MY STORY - THE JOURNEY HAS JUST BEGUN

So this is my story (Sorry a long one)

My name is Nell, 39, Married with two children, 12 and 9.

For the last 16 years I have been a secondary school teacher working in challenging schools with students having high rates of trauma themselves. For the last 6 years, I have been working directly with students that come to school with a bucket load of problems. Used to be daily on the phone to DHHS or child protection so it seemed.

So there have been lots of incidents that I have had to deal with at work from drug overdoses, racial fights, gang conflicts, suicide attempts and many more. And yes, this is the students I am talking about.

About 3 months ago I had to physically stop a student from committing suicide. Well that took me over the edge. Started having panic attacks, anxiety and flashbacks of that and other things that had happened at work. Ended up taking time off work and still on work cover now.

From this however, a past trauma from my childhood that I had locked away for a long time then came to the surface. This casued severe anxiety issues, panic attacks, flashbacks, nightmares and self harm.

So I am now seeing a psychologist weekly and my psychologist has made me book into seeing a psychiatrist which I see in October.

I have been diagnosed with anxiety, depression and PTSD. I am just beginning this journey and am trying to navigate my way through all of this mess as well as trying to deal with work cover. Thank go I am in the Education Union!

Some days are ok, some days are crap. Some days all I do is manage to get the kids to school and thats it. Some days I need to take it hour by hour and if i can get out of bed than thats a win.

So that is my journey so far and it really has just begun. I know I have a long way to go until I am back to my normal self, but I guess the question I ask myself is, what is normal?