u/Dazzling_Rest_5077

I made a post few months ago about my journey with PTSD and it gained some traction and seemed to help people share. I wanted to update

I am an ER doc that worked during the worst of Covid and saw death on an unimaginable scale, stacking bodies in freezer trucks, running out of life saving equipment level triage protocols in an urban American city. saw hundreds die up close in horrible ways personally over over a year or so.

I see a therapist now who works mostly with veterans and healthcare personnel and active duty military, since then I’ve been exercising, gave up any alcohol, sleeping better with working on my sleep hygiene, spending time with friends, getting perspective and generally been healing with time in nature

i I think it’s not talked about enough in our field, there’s a mentality of “be hard” but I find so many of our fellow ER peeps are just burned out and holding it in. I hope we can spur a culture where it’s okay to talk about. It took decades for the military community to make talking about PTSD not taboo and I feel like it’s something our field needs to work on

our job is hard whether it’s EMS, nursing. ER techs, environmental services, APP’s, doctors. We see and do a lot that isn’t “normal” I’m just hoping to encourage conversation and hear stories about healing

you don’t have to be alone, it’s okay I feel to talk about it and we all need to be empathetic with each other. I recognize it takes a long time to change a culture of a field but I hope I can play a small part of that by being open about my own challenges and recovery ❤️

I’m not a veteran but an ER doc that worked during the worst of Covid and saw death on an unimaginable scale, stacking bodies in freezer trucks, running out of life saving equipment, doing literal battlefield level triage protocols in an urban American city. saw hundreds die up close in horrible ways personally over over a year or so.

I see a therapist now who works mostly with veterans and healthcare personnel and active duty military, I am on a journey to recovery however have imposter syndrome that I “don’t deserve to have PTSD” given that I haven’t seen what veterans have. how have you guys coped, healed and grown? but I feel the wisdom of those of you here that have dealt with this will help those of us in fields where PTSD is not recognized or is taboo to talk about it.

ive been exercising, doing therapy, quit any alcohol, working on sleep hygiene and generally being kind to myself, understanding its my body in a fight or flight mode. Been working on being around crowds and people and finding peace with the things I see at work and living my life. i really respect how the veteran community has worked towards making this a less taboo topic in their world. A lot of fields have a “be hard and shut up and stuff it down” mentality and it’s really taboo to talk about these things

hey I know the Wingmanfinder subreddit exists but it doesn‘t seem super active. some I’m an F-18 flyer mostly, looking for a group that’s semi milsim., but still casual and not crazy on the schedule requirements due to my work schedule being pretty hectic. I was wondering if anybody had any recommendations or had any good squadrons that they are part of!

thank you!