If someone you work with has been through some trauma, give them space!

And let them do things at their own speed…

Those are my words of wisdom for the day, and this story reminded me of them.

Check out what happened to this young woman and see if you think she did anything wrong.

AITA for ‘using my condition to get out of work?’

“I (19f) have a part-time job in one of my university’s choral ensembles that I’ve held for several years now, so I spend a lot of time rehearsing and putting on concerts with the group.

She has worked hard to get where she’s at.

I was also diagnosed with PTSD two years ago, after three years of symptoms that greatly impacted my ability to focus in school or participate in activities.

I was really proud of myself for getting treatment and, since moving to university, living a largely unaffected life.

Then a noise during a rehearsal a couple weeks ago set me off and I feel like it’s undone a lot of the progress I made.

I’m scared again of nearly everything and find it really hard to focus.

I’m slowly getting better and I’ve restarted therapy, but I also know that it can take a while to be unaffected again.

I’m honestly just disappointed in myself because I don’t like having these symptoms and I thought I was ‘cured.’

I told my director about the diagnosis and she suggested that I come to rehearsals so that I can learn my part and leave the room if I ever feel like I’m starting to get upset to calm down.

Then I’ll skip the smaller concerts we’ve had so far so that I’m not dipping in and out continuously, until I feel better.

I’ve been to most practices and sometimes needed to take breaks several times during the same rehearsal.

People are giving her a hard time.

Attendance has gotten stricter and breaks more limited for the whole group because we have a big concert coming up, but other students have seen me leaving several times in the same two hours for a decent chunk of time and not be reprimanded for it.

People say things, mostly that I’m rude and disrespectful for it.

I really don’t want to tell everybody what’s wrong with me, so when somebody confronts me I just say that I have a health condition.

That gets most people to stop talking to me — although I still hear them complain to each other about how it’s unfair that I get so many breaks and they don’t — until the student ‘Alice’ who’s in charge of my section I guess decided that she’d had enough.

Here it comes…

We were doing section practices and my director was helping another group, and Alice said to me, in front of everybody, “You need to stop using your condition to get out of work. It ruins it for the rest of us. Everybody’s faking health stuff anyway, so you’re probably just being lazy.”

I know Alice hasn’t liked me but I was offended and embarrassed that she’d say that in front of the group.

At first I didn’t feel like I had done anything wrong, especially because my director seems to be on my side, but now enough people have spoken to me that I’m wondering if I am ruining it for the others.

I could see how my leaving the room a lot or not being at events people expect me at could be disruptive and disappointing for the others.

Also, just as with the nature of mental health issues, I feel like maybe I’m just weak and should try harder to be less affected.

I don’t want to be this way, but maybe it would’ve been smarter for me to just take off until I can get it under control.

AITA and approaching this all wrong?”

Let’s see how folks reacted on Reddit.

This person shared their thoughts.

Another Reddit user weighed in.

This individual had a lot to say.

Another person spoke up.

And this reader weighed in.

This was pretty out of line…

She needs to stay in her lane.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.