11 May 2026 / 23 Iyyar 5786
In January I wrote about a traumatic event I experienced a few years ago that caused me to be diagnosed with clinical PTSD. This event was one that occurred while I was at work and was related to an incident where a client became v!ol3nt (as mentioned previously, I work in the not-for-profit social/community work field).
In March of this year, I experienced a similar event at work that completely retraumatized me…even worse than before actually. I’ve been having night terrors, flashbacks (like full on war style), panic attacks and become somewhat agoraphobic. Chronic illness flare up of course.
Unfortunately, these incidents are becoming increasingly common against workers in my field due to the at-risk populations we work with and the |?rug$ that are becoming more prevalent on the streets (hence my numerous writings related to returning to study).
I’ve been on leave from work on and off since then, but put in an application for worker’s compensation officially two weeks ago and am just waiting to hear back. My boss has been really supportive and believes that the application will be approved, which would give me three months off work paid at just slightly less than my usual wage.
I prayed that 5786 and 2026 would be “SaS’s year of getting her act together” after the events of last year, so it would be a lie to say that all of this happening in March and April hasn’t shaken me and had me spiralling a bit.
I’d previously reread my posts from January and early February and wallowed in self pity about how optimistic they seemed and how now it just felt hopeless all over again. Historically I’ve been very guilty of having a “my life is just one bad thing after another” mentality - I’ve probably even said those exact words here before!
But today I was sitting in my room and just starting chatting out loud to HaShem about everything and asking for guidance.
Out of no where I just had this realization that, actually, March and April are just 2 out of 12 months and we’re only 11 days into May. There’s actually 7.5 whole months left in the Gregorian year and that it was actually me that was in control over whether I would look back on this year positively or not. There might be even more negative life things that happen this year and I can’t control that, but the reality is, even if that does happen, not every single day is negative.
I know that the therapy term for what I’m talking about is moving from a “fixed mindset” to a “growth mindset” and have been familiar with those concepts for years. But truly understanding them to be true is a different matter.
I did some Googling on the topic and found the article Growth Mindset: Key To Freedom by Jonah Simcha Chaim Muskat-Brown. It was written for Pesach, and the tagline begins with “Our long walk to freedom begins now, despite not knowing which exact path to take and how our greatness will ultimately materialize.”
