and after bankruptcy during my 2001 divorce, I can only retire in Mexico, not where I live in the USA. Now that I've done everything right to follow through, now that I've rented my retirement home there, I can't get to it.
It doesn't seem fair, so I'm getting cynical about it, and that's bad for keeping faith in my PTSD recovery when I start to get cynical and lose faith in the future. This isn't good, y'all. I have been known to say the heck with it and blow my recovery before, only to end up in the psych ward of a hospital. That happened twice.
This news story today hit me hard and made me feel trapped. I feel like I won't be able to retire and give my kidney disease a rest. I feel like 10 years of plans based on good exposure therapy work revisiting Mexico and Uruguay has been for nothing.
I'm getting that feeling that nothing much matters--and what if it did? In the past that's been the foreshadowing of really bad times for me and my mental health. Can you support me somehow in keeping bad times like that from happening for me for a third time? I'd be really grateful.
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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.
I hvae faith it will be, b/c I know the pandemic isn't forever. Take that as fact, and hold to it. The fall and winter will be tough, b/c of adjusting to life in a pandemic with things "open" ---- and with the "second wave" and all that ---- but it isn't impossible.
We hold you in heart, Muji. Feel the puma paw, and take the strength it holds, okay? We got you.
Have faith my friend and never give up hope.
I'm not in the know about how to use the winter time idea secouya mentions, however, I do believe you're going to have better things happen soon for your well-being.
Hang in there, you're not alone!
I hope and pray that before long a vaccine will be a GOOD vaccine will be available and it will take time to get everyone vaccinated but I also agree that you are a beacon of hope......xo
I agree with all the others who said these restrictions are only temporary. They will HAVE to lift them at some point. Don't give up, we're on your side.
Peace and blessings.
As for residency abroad, I have permanent residency (the equivalent of a US green card) in Uruguay for having been raised there. Now because of the pandemic I'd need proof of having had a COVID-19 test within 72 hours of flying there and to quarantine for 7 days after arriving.
I'm trying to weigh all of the factors in choosing which one to go to. It's getting bad. I need to get out of the USA so the 5 attacks on my car since the last US election for teaching Spanish don't turn into a 6th attack on me. The 5th attack, after all, involved a bullet.
A bullet. Through the driver's side mirror of my car. While parked in my driveway.
Did I report it to the police? Immediately. Never heard a word from them.
The other attacks were in my school's parking lot (tires slashed, acid thrown on car hood) and in the parking lot of the supermarket where I shop most often. I got the message that I'm being followed around town. I'm looking to move out of town and country for good reason, then.
Muji
So understandable that you are feeling a range of emotions, doubts and uncertainty. Life is throwing many curve balls. As others have said, as much as it seems your plans are being thwarted and your dreams/plans crushed, the worries of today won't last forever. You have done what you can to secure the future you want. Be kind to yourself and try and focus on what you can do in the present. Live in the moment as much as you can.
Praying for peace in every respect in uncertain times.