fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #7057 ]

Let me just trauma dump here. If I'm using the term correctly.

Mine in replies, feel free to add yours.

I do delivery driving, its a living.

A few months ago I had to deliver to a house in Southern Scotland, and it was up a side track that joined onto the main A77 highway. The track joined the road, in a masterstroke of Scottish Regional Roadplanning, just behind a cliff face on a blind bend. To turn onto the northbound road, you had to cut across the southbound lane of traffic which would appear around the bend with no warning, and then back into your lane (note for Americans and similar drivers: we drive on the left here). This is not just the permitted, but the encouraged way of getting northbound from that side road. There is no "head south and get to a turn around", there is no turn around, there is just floor it and cut across.

There is no way to know what is around the cliff face. Is the road empty, is there a car full of a family heading for the ferry, is there a tractor, is it a juggernaut lorry bearing down on you? There is no way to know. All you can do is hit the accelerator and pray.

So I had to. I'm in an old diesel van, btw, relevant for its low speed from start. This isn't a modern van, or a car that can whip across in a heartbeat. So I hit the pedal and start pulling out, praying the road stays empty; then round the corner comes this DFDS juggernaut at well over the speed limit of 40mph for that size of vehicle. I'm still trying to clear the carriageway, the driver of the lorry says "oh shit", which I know because we're close enough for me to see his lips move (and I swear he had blue eyes too), and I only just clear my rear end onto my side of the road as he thunders by. The draft of his lorry passing is so tumultuous that it causes the van to shake so hard that I actually thought he hit me for a moment. I looked in my side mirror expecting to see his trailer and my box ripped open and stuff scattered over the road. But he's just carrying on. Know what I didn't see? Brakelights. He's still thundering down that hill whether he hit me or no.

Anyway. It has been months, and I still think about that moment. Sometimes when I'm driving. Sometimes when I'm watching TV. I was in the pub Friday night, and someone asked me why I was so quiet and I just said I was sorry, I was just distracted by remembering out the blue. And about two weeks ago I had a nightmare about it that was so scary and so real that I woke up straight out of it, and genuinely and hand on heart, I wasn't sure I was alive or not. I honestly thought for a good few minutes, even as I lay in bed and staring at my window, that I was dead and that I'd been killed by the lorry. I mean, I shook it off, and tried to get on with the day, but that kinda lingered. Plus my chest really hurt like I'd been doing a full treadmill session.

I don't think I'm coping with this. I don't think I'm alright. And I know it sounds silly that not being in a wreck, and not being hurt, and not having had a bad day, has shaken me like this. I know that if I mentioned it at work they'd all be "nothing happened, what you worrying 'bout?", but I don't know how to process this all. I don't think I'm okay with this. I'm struggling. I just hope the other guy is doing better than me.

Hugs if you want them nonny, a close miss like that is scary. Be kind to yourself, I would be shaken up by this too.

Nanny, I'm really sorry this happened to you and I totally get it. Shit like this doesn't go away just like that and it honestly sounds like PTSD. Also please be careful of your health- chest pains due to high levels of stress can be because of something dangerous. If at all possible, maybe go see a kardiologist?

I agree. I too had a really close call while driving (someone pulled out of a parking lot and started driving towards me IN MY LANE and I had to swerve into the other lane to not have a head-on collision with them going the wrong way, it was a VERY VERY near miss) and it took months before I stopped instinctively braking and tensing up when I went past that same spot. And that wasn't even as bad as what happened to this anon. We all know that driving is dangerous and how many people die or are horribly injured, but being part of an experience like that really makes you feel it, and sometimes it's hard to shake that feeling.

It's not at all silly. You could've been badly injured, even killed. As someone who's lost loved ones in a car crash, that's a very real danger you escaped, and it's perfectly normal to be traumatized by it. Especially when it was job-related, and (presumably) you're still driving around every week in the same truck.

I'm sorry that happened to you, and I hope you get the help you need. It'll take a while, your nervous system is probably on high alert because of that close call and it takes a physical and mental toll.

You had a really close call, and you have PTSD from it. I would be amazed if you were coping well.
Can you go to a therapist? If not, may I suggest journaling about the experience and dissecting what happened and how you can prevent it from happening again? I have to say, the other driver’s reaction is probably contributing to your trauma, because he was callous and didn’t change his behavior at all.

Not actually my trauma but: My best friend has been having a rough few years. Started a bit over 2 years ago with some minor but still quite unpleasant health issues and a parent having a stroke (which they luckily survived but are still affected by). And now she's going through a cancer scare and she's very scared (even though it's highly likely that it's harmless but I get it, you never know).
And I feel like a terrible friend because I'm not that much in contact with her atm. But she's not really talking to me either of her own accord and I also don't want to ask how she's doing every day because hey, dumb question.
But also, I've been a constant therapist for her (and also my mother and other friends for all sorts of topics) for years and I'm so damn burnt out caring for everyone else. Especially since it's kind of one-sided. It's my own fault to some degree because I just don't really talk about my issues. Mainly because there's always something going on in other people's lives and I either feel like I have no right to complain or if I do, I might seem like I'm trying to one-up their issues.
But anyway, I feel bad and like a shitty friend but I'm also kind of stumped at what to do and I'm also slowly running out of empathy which I hate myself for as well.

I feel that! A friend of mine and I have been a constant late-night therapist for a specific friend that everything awful happens to ever, and both of us are soooo burned out on it. You're not a shitty friend if you need to step back every once in a while.

Thank you. I needed to hear that.

When I had cancer, it was the signal for many people I knew to trauma dump on ME. I have no idea why and eventually I just started laughing at them (silently) because that behaviour was so ridiculous.

I think you're doing great with your friend. Keep doing it. We all react in different ways to the disease, and there's plenty of support and help on tap for it.

And take care of yourself, hun.

Thank you.
Yeah so far it's "just" a small lump with no indication it's malignant but you obviously never know - she needs a biopsy appointment and the fact that everything is taking so long is really getting to her mentally. Doesn't help that a friend of a mutual friend just had her breasts removed due to cancer that was misdiagnosed by her obgyn as harmless a year ago so that's definitely playing into it a LOT.
But she also has a mother and father with a medical background and a sister she's quite close to so it's not like I'm the only support she has. But I still feel she's mad at me for not checking in more often because she doesn't really talk to me - but I don't want to make this all about me or be annoying so I'm a bit lost.
Sorry for the long reply, now I'm dumping...
Hope your health is good and you remain cancer free!

My hearing monday is going to be rough. I've got a very slim hope we'll win because there is a little something there. But these cases are so hard to win. Client has 4 very young US citizen kids and another one on the way. His wife is pregnant, and there have been complications. 2 of his kids have medical conditions, but not the massively severe type it usually takes to win this type of case these days.

He's a good guy, been here since a kid, never arrested until he was detained by ICE. And the family was already struggling even before he was detained. Now they are probably going to lose their home if I can't win this case and get him home.

I've done everything I can, and I know that. It just really sucks.

That sucks. I'm sorry, and I hope things end up going well. Thank you for what you do. It sounds like it's so difficult, but it's also such an important job. I am glad there are people like you who do it.

I am so sorry. The state of our immigration system is a disgrace and has been for decades.

TW: CSA, grooming

So a recent scandal kind of reawokened some memories. There's a story about a popular influencer whose sister is in trouble with the law on account that she had a sexual relationship with a student (she was a teacher). The student's grandma saw some NSFW stuff in his phone, and that was how it was found out. There was another administration member who was also having a sexual relationship with the student.
Whole story is messed up.

A few days after watching a couple videos going over the story, I thought about middle school teacher I had.
Around the COVID lock down times, my sister came across a local news story about a female teacher who died from suicide on account that she was discovered to have had sexual relationships with her male students in the town we grew up in.
She said the teacher's name sounded familiar. I saw the picture and instantly recognized her as my 7th grade social studies teacher.

She'd been discovered having had a relationship with at least one student. Another student came forward with their own story. She died from suicide shortly after she'd been put on leave.
My sister asked me what I thought of the teacher. At the time, I'd remembered the teacher having been nice, she was a fun teacher with fun lessons, and she was popular with the students. She arm wrestled kids in the class, told entertaining stories about her life. She'd changed her last name because she'd just gotten divorced. She was a cool teacher. I didn't have much of a relationship with her though.

But then a couple days ago I remembered that in one lesson, she'd been talking about how deceptive the internet can be, and brought up that the website "white house dot com" was not the official US government website, it's a porn site. We have to use "dot gov" for any official government website.

Like...I really don't know how to feel. Like, yeah I get that a lot of teachers were telling students about typing "dot gov" to help us navigate the internet in the late 90s...but now that bit feels like my teacher had said that with creepy intentions. Like...that felt like groomer behavior.

It also was a moment with adults in my youth that warped my understanding of boundaries between a person in power with subordinates. I didn't know how inappropriate some things were until I was much older because the environment I'd been raised in didn't foster many adults who were looking out for kids' best interests.

I don't speak to any people I went to middle school with anymore, but I wonder if any of them knew someone she'd groomed. Were any of my classmates victims of hers? Did any of my classmates know anything? I honestly don't know if there is anyone I can talk to about this...

Can I give my weird input? Sorry if TMI but this is how I feel about it.

In 6th grade or so I had a teacher who was lovely - tried to help the kids with issues like me and a lot of kids adored her personality. She also regularly gave car rides to a girl who had a busy single mom and issues that made her involved with boys and the night scene too young. We had been friends so I heard of her early story more than most. Geood hearted kid with family issues

One day outta nowhere the teacher is fired. Sad news for most so we wanted to know why and one of the scenes in my mind was the girl crying because apparently there was a complaint about the teacher grooming her and the girl was disgusted by the accusation (that implied she might get involved with her) and outcome and I knew everyone enough to go hmm that didn't happen but can imagine how things might escalate easily now. A mentor figure gives car rides to a young girl who has no elder figures to talk about sexual topics beyond Just Don't - her peers don't have experience either - she finds openness to talk about it with the teacher who was a much older woman nice and open minded - someone finds out like her mom or whatever and complains to the school - can you see how things escalate quickly? The line between talking about sex to a minor in a proper way can be blurry and the kids needs sex Ed but parents aren't there so who's doing it?

One of her friends proved over and over to be a bad person so maybe they were involved. They were best friends then so maybe or whatever. But the story went like this, teacher fired, kids sad, baseless rumours going around. I saw the teacher years later but she didn't greet me and I don't doubt whatever happened traumatized her too.

We were like 12 or 13 then. I recall these girls who weren't even very close to me would make silly sex jokes and such. I was always a bit different (autistic, ace, raised in a house where sex wasn't supposed to be taboo but was a VERY awkward topic) so I was like huh. But also why are the both of you telling me this y'know - but honestly my same aged internet friends were into sex too so now I think it's just normal and maybe I was the outlier lol regardless, we were on opposite sides of the 12yo interest in sex spectrum and I can see sort of how things could have gotten tough for this teacher to handle if there was a girl needing guidance and eager to talk about sex and a negligent mom and so on. Because if I was the teacher I sort of wouldn't know what to do either. Silence the kid? Tell them to ask someone else? Who? I have it in me to say you're too young for this because I am literally ace and uninterested but trying to be empathetic could lead to problematic (according to some) talks easily.

Mind you I'm not some and don't think it's all black and white (the porn I saw online as a kid didn't affect me in any way) but you know how some are. Pro-life if it's a fetus life etc

Sorry I don't really have anything helpful to add, but that brings back memories of something that happened quite a few years ago by now. One day my parents told me they just got a phone call regarding the PE teacher at my old elementary school (I was already an adult at this point) wanting to know if they or I remembered him doing anything inappropriate back when I was going there. It was for an investigation into him recently being accused of sexual misconduct with a student.

I had nothing in my memories of him to tell them, and was pretty shocked to hear he was being investigated. But what really made me think was the fact that my friends and I had always disliked that teacher. He wasn't the worst, not mean or anything, he was just... annoying? But in a way that it was hard to put my finger on in hindsight. I'll never know if we sensed something worse about him, or he was inappropriate in ways we didn't fully understand... or if our dislike was just petty and it was only a coincidence that he turned out to be a predator (if he was even guilty; I never found out what they concluded).

You feel like her saying "use white house dot gov because white house dot com is a porn site" was a moment that led to permanently warping your understanding of boundaries?

AYRT

Not necessarily in a huge, impactful way. More like a seemingly run-of-the-mill thing that I never thought about, but it looks different now that I'm more than two decades away from that memory.
Something that as an adult I'm loosely threading together as possible small points that add up to bigger things.

I'm not saying I was traumatized remembering my interactions with my teacher. I wasn't.
It's just that this is another memory where, with more information and context, I'm realizing that in broad strokes, children's minds are malleable and some adults either didn't care or took advantage of that.
I personally didn't fall victim to many dangerous adults, but the fact that I discover some kids had been harmed by those adults? It makes me sad when adults take advantage of the vulnerability and attention of children.

And that's why I don't really know if this is something I can talk to others about. I know I possibly am making a huge deal out of nothing. Like, maybe my teacher was just wanting to do it for shock value to get the class's attention. Maybe she was trying to bait students into seeking for more of a one on one relationship with her because she was a cool teacher. I will never know.

I think things like this come off alarming to me now because I never really had guardians who looked out for me and protected me, especially when it came to things of the sexual nature (I'd been exposed to sex way, way too early and it'd been presented in a puritanical "sex is evil but those who participate in it seem to glamourize it at the same time" way). And at the same time, I have siblings who have kids, and so now, as an adult who has really fond feelings of wanting to protect those kids, I just am so disturbed that adults can be so selfish and predatory.

I guess I want to figure confusing times from my youth out so I can try to protect the kids I care about in my life.

nayrt

I get what you mean anon. Sometimes small details that may not be that weird on their own stand out to you because of your feelings about a situation.

I would advise taking some time to think through your feelings, it's normal to be upset and reconsider your relationship with someone you found out was a predator. Your feelings are your feelings, it's okay to be upset by stuff.

[ SECRET POST #7057 ]

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