Personal Narrative: Acute Critical Stress

Focus! The burden of destructive emotions constantly tarnishes my brain. It is essential that I isolate myself from the pessimistic chain of thoughts. I need to distort myself from the daily trauma and everlasting misery that I encounter. The turmoil has left me forever fatigued and has numbed my mind. My heart is grazed and broken with regret, my soul is haunted by fear and guilt along with my body diseased and rotten. The experience has been morbid and excruciating, I can’t tolerate this anymore.

Throughout our lives, every person encounters hardships that put a strain on other aspects of our lives. The biggest hardship that I have faced was taking care of my wife after she suffered a severe head injury while at work. The injury was the result of a salad fridge door falling and striking the back of her head, causing her to receive a severe concussion that lead to post-concussion syndrome. As a result, she became completely dependent on me. Some of the major hardships that we faced during these times are finances, helping her cope with her injury while she recovered, and maintaining my 4.0 GPA.

We also got a brother along with a mother and father. He was born with alcohol syndrome because his mother drank when she was pregnant with him. We all had our own bag of problems. I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for everything that happened to me. When I was a year old, one of my foster families didn't strap me into my car seat, and they got into a wreck. The car accident started my PTSD, but after that, everything bad that happened made my PTSD worse. My sister had mental health issues, to the point where the doctors said her mindset would remain at 15 until she's 35.

When I was a sophomore in high school, my mom developed severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. We had just moved to Portland so my family had no external support. As the oldest child, I found myself taking on the role of caregiver, secretary, and housekeeper in addition to AP student.

“Chantelle! Come over and see this,” my mom whispered as she glided past me towards her client’s chair. I unfolded my nine-year-old self from under the empty hair dryer and gingerly walked over. While peering skeptically at the child’s scalp before me, I began to note tiny bugs crawling by the roots and my eyes followed my mother’s comb tip as she pointed out several nits. This was definitely one of the worst cases of lice she had shown me, and I had seen quite a few by then! As the daughter of a hairstylist, my exposure to skin and hair started at an early age. Growing up in a salon allowed me to observe first hand how significant an impact looking healthy on the outside had on a client’s everyday confidence and self-esteem; a lesson that was later reinforced during my acne ridden teenage years at an all-girls high school. At the salon, I always enjoyed being called over by the estheticians and hairdressers to view interesting cases that ranged from alopecia and cystic acne, to severe foot fungus and poliosis. Since my mother and her employees always recommended physician follow-ups when they spotted something suspicious, I was always left wondering what happened on the medical end of the spectrum. In high school and college, I began to fulfill this curiosity by reading about the science behind skin, hair and nail disorders.

When I was a child, I moved around quite a bit. It became hard to get attached to places because we were never assured that the sacred spots would be ours for much longer. As I got older, however, I have realized that special places do not have to be dictated by a length of time, and allowing myself to fall in love with a place gave me the roots I had been searching for. While I have not lived in Indiana for several years now, there is something about this certain cluster of trees in Indiana that remain special to me. When I was a child, I saw them as the gateway into Narnia, and during the winter snows I would bundle up in my cheap fur coat my mother bought at a consignment shop and run outside searching for Mr. Tumnus and calling myself Lucy. My imagination gave me the ability to bring the characters I loved so dearly to life. This experience has shown me that providing children with the ability to use their imagination not only provides entertainment, but also allows children to have a safe outlet to cope with traumatic situations, make

Introduction: I have chosen this subject in order to maybe understand it better, in a way that hopefully it becomes easier for me to deal with it, this condition to which I have become very familiar with, not because I study it but because I am one who suffers from such disorder; this is what I call the side of the coin that no one see. Although I don’t think is such a bad thing, some have given this disorder a serious bad image to which as usual the media have distortion its image to a point where we have become and sometimes feel as if we were in a glass box. By first hand I have experienced how for example a potential job interview changes its trajectory once is discovered that I might suffer from such disorder.

My first encounter with a patient has been rather difficult: it was my mother. When our family used to live in the Philippines, there was an armed robbery in our house. While the intruders left our family alive, their damage was felt. My mother began suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Seeing her suffer pained me. Despite my numerous attempts to calm her, however, she remained distressed. If I had ever understood helplessness, it was problem then. It was the pain of the inability to help someone you love.

Well, I would have to say you’re doing good job of hiding it because I don’t think anyone else knows besides me, and you have my word I won’t tell anyone. Can I ask you about it or is that a no zone? How are you feeling tonight? The reason why I told you about me is because that was the first time in a long time that I had a full-blown PTSD problem come up and I felt I needed to explain myself because I directed my anger out on you and I don’t want you think, I am someone who I am not. That day I hit a low point that came with consequences, but I believe I brushed myself off and moved past it for now.

This week I had rotation at Genesis and also Cumberland Hall. Genesis was very different that what I expected. When I think of a “rehab” I think of people all sitting around with major withdrawal symptoms, a very strict schedule, multiple one-on-one session, and with no smoke breaks. At Genesis, throughout the day the client was able to do their own thing until the scheduled group session and smoke breaks. I was placed on the male unit and I was very surprise of the self-awareness that I experienced. Just listening men talk and tell their stories brought on a whole new prospective and quickly changed the image of the addict stereotype. While I was there we also established that all the clients was first timers and all fathers, and afterwards I was able to sit and think about how grateful I am to have my father who’s not an addict. I have had the luxury of always having a clean and sober father; which I had taking for granted.

So i know i have not told you but I have been having panic attacks and i saw a doctor and counselor about it. I honestly think this has been happening for some time now but i just started to realize it. And that one day i went to your house i think i was just having a panic attack. But my counselor told me to write letters to my closest friends. So um ill be honest i didn't like you the first times i meet you i'm sure you know that but not that im hanging out with you you're pretty cool. But im going to be honest you are as close as family to me but i dont know what exactly is up with you lately but you have been acting like a dick recently but whatever. Um honestly smoking with you ivan and alex was a fun time especially everyday

After taking the stress barometer test on page 6 of Unit 2 in the text I was astounded that I am teetering on the edge of being more dominant on either side of the spectrum. In the column A being more often occurrences I had 10 behaviors that I often exhibit, while on the column B rarely occurring I had 12 behaviors that I rarely exhibit. The results show that while I am success oriented it does not mean that it encompasses every aspect of my life. For instance, I do work a lot of overtime and take work home, but at the same time when I do have free time, I have no problem or guilt felt when I relax at home. One of the highlighting behaviors that is apparent when looking at my results is that when it comes to patience, I do not possess the

he wrapping paper is red with snowmen. The Christmas tree is shining brightly. I rip the package open quickly, scraps flying everywhere. It is the doctor’s playset I have wished for all year. Finally it is in front of my eyes and in my hands.

I have used minute clinic a few times with my children getting sports physicals and once with strep throat. I was impressed by the time it took to get into the office, get the physical, and get out. I only paid half of what I did with their pediatrician of seventeen years. I did not like when I took one of my daughters in there with strep throat and had to sit over two hours! I think that was a little excess vive. However, it was the weekend and we had no other option but the emergency room and I did not want to go there and pay a $300 co pay.

In this competitive world, stress has become unavoidable (Marrill, Read, & LeCheminant, 2009). Stress is defined as the arousal of the body and mind in response to the physical or psychological demands placed upon an individual (Marril et al., 2009). Stress stems from situations that require mental, physical and emotional adjustments (Marril et al., 2009). Literature has shown that we all experience some level of stress in our lives (Paul & Saha, 2016). Keeping this in mind, the current essay reflects upon a stressful situation which I have encountered in my life. I will begin the essay by analysing and describing the origins of my stress experience. After which, I will discuss the positive and negative outcomes of my stress. Lastly, I will