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.
In this past summer school session, I collapsed from pneumonia in front of my students in my classroom while teaching and spent a week in the hospital recovering. I began this work week with a respiratory infection that got worse by Wednesday afternoon, so I told my boss that day I was going to take a sick day Thursday and, if needed, another on Friday to prevent pneumonia again.
My hospitalization for pneumonia this past summer school session required me to give up that class I collapsed in to a substitute who finished out the last 3 weeks of the summer term for me. I want to prevent that from happening to my 5 classes I'm teaching this Fall.
I got PTSD as a kid as the big brother in the house who protected my mom and little sister from my abusive dad and from combat in the 4 war zone overseas he took the family to live in as an untreated bipolar. My old man loved the chaos of a war zone, and my mom loved the spoils of war. So I had to grow up early to save myself and then all of us from war's destruction as best as a kid.
Still, our house was occupied by troops during the fighting and our car was bombed with us in it, with more every day for 6 years from when I was 9 to when I was 15. As the family scapegoat I was falsely blamed when things often went wrong around our house as a kid and I was expected to be a hero to fix it. It was an impossible contradiction to live in on top of enduring domestic violence and combat abuse, so my I left home for peacetime living in early colllege in the USA at 17.
I offer that background summary to say that it is HARD for me to take sick days off from work. All my life I've avoided them, no matter how sick I was. Every minute of a sick day I'm restless, to say the least. My PTSD anxiety gets triggered. I'm not supposed to be weak, I feel that I'm "bad" if I'm sick and don't play the hero role. I get hypervigilant. Yesterday and today I've sent out 3 announcements to all of my students via Blackboard. So to stop that I'm posting here to admit that it's not only because I'm taking care of them, but also because I don't do sick days well. I have to relax.
Does anybody else have both the designated scapegoat background AND the designated childhood hero background in their PTSD family history? Does it challenge you like it challenges me when it comes to giving yourself enough nurturing time off to care for your physical health when you're sick?
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Here is my new brother, copper :) He's so tiny! Moo and Tuck were ok with him on first meeting. Rocket due to his severe aggression will never meet Cooper.
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https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTDeA9Wxg/
Not to hijack, but... I never knew where I stood, sat or ran when it came to anything. Let alone sickness and health.
I can tell you that when it came to getting work done? I was th e kid who got the work done. My age, my capacity, etc., were irrelevant to my mom b/c it was so much crises all the time... My sis wouldn't, so I had to. Did that make me the hero kid? Dunno.
Did make me the got-an-ulcer-by-age-8 from stress kid.
I once worked on the day I passed a kidney stone. My boss sat me down halfway through the day, and took me home with orders to take the day off....
Relax, heal, and absolve yourself. You need to save yourself. Be a hero for yourself, Muji. The family isn't there and doesn't need you. YOU do. Hugs and purrs and puma power.
No missionaries in our family, but like you, we often lived in a 3rd world country... which later fell into civil war while overthrowing the dictatorship govt. My mother having bipolar and father often disappeared for months, I had to grow up at a young age and take care of the family. I don't know if I was a scapegoat like you, but my father rejected me at birth and my mother grounded (punished) me at every birthday till 15. I suffered with depression as a kid as a result. But as you described, I didn't have time to feel sorry for myself and had to push through everything.
In the Marines, I was sexually assaulted by a sergeant and when reported him, was told to keep my mouth shut. Instead of investigating *him* they investigated ME. Threatened to charge me with God only knows what, and made me change my story to fit theirs that he was an "honorable Marine" so they could give him an honorable discharge.
A couple years later I collapsed from a back injury and mysterious symptoms (later diagnosed as Fibromyalgia), possibly from responding to 9/11, and given a medical discharge. Today I am on disability from chronic pain, but thanks to my upbringing plus brain washing from the Marines, it is hard to give myself that room. It is hard to relax. I don't do bed rest very well.
People like us have been trained (conditioned) to keep going and going. That we can not fail. But we have to find a way to undo that training. We have to tell ourselves that we are not living in those conditions anymore. We are not SURVIVING anymore. People's safety and survival do not depend on us anymore. It is OK to fail... it is OK to be human. Self care is not failure.
At least that's how it looks to this "Family Savior." No, mother, I haven't found the cure for political war yet, either.
Even Superheroes need to take care of themselves when they are sick and/or injured. Be gentle with yourself, Muji.
I'll join with the rest in hoping that you find a way to relax, get some good sleep and get heathy. But I do know that it is hard.
Being my own hero I like that idea, I think you are your own hero muji as well as other survivors here are.
I say its important that you take care of yourself and health. I have felt that conflict but the bottom line is I don't have control over what others are going to think and do.
Take care of your muji. You have earned that rest time.
You all were right. This is what to do when you're sick. As was said here, I'm living normal life now, not just surviving, This is what normal life does--take sick days without being hated by everybody.
Now that it's the weekend I'm less antsy about it, I'm not thinking every hour about what I "should" be doing at work because now it's finally Saturday. I still have a wet cough from some lung infection, but I'm going to continue to stay in today and tomorrow to give my body a chance to beat it.
Thanks for the sick day support!
(((((Healing hugs ))))))
I'm sorry that you're sick sweetie and I hope the time you've taken off wisely will help you to heal.....xo