Other How Do You Cope Working In K-12 With Daily Drills And Emergencies?

[Powder]

My job has it's usual stress, working in a large, overcrowded high school. The heat or A/C is always breaking down, and there are bugs everywhere.

But my issue is that we have had three straight days of lockdown, fire, and other drills, and then a lockdown/release with a gun brought into the school today. Nothing happened, technically.

My child attends where I work, so I had to work, and also worry about her, and get ready to go and take her home when the announcement for where she was to go was released.

Her phone was dead, so I didn't know if she was fine or not.

I was able to contact my husband/supporter to stay calm, we texted. I was alone for 2.5 hours in a locked, dark portable with no information about my child or myself.

I was doing fine coping until I heard popping/banging sounds (3) and a male voice yell "Help!" very fast outside, far off.

I froze, and I wondered if I was hearing the gun being used or something else. It sounded like banging and not gunfire.

I just called 911 and let them know what I heard and that I couldn't be sure what I was hearing for certain.

They sent in our school sheriff officer to me. I told him what I heard, and pointed to where it seemed to come from. There was a storage area that likely there were maintenance workers in, who were loading up to leave. It was probably just them being careless jerks, not thinking that their banging and yelling might upset a school on lockdown.

I never got word what it was. I'll never know. I was really scared that my daughter could be harmed, and myself. I calmed after a bit, but I still feel upset.

What are people with PTSD supposed to do after stressors to prevent them from making us have relapses?

So far, no flashbacks or triggering, just high alert, heart racing and overall tension in my body. I can't stop thinking about it. :(

At meetings, I was told 2 years ago the drill was way too realistic; they had a girl screaming and banging on the door "He's got a gun! Let me in!" and the staff member locked inside who wasn't allowed to let her in had a nervous breakdown and quit that night. I don't think she sued the school. And the school hasn't changed their policy of having "realistic" drama drills, which can cause staff to cry and think that the event is really happening.

This today wasn't a drill; it was a real report of a gun. But the constant attention to drills mixed into real emergencies at random keep my stress pretty high up there.

I'm not sure how to protect myself from my job causing further damage to my PTSD.

This is way more than I bargained for when I started. I had drills and emergency evacuations at my last job, including bombs being placed on campus, but my child wasn't on campus. That makes it way more scary for me as a mom.

 

[Friday]

This is going to sound really simple...so play with it a bit:

Either make the stress happen more often, or make it happen less.

...

Personally, I tend to go with more. (Not always, but usually.). There are several benefits to that. First off, instead of being entirely out of control, by making it happen more? That adds a huge element of control. It's very much like the difference between the neighbors dog occasionally plowing into you (FFS! Control your animal!), and (if it's a big enough deal, is impacting my life enough that I need to solve it?) getting your own dog... Who not only plows into you every day (so you get good at the dodgy eel thing), but whom you also get to train to not knock into you and others. So there's a wee bit of exposure therapy, coupled the control, competence, & trust of doing a thing on purpose, and getting good at it. So not the next time, but one of the next times, the neighbors dog plows into you? You know how to dodge an untrained 150 pounds crashing into you, it's habit by now, and you know how to bring him up short. Might still be :shifty:, but the o-9o helpless/danger/stress response is long gone.

But it really doesn't matter what it is that is stressing me out.
- If I'm worried about being attacked on the street? I take self defense classes, until I'm comfortable enough to have a friend periodically attack me in the street (bad guys so rarely have convenient timing. It's like, look. Here I am all ready to cement my training with some real world heckling, and all y'all decided to keep your nose clean this month? What gives???).

- If it only snows twice a year, and I'm shit at driving in it? I take my car up to the mountains and check with PD where a good place to practice snow & ice driving is, or if one of them has some off duty hours they'd like to sell to educate the citidiot in proper vehicle handling.

- Fireworks are setting me off, again? Going to the rifle range. Listening for the different reports. Distinguishing the bangs. Going to fireworks shows, setting my own off in the driveway. Listening to & distinguishing those different bangs. Assign my kid to NoisePatrol (drop books, bang pans, slam doors... Anything he can think of that goes bang! boom! crack! pop!... And then I have to guess what it is).

Our Kids, meanwhile, take every situation and ramp it up; just spin the dial from Hot! to Volcano. :wtf: Situations I just fine with my own self all of a sudden become OMFG!!! :eek: the moment my kiddo enters the picture. And situations I'm already struggling wih? :banghead: :hungover:When it's my son??? I not only have to practice handling myself, I have to learn to trust him. Snort. NOT because he's my kid. :rolleyes: But because I've taken the time to not just train myself, but also train him. It may be overprotective, but each and every single time something scares me? I train him, or get him trained. ((Clearly, being a parent you know that there are fun ways to go about this, so that it's mostly game, and seriously screwed up scar your kids for life ways. Only mentioning this because this isn't a parenting forum, and it's a minority of us with chillens' ;))) The same principles apply to when I'm training myself. By training him, not only is he getting the skills to handle a situation, but I'm learning to trust that he has the skills to handle a situation.

...

Training myself? (Much less kids!). Takes time. I don't always have the luxury of time. Sometimes other things are more important, other times it's just the straw the broke the camel's back, while other times I am just plain and simple uninterested in learning XYZ (or suck at it).

Any of those are true? Time to make the stress happen less often! Whether it's changing jobs, hiring something done (Legal. Paperwork. Is. My. Enemy.), moving, any of a number of options.

 

[Powder]

In the last 10 years, teachers are showing higher rates of job-induced PTSD, according to some sources.

 

[EveHarrington]

No advice, but wishing you the best.

I cannot go to events in local schools during the day as many have the old metal bells that ring between periods and send me into complete panic. I can't even imagine the drills.

(But I do question the need for drills that realistic. Yes it's a serious matter but I think there are ways to train our kiddos without terrorizing them in the process.)

 

[Enaila]

I currently work in an inner city teaching position where we have had several lockdown due to gang activity. Two rival gangs used the corner of our school to hide behind. Three shots were fired with a stay bullet bouncing around rafters of upstairs classroom and then coming to rest in a classroom. I found reassurance from the other staff members as we all knew what to do.

Does your child's teacher know what to do? I like to believe teachers I work with put children first and would protect my child as their own.

I prayed for protection over all my students and myself as we sat huddled in the dark. An instant calm came over all of us and two of the junior high students actually fell asleep.

Have you or can you let a co-worker know about your PTSD? This person could help be a go to person when you are triggered as well as check on you after an incident.

As a caring parent, you will always be thinking of your child when danger is present. I agree with FridayJones about preparing for emergencies and triggers. Does your child know what to do in emergencies? Do you have plans in place?

Unfortunately, it seems violence is becoming more common place and every business or home could be violated. We can just do the best we can with the skills we have and take what precautions are possible to stay safe. If you have a school safety committee, join it. If you get a chance to know the school police or officers in your area in non crisis times, do so. (I give this advice even with police officers being a trigger for me.)

Take time to meet with colleagues after a lockdown and debrief. I usually send my therapist a text as well as know when I come down off of the adrenaline, I am going to be shaky and need to know support is there.

I hope some of this helped. Take care and stay safe!

 

[saraemerald]

I personally don't think it's right to make the drills so realistic as that only reinforces natural reactions of panic. Why do they have to go so over the top?! =/

 

[Powder]

The more real the drills, the more we as a group see how people will truly react in a crisis.

The thing is, when I started teaching in 2002, shooting was not a thing. So when I started in this career, these drills were a non-starter. Since then, increasingly, it feels like I've joined the military or police. I have to be a lot more strict with students. Discipline at the principal level seems powerless, so it's pushed onto teachers and low paid Instructional Assistants to dole out discipline procedures that used to be the principal's job.

I wasn't counting on how stressful it would be locked in a room for hours without the ability to go to the restroom, alone, and hearing things outside wondering if my daughter is safe. :(