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.
A woman I know from student services called me out of the blue and asked if she could drop by my office hour this morning at the community college where I teach. I said, "sure," but while I waited for her to get there I wracked my brain trying to remember what I could possibly have done to get a student to rat me out to the student services office this time.
It turns out that I'm not the center of the universe; it wasn't about me. It's that a student of mine DIED in one of the dorms last night. Folks are pretty traumatized, so the community college president sent this woman from student services to see if I would say a few words at a memorial service for the departed young man tomorrow in our auditorium.
If you don't know my backstory, I'm here partly because I was a hospital chaplain in my previous career. Kidney disease knocked me off my feet in 2010, so I moved on 8 years ago to teaching psych death and dying courses to my community college's nursing students for a living. The combo of my past role as minister as a chaplain and my current role as psych prof led them to think of me for this role in my college auditorium tomorrow.
I didn't really know the student very well, but I respected him a lot. He lived with cerebral palsy and overcame other related birth defects his whole life and was wheelchair bound. There was no foul play, no drug overdose, no suicide involved in his death. He'd just been telling people he didn't feel great lately, so his body gave out on him and he died in his sleep. When my time comes, quite honestly, I hope I get to go like that, too, though I will have been more fortunate as far as having more years behind me goes. He was only 25.
I feel a little funny about checking off the box here saying "I am having a crisis," then, because the crisis was obviously his, not mine. However, time's of the essence here in my request for support for me to find the words to give this young man a good send off. I also want to say the right words to comfort his parents as much as possible, and to console the college community tomorrow, too. Support welcome, y'all.
Now, a selfish problem. It's finals week, and putting all of my attention into this funeral has really put me behind as to grading final exams and term papers. Yikes!