As a lot of you may know, I have been receiving much appreciated and useful support from everyone here on my journey to get myself back to work and the constant battle to stay there. I'm interested to know how many other people manage to keep a job while coping with PTSD symptoms. From this forum, I get the general impression that wanting to maintain a full-time job when you have PTSD may be unrealistic. Anyone who wants to prove this impression wrong - please feel free to say so!!!!

I love my job and want to keep it, but I have come across significant barriers with respect to my employer's response to my diagnosis. I am currently trying to resolve this issue, which may end up in court if things keep going the way they have been. This is not what I want, but I won't be forced to quit my job due to unreasonable manager types. I fully intend to keep on going until my rights in the workplace are upheld. So there. :dummy-spi

Anyway, before I explode again (doing this a lot the last couple of days), please feel free to join in with the employment poll. :smile:

By the way - childcare counts as employed in my opinion - it's up to you whether this counts as full or part-time!

What a great poll Piglet.

I choose full-time, because I look after my kids, and that is full-time. I rested for a good year or two before landing into full-time looking after the kids, which is what my doctors basically told me to do.

Working with adults, and working with children are two distinctively different things with PTSD, in that working with adults brings out the peer group pressures and expectations that cause undue stress. Dealing with adults requires the capability of intellectual conversation with both positives and negatives, which can lead to undue stress IMHO.

Dealing with children at home, within an environment that you control, is much different from my viewpoint. As a father doing the full-time job of running the house, I know exactly what mothers in that situation have gone through for hundreds of years previously. It is no simple task to achieve. With PTSD though, I actually find it very relaxing. The reason is, is that children are not as stressful as adults with PTSD. Children don't have the intellectual capability to discuss complex meanings of life and society, thus this type of stress is never present. Children just want to know why, and so forth, as they are learning life. Children don't have expectations of you like an adult does. Children just want you to be there for them, play with them, look after them, just to be with them and love them. Nothing more, nothing less. PTSD is very adaptable to this for all intensive purposes, because whilst looking after children has stressors, it isn't intentional to the point of dealing with an adult. When an adult does something wrong, they 100% realise it, where a child, they don't really realise what they have done in relation to the affect it causes to an adult. With the correct mindset, ie. they are just a child, and it is our job to teach them, care for them and look after their general well-beng, most of the stress become non-existant IMHO. I think by looking after my little one, it has helped me deal with the pressures of society and having to cope with certain roles and responsibilities faster than that if I where working within an adult environment.

Anyway, that is my perception and how my life revolves with PTSD.

Working as a full-time teacher of 7th graders. Not sure what causes me more stress - PTSD or 12 and 13 year olds who know it all.

Seriously though, I love my job. Have been holding it down for 11 years, the last 6 of which have been in the same school. Working with kids is so much different than working with adults. I prefer the kids...:smile:

Kim

I am still a full time cop. Patrol, SWAT and teaching. Depends on the person.

I put full-time!

I have been in school (full-time) for the past four years, with two more years of University to go. I also worked full-time during the summers and just got a casual position in my feild!

The sky is the limit no matter our issues!!

Bec

i am full-time kindergarten teacher. summers off are a blessing, though. i can't say the ptsd hasn't made it a little harder, though. concentration and memory seem to be lacking. i like my kids to learn "by accident" with lots of activities, but lately we just get the basics. can't get motivated.. my dr. wants me to take a couple more months off, but he doesn't understand how a small private school works. i feel like i have to give it a good try now that i have already agreed to the year. and i LOVE the kids.

I'm full-time...as an auto claim adjuster, so I deal with others' trauma all day, every day. I work for the largest auto insurer in Florida, and between regular and hurricane claims, my line of work is VERY stressful.

I'd go nuts if I didn't work full-time.

I also prefer children. They don't judge. I stay at home looking after two children of my own and the house. I also look after other people's children. Can be stressful, but it's a nice step toward working outside the home. I hope to run my own business someday. I'd like to do that within the next six years.

I voted full time... however that is with a catch.
I believe that the longest I have ever held a job with a single place was one year.
The job I have now I LOVE. I love this job like I have never loved a job before. I love my clients. I love my coworkers. I love my boss.
And I want to cry every day at lunch. The only thing that holds me back is that I don't want to go back from lunch with puffy red eyes. I hate what I do and I know that all my coworkers and my boss hate me. I think they see me as inept and a fraud. I have recently been moved to another shift and all the girls on that shift are "cool" and I am such a nerd. I hate myself and I hate going to work. I hate leaving my room. I want to lay in bed reading books and petting kitties.
But I love my job. I love my coworkers and my boss. I love what I do. I feel fulfilled like never before.
I have been at this job for three months now, and have felt like this from day one.