I guess my question is why he would want to stay. He's found it necessary to talk to you and your boss about problems with the class and then made a scene out of leaving. Obviously he's not satisfied. Why stay other than to create problems for you which you said no thank you when you dropped him. He's disruptive to the rest of the class and has not earned the right to be there. Stand your ground but I'd be cautious about being or getting into a one on one scenario with him. It might be a pain but wise move to hold a meeting with him with your boss. Finish it once and for all.

I think I've seen your write about this student before, and quite awhile ago. The thing about PTSD and limitations, inho is this. Someone without PTSD or CPTSD previous emotional / mental abuse and whatnot, would have reached thier "limits" much sooner. Because they wouldn't double guess themselves, they wouldn't find themselves filled with kindness or compassion to try to understand the person who is acting out. They would just cut it off! And probably if not the first instance, the second. But the would certainly know about it on the first.
So I'm glad you stood up and did what was necessary. Please, don't ever feel that you are limited, just because you are self aware and willing to look inside yourself and willing to see the other side of things.

I thank you once again even more for your support in my doing this for the first time ever. I think Leo was right in saying my boss has issues with the fourth F, too. So I'm glad I'm facing mine.

Now that I kicked the one guy out (the other begged for mercy and I let him in) he's going around telling people his grandfather's dying and I don't care. That is a manipulative story built from the fact that he got kicked out of a Death and Dying course I teach at the community college.

His care for a grandfather had nothing to do with it. He was kicked out for being disruptive, being on his cell phone in class, coming in late to interrupt class, wearing shades in class, making smart aleck comments in class for weeks, and finally getting up and leaving in the middle of class with that door slam I mentioned. and I'm not sure he's caring for any dying grandfather. He sits in the cafeteria half the day every day, so I doubt there's any such emergency going on. He was sitting in there today when I went to lunch at the college, with his buddies, and was there a couple of hours later with them when I went by.


Since this is my first time breaking my fawning habit and standing up in the workplace, I'm so hypervigilant I notice him too much. Jewells posted last week a thread about how it feels new to get a little better in your PTSD recovery. She mentioned that it kind of made her expect a balloon to pop. That's how I feel right now. Like taking this step to get past a lifetime of fourth F "fawning" in the workplace is really good, but since it's new to me, then that feeling of waiting for it to pop like a balloon or something.

Your support reassures that, as Jewells said in that post, that the feeling that a balloon might pop when you're feeling better in just part of PTSD recovery. So over the weekend, I'm going to try to take that approach and rachet down my PTSD wariness symptoms.

Suggestions for doing that are very welcome....

I think you should reread your own thread, Muji. Look at how you're processing this, and how you're seeing the rational no-blame POV here.

And look at the fact that he's claiming "this" but his behavior is not necessarily indicative of that. He may have a sick grandfather, but he certainly didn't bring that up *before* becoming disruptive---when a quiet talk about doing this class at another time might be easier for him, for example. Death & Dying is tough enough without having people in your life be possibly dying as you take the class. Just my POV. So a possible approach for future if he continues to grump.

Meanwhile, sleep, meditate and watch silly TV or YouTube?

Hey, Leo, sounds like you're saying I'm evolving on this fourth F "fawning" thing in this thread. Wow--that's a compliment. Usually in therapy I'm a slow learner--a good learner, once I learn something it sticks. But a slow one. So thanks for that!

Muji I am aware that your class is a required for many wanting to enter into a healthcare profession. .It is for me. So if he is to complete this desired path then what you teach is something he has to comply with. The other question becomes,... Are you the only game in town? If that answer is yes, than sooner or later you may have to deal with him in one way or another.

I know you also teach this class online. So that may be a better option and fit for both of you. He can hear the lectures and videos then take assignments tests or quizzes as the college requires.in private.
Then you have a buffer to his antics that disrupt the learning in a traditional way. He seems to need an audience to help his ego and feed his assertiveness. This alternate online way would take that out of the equation. Since his input could be reviewed by instructor approval to posts. ( My online instructor reserves the right to preview comments on analysis discussions and replies). Since this is his second attempt and had the instructor withdrawal, as well as a grade not in the realm of passing (or why take again?)
An analytical essay to the outline of class topics and concepts might actually help him to understand the importance of the class to future healthcare workers.
Most need to have that drive to accomplish the goals set. Offer that as the only option available based on history of disruption.Also most colleges have counseling available to students for stress and other issues,, so a referral is always an option, basing it on his statement of family issues.

If you are not the only source then he is welcome to take the class at another facility/institution.

Anyway , continued support. I am upfront with my instructors, I let them know of my conditions and that I may at times have to leave long enough to gather myself. But that is only so I do not disturb others, in my state of anxiety or what ever. Most instructors are very understanding with me. I give credit to you, Deli and others that have been guides in this.

I agree, take it easy and recover

Awesome advice, jewells. Thanks. It helps so much that you're sharing from your experience going through your program at your college right now. Wow.

I thought about it, and I'm not the only game in town for this student to take this class for the program in the future. We have a part time professor who teachers the class, too. So there's the option it won't come up again later, since he has another option. And then there's the online option, plus other schools offer the class. So thinking about that let me relax a little for down the road.

Speaking of relaxing, wow, I had good, healing dreams about not fawning. Whatever happens, this facing my "fourth F" fawning thing, as Pete Walker calls it, has done some PTSD recovery work on my insides. This fawning topic might be a good general topic here at DS PTSD down the road. I had no idea how healing it could be to address it.

Muji, good job with the boundary, I get what you say, and others say about it feeling "new" ...having recently stood up for myself twice in one year, my doc/psychiatrist said to me "I'm glad to hear you stuck up for yourself"....it took awhile to set in, because of some backlash, different opinions, but stepping out of that fourth "f" is new territory....plus muji, I have wondered lately about what kind of people are working in the healthcare field, empathic or just for the paycheck??. Maybe this student needed a "wake-up" call, to re-evaluate his goals!!?? Hugs to you!

My landlord is a teacher at the high school level and he gives people that act out a choice period

If they start to disrupt the class he calls them out to the hall and asks if they are willing to respect the class and not to disturb the other people and if they are they welcome to stay otherwise they can leave period... That's the choice they have

Yeah, that's how it ought to work, SC, quite simply. But I think Leo put her finger on it when she said that my boss seems to have a fawning problem. For the last 4 years she's been playing down any discipline problems in the Division she chairs. Once she admitted to me that she didn't want to admit when there were discipline problems because she brings home the bacon in her home--she has 3 kids and a husband who makes pottery for a living in an area that's impoverished. So I've tried to respect that I could make waves as a single guy but didn't want to make waves for her.

But last semester it got to where there were 3 bullying women in that one class. I sent them to her, she sent them back, and they vandalized my car and soured the classroom environment with more bullying at the end. I got through it, but my students came and talked to me and said something should have been done. It was a psych class, after all, and needed a healthy environment to discuss issues.

So this change has been needed. I'm not challenging my boss, but I needed to be more proactive. She sabotaged the way Tuesday I gave the student that kind of choice your landlord teacher friend gives his students by talking to him behind my back Wednesday. Then he felt like he could disrupt class on Thursday and he did, and I had to kick him out.

I re-read Pete Walker's article on fawning, and it looks like my boss is a fawner as much as I've been one.

http://www.pete-walker.com/codependencyFawnResponse.htm

Feeling pressured to keep her job as the primary earner in her home, that's the coping habit she's turned to. It's almost the only one she ever uses, and it's not the answer to every situation, like this one.

I'll bear that in mind going forward and be prudent but proactive in ways that don't send students to her since it's threatening to her and she may make it worse again. it doesn't mean I don't like her, she's a really nice person, and she hired me, and seems to be supporting me this year for tenure, knock on wood.

But Pete Walker's article does point out that fawning is probably a common trait even among health care professionals. In fact, he puts it this way: " I wonder how many of us therapists were prepared for our careers in this way. "

That includes those like her and like me, a former hospital chaplain who teaches nursing students now. At both my big city hospitals where I worked, the hospital staff called the chaplain before calling security so we could talk people down before using force. It's a good policy to give people a chance to settle down. But if you read Pete Walker's article you can also see that when used too much, it's a great way to become overly dependent on fawning, too.

So it should be no surprise, but something to grow beyond in PTSD recovery ourselves. I've sure learned a lot this week through this thread. It's been a new step for me. Thanks to everyone!

I hear you M.... We are complicated beings at times for sure... You showed a lot of courage this week and not only did you stand up to the bully/S-disturber in class... You've seen another layer of your boss and come to understand it more... xo

I'm glad I understand it. With my PTSD, though, it takes some time for something new like that to travel from my head before it settles comfortably in my heart. In the meantime, a new insight, no matter how true, leaves me feeling anxious when I first try it on for size.

Sure enough, true insight though it might be and all, I got pretty wound up about it with PTSD anxiety. That's been true of every new layer about myself that unfolded in therapy. But usually I had the therapist to help settle me down to the new insight into my self.

This time I learned this one beyond the therapy room, I learned it here. It's been my goal to do that, but this is the first big one "one my own," as it were. Any time I learn something that makes me amend my sense of self in some important way, I get unsettled in my self before I settle in with that new thing I learned.

It's good to know about this Pete Walker "fourth F" of fawning and me, but last night taking it in cost me a good old-fashioned panic attack. I got through it, but it was a rough night, waking up grinding my teeth in the middle of the night. I ground them so hard I chipped a tooth a little, and have a dental appointment to fix it.

Anybody take any PTSD learning that hard? It's ironic, because I'm a community college teacher by trade. I got myself through the night telling myself I'm not the only one. Others at DS PTSD have this adjustment to new insights, too.

Anyone?

Muji, I take it hard enough to need PRN anxiety meds at times, hours of crying, days of shock, oh yeah, I take it *hard*.... And I can end up feeling like salt and lemon juice on a paper cut from head to toe, inside out, if that makes snese.

I tend to decide I'm worthless and stupid for not knowint and so on. Then that has to be worked out before I can get the lesson to sink in... A little at a time.... Rocks plummet, but lessons with me need to settle more like leaves in a pond. Take their time, float around a while, flutter down, etc. Lousy metaphors, but... Lots of learning going on right now here, too!

I know, Leo, that's it! You said, "I tend to decide I'm worthless and stupid for not knowing and so on. Then that has to be worked out before I can get the lesson to sink in... A little at a time."

I couldn't stop myself from kicking myself all over my apartment last night for being so "stupid" for "not knowing" this long ago. In fact, I felt so stupid I had a panic attack thinking that, well, if I'm that stupid, I'm in danger due to being such a babe in the woods.

The last time I felt so in such a big way was in 2010 when I finally stopped being so protective of my mom that I took a good hard look at some dynamics there I'd repeated in 2 marriages that ended in divorce. It wasn't all my mom's fault, it was that we came from a dysfunctional family with domestic violence in which I protected her and that became how I behaved in my own adult marriages. But there was no domestic violence there, and no protective boy needed. Getting married, I was like the dog that caught the car. I didn't know what to do next in a family, just that past protective boy role. Yet I played that role anyway until 2 wives just got bored and left.

I realized I'd been frozen in the past because I'd been a dutiful son but remained one too long and didn't learn to be a free grown adult husband. That's when I went through some serious regret about being stupid and all. Everybody else all around me said, "it's about time!" and validated that I finally caught on. Fortunately, I had a therapist work through it with me for 6 months solid in every session once a week.

This time it's up to me. Thanks for coming up alongside me as I am going for digesting it on my own. I know you're going through a hard learning process with your mom, too.