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That's kind of you! It's really nice to be able to talk and write about it. I tjust feels like such a difficult topic, that it's hard to know what's ok to write.

I felt a lot better after writing about it, and I still feel pretty good.

Thanks to both of you! I guess I wouldn't say I'm on top, but I'm doing better  I'm only working 30 %, however.

Yesterday I learnt that they will bring my old boss that made me sick to lead our department temporarily from New Year's for a few months. They gave me a choice to go to another department and get new tasks (temporarily or long-term). I think it's way too early to work under my old boss again. Learning a new job when working 30 % is also not easy (though I might work more than that from New Year's).

Their main reason for bringing in my old boss, was that nobody in the organization will speculate that he's anything but temporary, meaning people trust the process. The other reason was that another internal, temporary boss might get mad if I they don't get the job afterwards. In essence, they say a tidy hiring process is more important than a tidy process towards me. They told me this on Friday, a couple of hours before the end of the work-day, and they're going to announce him Monday morning. So I'm kinda sidelined. It doesn't feel like a big crisis, but it doesn't feel good either.

My third option is to fight this. I think I have good cards, with the laws in our country, strong unions and social services who probably don't want to pay allowances to me any longer than they have to. In the end, my employer could be instructed to find another solution. No need to mention this would probably prove hugely unpopular with the leadership. Big issue, that I have to discuss with my therapist.

A good thing is that I have options now, so I don't feel stuck and hopeless and completely overrun. Unfortunately, I'm not sure my later options are good, no matter what I choose.

I guess I have an EF, because I feel quite a bit like I did half a year ago.

My workplace gave me some new trauma. They never really dealt with it, and I felt so bad my SI seemed to make sense, to be an option, not just troublesome thoughts. I had never thought that way before, so I was desperate. I therefore told my boss about it, and I also wrote it to HR, because I needed them to see the wrong they were doing. HR interpreted it as me trying to emotionally blackmail them, and met me in a negative way. The HR leader set up a meeting with me. Coming late to our appointed meeting, she made a big point about being delayed because some meetings were more important than others. She hinted that I was just being difficult, and just put pressure on me to stop being difficult. Fortunately, it helped me more to say things out loud than her response hurt me.

Now that I'm slipping (temporarily, I hope), I remember what she said and feel the hurt more. When I'm low, it's so much easier to accept other people's disregard for me, and what she conveyed is that my SI was none of their business, and they didn't care. They would not try to help me by meeting me the way I'd told I wanted to be met, and they were quite happy to push me to see what would happen (though I expect they really wanted to see if I would work constructively or quit, and I guess they didn't quite realize the severity of it). It's really a blow to my sense of safety and worth at the workplace, though.

I just hope that I don't start thinking SI makes sense again, but I somehow recognize the way I felt at that time. Now I feel that just writing this makes it better. I feel touched by me showing care for myself by sharing this. At the same time I feel I'm burdening you, and hope I don't write too much. FYI, I will read about EF management, and I will contact someone if I'd need to.

I had a hard time deciding where to post this, but dissociation is quite prominent for the time, so here goes.

I've been very gradually getting back to work after being sick from a bad boss reviving my problems. Most people have been very warm and treating me with respect after I got back. However, I had a difficult assignment that I got unreasonable criticism for from all decision-making levels (yes, you can question my grasp on reality, but it was too complex for some and I was not allowed to prepare the highest level of decision, which sent them into the trenches). Suddenly people were attacking me, questioning the quality of my work and showing a lack of trust. It felt mildly troublesome, but I kept on going, despite the extra rounds were pretty meaningless. My department leader started avoiding saying hi to me, and continued like that for a couple of months. Things changed when I got a new boss a bit over a month ago. He said the job I'd done in the first hand was good, and didn't understand why thing shad become so troublesome. He talked to the department leader, a colleague who was criticizing me and some others. Things changed, the department leader started saying hi, my colleague treats me with more respect and indirectly apologized for her behaviour. My boss has continued to give me good feedback on every task I do, partly deciding against my colleague's wishes. He even didn't care when I overslept for a seminar for the whole department.

So I've started feeling safe again. Then, increasingly it felt like things were going well at work, but not during my free time. I procrastinated, played games and watched series, and felt bad about myself. In effect, I was doing what I did in my youth, when I was bullied. I tried to escape painful feelings of being hurt, alone and vulnerable, and the general sense of not being worth anything (coming from others behaving badly towards me). So the same is happening now, I often try to actively dissociate feelings. It really makes me feel bad, also because this doing something all the time comes with a feeling I should be doing something useful (to be worth something, for my life to have meaning). And not being able to work much, and wasting my time the rest of the day, I don't feel I'm doing something useful. So I say to myself that I've failed, that I'm failing and that I will fail again, and therefore have no future.

Now I'm fighting to be strong enough to feel the underlying feelings, so I don't reel off painting such a bleak picture of my existence. I try to feel how hurt I've been, and to say to myself that my reactions to what happened are perfectly normal and alright. I try to not go too much into anger (which I think is a secondary feeling, but still ok to feel), because I start thinking of revenge or justification or something, and by conjuring up images of that, I create a more dangerous world for me, which stresses me out and makes me feel worse. I fight to be more open, to show more feelings and trust more in people. I fight to think that people are not out to get me (though it's hard to trust people in general, and especially those that have behaved badly) and I fight to convince myself that others don't just see me as my problems and shortcomings.

I fight to be able to do things that are good for me, like strolling, exercizing, dancing, socializing, read a book, do chores that need to be done - but not least to just sit down and check in with myself. How am I doing, what am I feeling, am I being kind to myself?

Thanks Blueberry. I guess I've focused on functioning at work, and have succeeded in that (thoguh I'm still working reduced). Now I feel that my free-time is my biggest problem, and I have to focus more on myself and my feelings again. Guess I needed to come back here 

Hi Three Roses!  Sorry for temporarily hijacking the thread, Blueberry, but I guess it's been a while since last i posted 

Hi Blueberry. Seems like you've created some breathing space for yourself, and now you're searching for what's a nice balance. Sounds like good thing  I remember quitting my Master's thesis after years of struggling, and how well that felt. I was able to start doing other things quite fast. Seems like you're finding your motivation in the different kinds of work you do.

meg_col, there's no doubt in my troubled mind that bullying can cause cPTSD. I experienced it as really traumatizing, and as such has had and still has effects on me - the way I behave, the way I feel, the way I look at myself, the way I look at others etc.

I think part of the reason why people say CPTSD isn't caused by bullying, is that for diagnosing PTSD, you have to have some sort of life threatening trauma in the past. CPTSD isn't officially recognized as a diagnosis here. My psychologist was therefore very clear that he would diagnose me with relational trauma, though most symptoms and most of the history anyway fit CPTSD. To me this is kind of intellectual laziness. If you picture the way humans evolved, in hunter-gatherer packs, being isolated and treated badly by everyone was a potentially life threatening situation. We've evolved to perceive these situations as life-threatening in my eyes. This whole "it's just words" is only partly true.

Glad I could be of help, Boatsetsailrose.

I should try to think of that cheering emoticon every time I feel it's too hard to take the conflict. I picture myself sitting in that meeting, thinking about the emoticon 

Today I'm feeling unloved by everyone again, like all people want to do me harm. Really exaggerated thinking/feeling. It's because of this conflict at work. The HR department was part of the original problem, and they're still a part of the problem. The way they behave, try to avoid talking about what happened/avoiding guilt/blaming me for various things, it's all just too much. I put up with it, and gradually things got worse. When I don't stand up for myself, I seem to go into a negative spiral, where the lack of self care I show turns into feelings of noone liking me. These are really strong feelings, like life isn't worth living. So I'm going to make a stand, even if I hate conflicts. I'm having the social services call them in for a joint meeting, so they can't just behave the way they want. If that doesn't work, I'll escalate things further, first internally in the company, then externally. I'm just not going to put up with how they treat me. They suck, I don't!

I'm not surprised that others too have this longing for love here, and it's  a shame that we didn't get what we needed when we were younger! I imagine how it would have been if I had memories of nice, fulfilling moments as my platform, how that would have given me a feeling of being safe and worth something. That's not how I remember it. I remember a lot of insecurity  around myself and my family's mood in many memories. The best memories are usually memories where I'm doing something by myself, when I could enter a sort of flow and be less conscious of things.

In a way it's an arrest in an emotional development, and in several ways I feel a whole lot more immature than my age would imply.

Thanks, Kat. Yes, it's a grief of what should have been, and then a sort of grief for where I'm at now mixes in as well.  As you say, it feels very lonely, but fortunately I managed to call a friend who came over, and that was so nice.

I've been on a sick leave for seven months due to mistreatment at work, and recently started working two half days a week. My muscles really tensed up, I started forgetting things and I sensed some underlying sadness beneath that feeling of uneasiness and stress. I could not place that sadness anywhere, but I think now the feeling of being unloved was the cause. I must have felt way more vulnerable at work than I was able to pick up. I'm less tense now, more at ease and hopefully not forgetting as much  It'll still be strange to go to work today and kind of pretend everything is fine.

Sorry to hear that you're exercising so much again, and that it's escalating. On the other hand, I think it's great that you told your therapist and that you made a plan together! Even though you haven't gone together yet, the plan is still on. You could tell her how important it is for you that you do this (as you said, it can be hard for others to understand fully, sometimes).

Hope you don't feel all alone with this 

Though I don't know your struggle, it's obvious from what you write that you're struggling, and I'm sorry to hear that. Three hour sessions every day sounds wrecking, and I can see how this must have had a big place in your life.

Is the reason you don't want to tell your therapist the same as with people you know, that you don't want the T to see or limit your behaviour? You could look at your T as just someone giving advice, not limiting you. It's your choice whether you do what your T recommends or not. Then, perhaps it's easier to talk to him/her?