Eerie Anne's Journal

[natureluvr]

I love Pete Walker's books. I have 2 that have been very helpful - CPTSD From Surviving to Thriving, and The Tao of Fully Feeling. 

I couldn't agree more about allowing ourselves to grieve to express the pain of what happened to us.  I've been in a grieving process for about 3.5 years, and I have less pain that I'm carrying around inside me than I used to.  I also find I don't get as easily triggered, although I do still get triggered.  One of my big triggers is people who try to one up me, and talk to me in a contemptuous or disdainful way.  I'm getting better about standing up to this.

[Eireanne]

 Complex PTSD: From Surviving To Thriving by Pete Walker - Chapter 3

c-ptsd almost always has emotional neglect at its core. A key outcome of this is that the child has no one in his formative years who models the relational skills that are necessary to create intimacy. When the developmental need to practice healthy relating with a caretaker is unmet survivors typically struggle to find and maintain healthy supportive relationships in their adult lives. 

The origin of social anxiety - a child who grows up with no reliable human source of love support and protection typically falls into a great deal of social unease.

The terrible absence of love or its abrupt premature termination is extremely painful and its loss is very difficult to address. We cannot help desperately wanting the unconditional love we were so unfairly deprived of but we cannot as adults expect others to supply our unmet early entitlement needs.

[Eireanne]

Trauma brain word vomit Might be a trigger warning...

My truth is, I was being bullied.  I followed work protocol (which is utter bs because they are making me RETAKE the code of conduct course) so I'm literally being tested if I understand if I am being bullied I am to go to my manager (well, my manager was the one bullying me) and then go to HR (well HR was having regular meetings with HR about who to fire this month) and if that doesn't work file an ethics complaint (I did, twice) and when I finally broke down and told people verbally what was going on, and the code of conduct says if you hear something in good faith it's your duty to report it.  So I DID.  SAY IT VERBALLY...sorry inner child yelling....I told everyone she was bullying me. and they went and told her. and she told my manager that I violated code of conduct. So I got written up.  and in the reprimand from my manager it says something like, "sometimes, when we say things that we think is funny, it's really inappropriate for the workplace...That's where my trauma is, so I haven't been able to deal with this part.  She was like, well I warned you not to tell anyone what was going on, I said if you keep your mouth shut, I would have gotten you help, I TOLD you I was going to talk to HR, you just needed to be patient, but because you said something, I can't help you. 

Only....she'll say that's not what she really said...because of my relational trauma, sometimes I interpret things....through my trauma brain, so it's like I'm a kid and my mom is yelling at me, and my boyfriend is gaslighting me, and my manager is telling me I am going to lose my job unless I can figure out how to make her happy....and it's like, how could I have possibly made her happy? I couldn't make my abuser happy, I couldn't make my mom happy, I do EVERYTHING I can never have needs, I have to not sleep and not eat and not shower because she might need something and she's STILL not happy....and you're (my current manager, if you're still following) telling me that because I disclosed I was experiencing serious workplace violations, I'm now going to lose my job??? Why? What did I do wrong? Because I said she was bullying me? And it embarrassed her?  Did you not HEAR how I was living?  Did you gloss over the part where I TOLD you, I was not sleeping or eating or showering because I was scared ALL. THE. TIME.  and then I realize, you don't care either.  You are...you have been...siding with her the whole time, and feeding me enough rope to hang myself. 

And in this mindset....I tucked my tail between my legs and I went back to work and I said, happy to come back, what do you need me to do...and then my bully came back and heard what it was proposed I was going to do and said no, I don't want her doing that.  So....yeah, I have no role at my job.

And everyone says, Oh...so good for you, you have the gift of time...use it to find another job.  But again...skipping over the...can't eat...can't sleep....can't....only I can.  and I am...but it's taking ALL of my spoons (for those of you that understand spoon theory) There's just enough spoons for the self care I DO have.  For the reading the book and having words, that I can use to tell my therapist (which I will lose if I lose my job and I lose my health insurance I lose treatment for recovery.  And then I lose the ONE thing I had.  The ONE hour a week I have to share the burden of this trauma with someone else.  Everything else is just doing the work myself.  It's so hard, I keep doing it...but how am I supposed to get through an interview...and be faced with that level of enormous amounts of rejection on a daily basis....and this is where I stay trapped and I hate it here.  I cannot hear stuff like, It's hard but you will get through this.

I just really need a hug.  I need a mom.  I need to just be a kid for a little bit and I think the last time I was able to be a kid was age 7.  I've been adulting every since.  I have been alone...no one I really could ever depend on which is NOT true.  I have plenty of people....that are telling me You're doing an amazing job navigating some devastatingly hard,

It just hurts so bad.  So I'm going to let my inner child watch a movie. 

[Armee]

 

[Eireanne]

I am in my trauma right now. But, self induced, as I am about to have a much needed appointment with my therapist. This week has been a roller coaster, and I will put my thoughts into the highs and lows...after my trauma wears off.

I need to be in it, so my therapist can FULLY understand what the root of the problem is, and not waste time with "so, this is what happened at work this week".  I wish more people understood that.  I wish more THERAPISTS understood that...I wouldn't have wasted so many years having CBT forced down my throat.  Ugh, unfortunately, that's what ended up happening, but I mean, I told her all the trauma parts and she validated everything and explained to me that my responses have been totally normal, that they have NO understanding of how to implement my accommodations so they are overcorrecting, etc.

I just realized why I resonate to discordia so much....Eris suffers from social isolation too....so does Maleficent.  She literally had one friend, one love, and he betrayed her.  She responded exactly the way anyone would in her position, but society paints her out to be a villain.

Thank you for the hug Armee

Hello natureluvr, the person narrating the book mentioned that other book, so I'm going to look for it after I finish this one...Sadly, I can't listen to it for long periods of time. 

[sanmagic7]

here's a hug, EA   , warm and embracing, reaching your inner child who has been so needful of warmth and caring, and rightfully so.  i sincerely hope you don't lose your job - this crapola just isn't fair.  sending love, a cuddly, a warm blanket to snuggle under, and a hug full of peace.

[Eireanne]

Thank you so much for the hug sanmagic 

I have had a very distorted view of myself, for the entirety of my life, caused by being born into a toxic environment that skewed my understanding of acceptable behavior. By the time I got to college, I was so beaten down, I didn't know who I was, who I wanted to be, or what made me happy, all I knew is to put my own feelings aside and attempt to make others happy, do for others, be what other people wanted me to be and cry out in anguish when I was feeling a disconnect between the authentic self hidden underneath and how I was allowing myself to be treated by others. I didn't understand what I was doing wrong, I thought if I made my needs clear then there shouldn't be any misunderstandings, but time and time again there were, and it led to more and more disconnect, hiding who I wanted to be in favor of who others told me I was.

I allowed my fears to get the better of me, and to stay with people who manipulated those fears in a way that mirrored my controlled and toxic childhood. The saddest part of all of this, I was not conscious of any of this going on, because I didn't have a model for any alternative, I just assumed this was what life was, and the more I fought against it, the more discontented I became, I assumed I just needed to allow these things to happen without complaint, so I could find happiness.

I wasn't aware that my behavior, and the way I talked to myself in my own head were perpetuating a cycle of negativity that affected the way I spoke out loud, the way I presented myself...the way I continuously allowed myself to be treated, and I would find myself in situations that I didn't have the understanding to get out of in a way that didn't destroy everything in its wake.

I lost myself in my attempt to be the person I thought would be more likeable, one who would fit in, get along, succeed, but there was always something off and I didn't see what it was. I felt everyone around me could see it, and they were all waiting for me to figure it out, but I couldn't and for that I couldn't forgive myself.  I spoke to myself in my head the way the people who didn't have my best interests at heart spoke to me, people that for whatever reason could not see the damage they inflicted, perhaps due to their own pain.

[Eireanne]

By always focusing on the critical and the negative, you may be stunting your progress in certain areas of your life.

Your personal and emotional needs must be fulfilled in order for you to be your best. Satisfaction comes from emotional needs fulfilled. Once fulfilled, needs seem to disappear. 

"Respect my existence or expect my resistance". 

New Years IS an arbitrarily determined point in our planet's orbit

Each day is a new beginning. You have strength within you. Look inwards for help saying what needs to be said & doing what needs to be done.

it is often a highly cooperative species, not the highly competitive, that survive dramatic shifts.

You increase your own good when you give your gifts. There are no limits to the amount of good you can experience!

Remember that stress doesn't come from what's going on in your life. It comes from your thoughts about what's going on. – av

Some balls you juggle are glass and others are plastic. When you drop a plastic ball it sucks but it bounces and won't break.  When you drop a glass ball it shatters, so the key is knowing which are glass and which are plastic. It always sucks to drop balls but as long as they're not glass it'll be ok.

Sometimes, life launches another ball to juggle that throws off the balance, however delicate, which has snowball effects that touch every aspect of life.

My biggest trick when you don't want to do something is pretend you're doing it as a favor for someone else, like one of your favorite people and eventually realize YOU should be your favorite person, so you are doing it for future you...they'll thank you for it

[Eireanne]

Something I wrote a few weeks ago that I'm just getting to now....

My mom had two friends and I was friends with their daughters...until HS when one of the daughters was really into drugs and I didn't want to be around her - so I eventually told my mom, who told her mom, who put her in treatment and she never forgave me.  But it was more than that...she had a boyfriend and I didn't understand the dynamic, or how I fit in, so I would mirror her behavior...I would often mirror everyone's behavior, just trying to figure out how to...be? And all her friends told her I was trying to "steal" her boyfriend, even though she knew me and knew that wasn't what I was doing, but she never talked to me about it...it was only years later, we were having what I thought was a reunion dinner and she basically ripped into me, telling me what a horrible human being I was, and never spoke to me again. Most people just stop speaking to me and I never understand why, I'm so confused.  Over the smallest things that usually are a result of me wanting autonomy, and over and over I'm just crushed that once again no one really understands and everyone assumes my intentions.

My thing is, when asked a question, I can never think of a spontaneous response, I always want time to think about it...even icebreaker questions.  I spend all the time trying to think of an answer and not listening to anyone else's responses.

The realization I've had recently is most people can't even ask themselves their own why...they don't have self awareness, and if they can't even be interested in themselves, how would I expect them to be interested in me with anything beyond a surface level?  I've spent my whole life being told I think wrong, or overthink, or...some sort of failing, when the truth is, I've just wanted someone to see me...instead of telling me who they think I am, or worse, assuming how I am without even checking for confirmation...

I think that's what my work doesn't understand, I need to mirror people, I need things modeled for me and I need connections with peers...because these are skills I never learned, and because of the isolation, I don't have opportunities to practice.  I don't even THINK about what I need, because I spend all my time making sure everyone else's needs are met, no one ever even considers that I have needs.

I'm trying desperately to sort out so many things for my own understanding and I can't find the words that I need right now, so I keep looping.  All I can do right now is read through my notes and post and try to make sense of things.

[Eireanne]

Did you know? Ongoing exposure to things like emotional abuse, threatening behaviors, or sexual or racial harassment can result in PTSD in the workplace. It can be prompted by less overtly egregious but persistent career harms such as chronic overwork; unrealistic performance expectations; not being given the resources to succeed at your job; undelivered promises; boundary violations such as expecting you to do work when on vacation; and not allowing you to use your benefits like vacation, sick time, or leave — cues that tell employees they aren't psychologically safe at work. Members of marginalized populations are more likely to experience workplace PTSD because they already deal with the traumas of racism and discrimination. Companies have a crucial role to play in supporting employees who are dealing with challenges that result in significant mental and emotional duress, like post-traumatic stress disorder.

[Eireanne]

@armee, thank you for the hug as well...I missed it in refreshing the entry I was posting, but it is much appreciated.  I still struggle to acknowledge all the wonderful support I receive from this community. It is not intentional.

[Eireanne]

I'm looking for opportunities for growth. My current company does not have a path for growth for admins. The admins that work in my company are career admins. The other option seems to be salary promotion or scale promotion to project manager with the understanding that you're still doing the duties and responsibilities you had when you were an admin.

I am all for starting work early and staying late and I'm definitely not one of those people that punch out at exactly 5 PM but I didn't anticipate the strain that it would have on me physically and mentally to be doing that nonstop for the past 10 years. I really need to work with a manager who is going to understand that I do my best work when I am allowed rest. And I'm terrified of resting in my current position because of the continual layoffs that have absolutely nothing to do with performance, but I have to make sure that I'm not giving them any ammunition that they can hold against me. Which means that I am a constant straight state of anxiety worried about dropping balls because if I mess up I could that could be the thing that causes me to get eliminated during the next round of layoffs. Not to mention the fact the trend seems to be to fire the elderly women who aren't close enough to retirement but are too old to be able to find employment.

Poor planning on your part no longer constitutes an emergency on my part. Thank you

If you're monitoring your emails every day of your PTO, it's not really PTO.

The three qualities every amazing employee has:

Do good work

Do work on time

Easy to work with


Going back to work has retraumatized me.  I tried to work on things that help, and vented to people about what was going on, or journaled, or did all the other things that I do when I procrastinate and realized I was asking for help but not getting the help I needed because my words were coming out wrong. I don't understand why I do this...it's so inconvenient, so I need to write everything down until I figure out what I'm really trying to say.  And I still don't...so I decide, it's getting too close to bed, I don't want to be distraught, so I will decompress...and it works, until 3:40am when brain decided it's a great time to puzzle out why I'm being retraumatized.  I ran through the situation over and over, and I recognize, I just need to work on it, I need to spend the bulk of my day on it, but I really just wanted to sleep...and so now, as I want to stop, and rest, because I've already processed a fair chunk and I still haven't even gotten to the recent emails from her I need to correct...and I'm afraid the same thing will happen, unless I get out as much as I can before I fall asleep, enough for my brain to say, ok, we've actually processed it all. 

It's like my trauma comes in three parts - 1. my brain overthinks it (annoying) 2. I word vomit it at someone (shame) 3. My brain wakes me up at (insomnia) o'clock to ruminate about it over and over again.  I then go fractal, and all my parts work on different aspects of the situation.  One part tells me why I'm upset, one part tells me how we feel about that, one part has to be the mom and hug us, one part has to validate what happened.  If I'm in the middle of all of this and someone talks to me, I inadvertently may word vomit on them. 

This is the part I need help saying.  I have a disability.  When my disability is (activated?) the following symptoms of, lack of cognitive processing and word vomit caused cognitive awareness of the situation, which immediately triggered an AH, and every week I'm required to have a conversation with the manager that triggered all this betrayal I have an EF to the first time this happened at SKO, because I haven't fully processed that event, it is retraumatizing me.  I need enough time in treatment for this event to not to continue to be retraumatized from it, but I have been threatened with losing all of that if I speak to anyone about this incident.  It is hard for me not to feel threatened and retaliated upon.

I need to send this and the other post, as well as all the email exchanges, and I still have to make corrections which will in turn be re-traumatizing. 

I need to explain to AJ that the help I need is not the help I need but I need to clarify something first. 

The situation of her sitting me down in an office and looking right at me and telling me, when I'm telling her, "i can't process anything right now, I don't understand what you're saying.  I can only hear I'm being eliminated and I don't understand why.  I did X,Y, Z and followed the code of conduct  You said, if I follow the code of conduct policy you would advocate for me to get me the help I needed.  I trusted you, I believed you, and you sat there and told me because I said that LD is a bully and my mental and physical health have been negatively affected and I need help...and because you warned me not to say anything to anyone about that.  Because I did, it got back to LD and it made her uncomfortable.  Which is understandable.  She sent word back to me that I was to discontinue saying anything negative about her.  I didn't talk to anyone for the rest of the weekend. 

A colleague came over to me and said it sounds like I'm a victim ( cannot remember how it was phrased, it's part of my cognitive ??) but I do not want her to be involved, everyone that was witness to the situation does not want to speak up for fear of retaliation, and I understand my position is being eliminated, as do they, I do not want to put anyone else's job at risk for their assistance in attempting to advocate for myself.  But it was in that moment I had cognitive awareness of the situation.  I believe I said, I am being bullied.  I feel like I am in an abusive relationship and I'm terrified".  As soon as I realized I had said that, I recognized this was what my manager warned me not to talk about.  A colleague said to me if I felt that way I should talk to my manager.  I should call EAP, I should go to HR, I should file an ethics complaint.  I couldn't tell her I had already done all of those things, and it was in doing those things that my job was now in jeopardy.  I said, "I like my job, I don't want to be eliminated, I'm happy where I am".  I didn't speak to anyone for the rest of the weekend.  I then went on a work trip to Texas that my manager was also attending. I didn't speak to anyone and pointed that out to her. She said she observed and responded favorably, that was the attitude she wanted to see.  Me meek, scared to socialize, scared to be myself and connect with others.  At the end of this event was where she sat me down in a 1:1 and said all the things that are triggering me.  I need to keep writing them down but I also need to do a bunch of other things and I only have 30 minutes...



AOE  suggested, I said to me, when I say that, I sound like a victim.  It was in that moment, I realized that I did.  I said, I feel like I'm in an abusive relationship.  I couldn't tell her I had done all of the things, I had gone to my manager, already gone to ET I disclosed to ET that I had a disability. I explained to her the symptoms of my disability.  In doing that, I was retaliated against.  That was devastating.  The utter betrayal.  I literally couldn't even process it.  And in this unprocessed state, I returned to work.  Despite both my therapist and primary care physicians suggestions. 


That because of this, I feel the symptoms of my disability are now being used against me to further exacerbate my mental state, so as to ensure I make a mistake and say something that will be used as evidence I...I view these as retalatory and unless I comply my position will be eliminated.  No matter how I view the situation, it is my understanding the intent of HR is to protect the company.  I was just trying to protect my wellbeing and my mental and physical health.  I interpreted the bottom paragraph as ET saying because I am insisting on continuing to speak with HR, your duties and responsibilitleis will all be removed. 

So

[sanmagic7]

sounds like a terrible situation to be in, EA.  sorry you're having to go thru all this.  and i get the part where it's difficult to answer a question quickly - i need time to process what was said, asked of me, and what my response is.  all very messy.  love and hugs

[Eireanne]

Complex PTSD: From Surviving To Thriving by Pete Walker - Chapter 3

While self-mothering focuses primarily on healing the wounds of neglect, self-fathering heals the wounds of being helpless to protect yourself from parental abuse and by extension from other abusive authority figures. Self-fathering aims at building assertiveness and self-protection. It includes learning to effectively confront external and or internal abuse as well as standing up for the adult child's rights.

Unfortunately, as I still do not experience psychological safety and in attempting to be assertive and protecting myself, I am about to lose my job, this part is hard for me to believe.

Re-parenting sometimes needs to be initiated and modeled by someone else such as a therapist, a sponsor, a kind friend or supportive group to show us how to self-reparent ourselves.  The need to have mothering and fathering type support from others is a lifelong need and not just limited to childhood.

Recovering is therefore enhanced on every level by safe human help. Deep level recovering as well as healthy human being is typically a vacillating blend of self-help and help from others.  The dao of relational recovery involves balancing healthy independence with healthy dependence on others.  For the survivor, this therapeutic synthesis can come into being when an improved supportive relationship with yourself allows you to choose and open to a helpful relationship. Sometimes simultaneously, the attainment of a safe supportive relationship with another person promotes the growth of your ability to be self-supportive.  This then rewards you with a decrease in your automatic tendency towards self-abandonment. Complementarily, this then fosters the gradual development of community - the vital life resource that you were so unfairly deprived of in childhood. The more self-supportive we become, the more we attract support of others. The more we are supported by others, the more we can support ourselves.

[Eireanne]

Complex PTSD: From Surviving To Thriving by Pete Walker - Chapter 4

Although we often work on many levels of recovering at the same time, recovering is to some degree progressive.

It begins on the cognitive level - when psychoeducation and mindfulness helps us understand that we have c-ptsd, this awakening then allows us to learn how to approach the journey of deconstructing the various life-spoiling dynamics of c-ptsd.

Still on the cognitive level, we take our next steps into the long work of shrinking the critic.  Some survivors will need to do a great deal of work on this level before they can move down to the emotional layer of work which is learning how to grieve effectively.

The phase of intensely grieving our childhood losses can last for a couple of years. When sufficient progress is made in grieving, the survivor naturally drops down into the next level of recovery work. This involves working through fear by grieving our loss of safety in the world. At this level we also learn to work through our toxic shame by grieving the loss of our self-esteem.

As we become more adept in this type of deep level grieving, we are then ready to address the core issue of our trauma - the abandonment depression itself.  Work here involves releasing the armoring and physiological reactivity in our body to the abandonment depression via somatic work.

This work culminates with learning to compassionately support ourselves through our experiences of depression. Many survivors need some relational help in achieving the complex tasks involved in deconstructing each layer of our old pain exacerbating defenses.