spacing out in chemistry

Help!!! I have PTSD. I'm also a nursing student and am taking organic chemistry this summer (yuck!) I had my first lecture on monday and when I got home I realized I had dissociated throughout the entire first hour of the lecture. There were no notes, just scribbles. But after that one hour I was fine and able to follow the lecture. My question is: how do you beat dissociation when you don''t even are aware of it coming on? I don't know what I did during this hour so should I tell my professor about my PTSD or just hope for the best and let it be?Any ideas would be REALLY appreciated.

Hey -good luck to you!! I think, if it were me, i'd be taping the lectures!! Then you can go back and get what you missed - maybe also finding the thing that made you dissociate?

Kiya

First I want to say...as a nursing student myself, who also took organic chem during summer session...GOOD LUCK TO YOU! Seriously...chem (or upper division math) during summer is HARD!!! With or without dissociation issues.

You have a few options avalable. My first suggestion is to go to your school's disabled students resources department and do an intake interview...get yourself set-up with them. Disabled student resources can provide you with accomodations specific to your needs, that will help you with your classes. I have been going through them for the last 2 years and it has helped a great deal. Things that would be helpful are a quiet room for exams, extra time (usually time and a half for dissociative type things), notetaking, tape recorded lectures, etc. The way note taking works is disabled students provides the teacher with self-carbon note paper...the teacher announces to the class that he needs copies of someones notes for a student that has difficulty taking notes (but does not say who). A student takes notes with that special paper, then gives the copies to the teacher...the teacher then gives the copies to you at the end of class (in office or after everyone has left the room, or whatever you agree on). I actually have never used the notetaker accomodation, but I have used the others I listed. It really does help.

Is this your first class? If it's not, is there something in the room, about the teacher, the topic, another student, that may be triggering you?

I think serafimetal gave some excellent suggestions for dealing with this. Knowing what the problem is (PTSD and dissociation) makes it possible for you to take some specific measures to deal with it. That's a big help.