annakoen's journal

[annakoen]

Doing well at the moment. Support group meetings are a godsend. Therapy also helps and I've got a good support network.

I'm at a bachelors party right now. After the first activity, a GPS hiking tour, we went to a cooking workshop. There were four courses, one of which was to be made by a single person. I chose that, it's a zucchini soup, real easy. I've made that before. All other dishes are in groups of four, that's too much for me right now. I said I felt a bit frazzled and wanted to do that at my own pace. The bachelorette at some point said to me over the din of sounds "If you need a quiet room, just tell the best woman, it's okay."

I teared up a little. I'm a HSP. And that's okay :') 

There's a lot of noise, cutlery and pots and pans clanging together, but I am now on the terrace outside having a drink, because I finished creating my dish. Everyone else is still making their main course and desserts and whatnot, while I am now relaxing so that I can enjoy and be present at the dinner.

Yeah, going well right now

[annakoen]

I'm on holiday... And it's triggering me constantly. Hubby knows I want to go home but the flight back is in a couple of days. We already agreed not to go on holiday this long (10d) next year but to go a few days and then back home.

[Three Roses]

Sorry you're not having more fun.

[annakoen]

Thanks. The last two days were good. Good talks with hubby about dissociation from me and some anxiety he is experiencing sometimes.

[annakoen]

Stuck in trigger town today. Yuck. I hate it here but don't know how to leave... Trying to sleep but I can't fall asleep

I was immensely triggered, first by the perceived threat of missing a deadline, then by narcissistic colleague * on me (might be gaslighting even) and then another colleague calling me annoying. I just want to set fire to these people, that's how I feel right now. My mind keeps going over what happened and then replays alternate realities for me, where I become angry or say something witty. Flashbacks, sometimes. Flash alternate realities and flash forwards it is for me. I wonder if anyone else experiences this...

[annakoen]

Trigger, trigger, trigger, ffuuuuuu--...

After gracefully deflecting both the narc and the guy with ADHD who keeps making derogatory remarks about women from my team, both persons who tend to take very 'against' stances in meetings and, frankly, people I'm afraid of, today for the third time management tried to get one of them in my team. I said I regretted that I have to be so explicit, but then gave the reason I don't want ADHD guy in my team. They were a little shocked at the behavior I mentioned. However, my new boss (yikes, more change! ) understood. I emphasised that it is me who is struggling with this person and I expressed that I regretted expressing my difficulties with said person. New boss said he thought I did well indicating my boundaries and that I would do well to consider indicating my boundaries with ADHD guy as well. I said I didn't mean to be negative about this colleague and that it is my problem really, newboss said again that it was no problem. He regretted not having seen it.

Inner critic is having a blast. "Now everyone will think you're a whiney btch.  If ADHD guy hears, the whole floor will know you said something bad about him. This is going to be food for the narc!"



Trigger, trigger, trigger.... Ugh...
Try to calm down annakoen. Breathe. You're safe. You're not in danger. Even if people don't like you, you're fine. There is a safe place, at home. You're doing well. Be kind to yourself, you know your CPTSD  is there, it's the reason you may be kind to yourself. You may actually do less, not more, all things considered. Slow down....

Sigh... This is hard

[Three Roses]

 

[annakoen]

Thanks Three Roses. Feeling better now that I'm at home. Anxiety attack has passed.

Geez, I'm gonna congratulate myself for being able to function at all at work... Good job, me. I'm doing my best and try to be forgiving towards myself.

[annakoen]

Writing this down in a moment of "on the edge of starting to ruminate" and I'm consciously stopping myself right there.

Question.

When do you apologize to people? Especially at work?

At work, someone sent me a presentation that was.... just awful. It was a unprofessional throw-together which consisted of numerous slides with walls and walls of text... where a simple link to an existing 5 page PDF would have sufficed. It had photographs of drawings on a board where it would have taken less than half an hour to just reproduce these graphs in vector graphics or whatever you like. He violated almost all rules about presentations, i.e. a presentation should not have walls of text but simple bullet points, it should explain the main reasoning and conclusions but the details are best left to verbal explanation by the presenter. Said person could not even separate the main issues from the side issues.

Basically: It was unprofessional and said person asked me to review it. Me, explicitly. He had sent the presentation around a day earlier, with about 10 people on CC, myself included, and at the time I ignored it. I have loads of other stuff to do. That day, he asked me to review it, because he wanted to start giving a training to some colleagues. Now, note that he had copied all the material from a two day course he did earlier, together with me. Basically, a review would result in a step-by-step manual on how he should redo the entire presentation.

I sent him a message strongly advising him not to give the training internally but, instead, to keep working with external trainers who are qualified and can offer quality service. I told him the material looked copied and more like personal notes than training material and that creating good, high quality training material takes a LOT of time. I again strongly advised to keep working with trainers and ended the e-mail with kind regards.

Now, right now, I'm slowly getting anxious that I have hurt his feelings. Or that I came across as a d-ck. Or that he'll rat me out to my boss that I'm being uncooperative. My Inner Critic is trying to build a party, and abusing the sentence "It is better to be kind than right". But heck.. I cannot approve of a presentation, in a corporate environment, that a 15 year old would be able to do better for an assignment in school....

Am I being a pr-ck? I think I am...
The core question is: Can I live with myself being unkind every now and then? Do I have to apologize, even though nothing has transpired yet? I cannot be everyone's friend, it is not my goal in life, and cannot be my goal in a company either...

Anyone who has thoughts on this, I'd like to hear some opinions...

[movementforthebetter]

Hi annakoen,

I struggle with this a lot at work. It was only last year that a boss pointed out to me that I won't be able to please everyone so I shouldn't try. It was a revelation, sad to say. I personally believe that all correspondence can be written compassionately, but that takes time and most others don't seem to care too much. I also find that some people respect you less for being "too" compassionate.

So perhaps in your mind you sounded like a jerk. Maybe, possibly in that guy's mind, too. But he asked, and then asked again. If he didn't want to know he should not have asked.

One technique I picked up from my last job was the sandwich - placing the negative feedback in between two positive items so it stings less. Maybe it works. I appreciate the intention behind it, but now that I know what it is I can tell when it's being used on me.

I find that many of the women who get things done and get ahead are pretty blunt, so I hope that's some consolation to you. You might not be coming across harsh at all, even though you think you are.

[annakoen]

Thanks mftb. I reread my post and yours just now and although I wasn't making an effort to be explicitly kind, it may not be as bad as my Inner Critic wants me to believe. I didn't call his work awful or anything. And yes, he asked me twice. I have heard men say more harsh things to one another.

So yeah double standards, I have them. A while back I came up with the following quotes, to forgive myself and make myself laugh when I'm being intense about this kind of stuff:

It's better to be kind than tight. But someone's gotta be right!

And: I'll be kind after we figure out who's right



I know all about the sandwich. I feel it can make genuine compliments sound fake. I prefer to say what I mean when I say it.

Trying to find a balance in expressing myself and not letting the Inner Critic run rampant while heeding his advice when it makes sense.

Conclusion for today: no need to apologise until said person expresses hurt or disappointment and even then don't crawl through dust over a mildly blunt email. My message was professional, albeit perhaps not something he wanted to hear. Don't let me tell myself I am not worthy of breathing just because I sent an email.

Edit: If it does come up, I can express that I did not intend to hurt his feelings and, if necessary I can apologise for the tone of the message. Yes, that feels right, I think. And most likely this won't even come up, I'm probably worrying for naught again

[Wife#2]

Annakoen - I've had to deal with this a lot. I've had co-workers tell me that apologizing too much reduces the impact of when it is actually called for. WOW - that was a revelation!

My one fortunate gift while dealing with this inner/outer critic telling me I did it all wrong is knowing that I do have a gift for words. So, I built a reputation of using just the right words and/or tone to get the message across. I have been known to send an email for 'proof-reading' when I'm so angry or frustrated that I cannot use this skill. I have several very trusted co-workers who will review and edit for me.

The flip side of this is that those same trusted co-workers know they can have ME edit THEIR emails when they are in the same situation. I can calm down an angry email, pump up a wimpy email and help be more concise when that is required.

We pull together as a team. When I hear inner critic fussing that I said that all wrong and now, not only will they (customers) not like me, they'll stop buying and our company will suffer and it will be ALL MY FAULT. I send the 'offending' email to a coworker who usually comes back to me saying - what was the worry, that sounded fine! It could have even been tougher!

Take that, inner critic!

Since you are over a team, you know the personalities working with you. Is there one 'word-smith' in the bunch who could be trusted to be quiet if edits are needed, but also honest and helpful? I'm low on the totem pole and my boss hasn't yet learned that I can be such an asset. She will. I have faith. And I can talk louder than my inner critic, sometimes!

[annakoen]

Good advice. I did ask for a proof reading a while back, that worked well.

On my way to my T now, on the train. Now that I've left work again, I'm calming down considerably. Ugh, work is such a pain... I'm hanging in there, I'm doing fine but I dissociate a lot and get anxious due to too many context switches. So yeah, after four years of working, still haven't exactly found what 'works' for me, haha. But I'm learning, I hope I can learn to be a decent team lead. If not, I can always do something else again. I don't feel so trapped anymore, although it is still tough.

Working on it. Inner Critic is subsiding a bit, I can now sometimes catch myself when he starts talking 

[Wife#2]

 

[annakoen]

Thanks for your support

I'm learning to intervene for myself before things get out of hand.
Five minutes ago, I noticed I had a missed call from my mother. She often tries to call me on Saturdays.

Since the last time my dad was in hospital, and I experienced a major trigger, I've been prone to anxiousness whenever I see my mom has called. In my imagination, my dad has fallen, is unconscious, is not breathing, whatever, and she is in a panic.

Mind you, this happened once for real, I don't remember if I journaled about it yet. Now that I think about it, I should discuss this with my T.. My dad was once so hella drunk he stopped breathing. This was in the midst of an all-time low in our family, which came and went in cycles. HE couldn't cope with my growing up and all the other issues in our family (grandpa, his dad, had died, etc) and drank and drank. At some point he was totally out of it and I performed mouth to mouth in a desperate attempt to get him to breathe again. My mom was behind me, totally panicked and at some point I yelled she should call an ambulance. She didn't, she called our GP, but obviously on weekends he wasn't available. In the end, I screamed in her face to call an ambulance. She replied "You can't just call an ambulance!", but in the end she did call. After that, for weeks, whenever my dad was sleeping on the couch (drunk or not) I would anxiously check if he was still breathing.

Sometimes, when my cats are snoozing, I will ask my husband, anxiously, "Is she breathing??". He never mocks me, I think he knows why I am this anxious and then helps to check and reassure me. "Yes, she's breathing."

My dad had surgery a while back and the anesthetic lasted hours longer than it should have, way into the night when it should have ended around 5PM, clearly indicating his liver is going to *. He has problems with his sense of balance, when standing still he will be slightly swaying even when I know he's totally sober. His body is breaking down and he refuses to see it. I ended up in a huge trigger/anxiety/panic state for two days during that ordeal. I journaled about it, which helped.

I'm programmed by my dad to look after my dad and not to trust my mother. Now that I know she is probably autistic, this has been popping up every now and then, it's food for the programming dad inflicted on me. And on another level, I tell myself "They're adults. I am not barging in there and saving them. I will not be hypervigilant to this, they are 61 and 56, they should be able to sort it out themselves". And while I am typing this, I'm thinking "They're not that old, they are not due to die anytime soon and should be able to take care of themselves for quite a few years yet."

Like hubby said a while back "They didn't take care of you for 20 years, now it's your turn to not take care of them for 20 years. After that, we'll see."

I texted my mom I would call her in an hour. She texted me back she's on her way to the mall by bike, whether I could call a bit later.
Yep, will call her a bit later, I'm not up to it just yet today.