Eerie Anne's Journal

[Eireanne]

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

In survival mode, even the most trivial and normally easy task can feel excruciatingly difficult.

Here are some common areas where I see that recovering survivors fail to notice and self-validate their progressive degrees of improvement

1. less intense launching into a 4-f response
2. increasing resistance to the critic
3. increased mindfulness about flashbacks or inner critic attacks
4. increased time feeling good enough about yourself
5. progress in meeting arrested developments
6. decreased overeating or use of self-medicating substances
7. increased experiences of good enough relating with others
8. decrease in the painfulness and intensity of flashback feelings

[Eireanne]

I usually keep a draft going as I listen to the Pete Walker book, and take notes of the things that resonate with me.  Some of the other members mentioned this was helpful to them, but this morning, as I hit enter, I got an error message...followed by another....followed by me being logged out and not able to get back in.  I was afraid I had done something wrong, posted something bad, broken some rule and not warned...I don't even remember what the content of the post was about, it was the end of chapter 4, and now that I'm on chapter 5, it just doesn't even seem relevant, but I'm not doing well.

A friend called today and I did the same thing I do all the time, complain about everything going wrong and how I can't see a way out of it. I don't have friends, I hate what my life has become.  A new friend who doesn't have a car asked me to take her grocery shopping this morning, and went out the night before.  She asked if I had done anything, and I said no. I didn't say, of course I didn't do anything, I have no one to do anything WITH.  It's so frustrating for me.  I don't remember how to just talk to people without feeling...this way.  That I've been isolated for way too long, and I have absolutely nothing relatable to share with anyone.

This makes the friends I do have give up on me, and makes me sink lower and lower.  I can't even put it into words and keep thinking if I just did, then I wouldn't feel it anymore, but I do.  I vent and vent and vent and it's never what I really need to say.  I wish I could explain it. 

I understand everyone I know has a life, they have friends, and family and social activities.  I don't. I have things I want to do, but unless I do them alone, I have to miss out on them. I've been here before.  I've missed out on so many things, just because I haven't had anyone to go with.  Everyone thinks, oh, I must be co-dependent, I need someone, that's NOT IT. I do not receive enjoyment at doing things alone and being surrounded by couples, and families and groups of people all laughing and having a good time and I just feel like I'm apart from that. I feel like a ghost.  No one touches me, I don't touch anyone, no one even notices me...I have felt this way nearly my entire life. I'm soooo tired of things being this way and I don't know what to change about myself to fix it. 

I hate that the rest of my life is just going to be more of this. 

I talked to a co-worker and he's brilliant at the way he words things and could easily get himself out of this situation, he has so many friends and people that love him and connections...everyone I know does, and yet no one has time to include me in their life.

I had him read something my manager said that was especially triggering and he said he just didn't see it.  He read it, the way she said it, without all the feelings that I have...and then it makes me doubt whether my feelings are real, but when I talk to my therapist, she sees the same exact thing I do....so I just feel lost.  I don't know how to navigate this, or navigate conversations, or interactions, or anything...and then I worry that I will lose this forum too. 

I also don't have any tools to get me out of this feeling/mindstate, because this is just my world.  No friends, no ability to get out of my own head, no one to support me. 

The worst part of all of this, there's a co-worker who also has c-ptsd, but she's got support from colleagues and she's doing a huge presentation about her lived experience and it's being celebrated, yet I'm being punished and about to get fired, because my c-ptsd is caused by work.  I just don't get it, what it is about me that makes everyone dislike me?

[Moondance]

I usually keep a draft going as I listen to the Pete Walker book, and take notes of the things that resonate with me.  Some of the other members mentioned this was helpful to them, but this morning, as I hit enter, I got an error message...followed by another....followed by me being logged out and not able to get back in.  I was afraid I had done something wrong, posted something bad, broken some rule and not warned...I don't even remember what the content of the post was about, it was the end of chapter 4, and now that I'm on chapter 5, it just doesn't even seem relevant, but I'm not doing well.

A friend called today and I did the same thing I do all the time, complain about everything going wrong and how I can't see a way out of it. I don't have friends, I hate what my life has become.  A new friend who doesn't have a car asked me to take her grocery shopping this morning, and went out the night before.  She asked if I had done anything, and I said no. I didn't say, of course I didn't do anything, I have no one to do anything WITH.  It's so frustrating for me.  I don't remember how to just talk to people without feeling...this way.  That I've been isolated for way too long, and I have absolutely nothing relatable to share with anyone.

This makes the friends I do have give up on me, and makes me sink lower and lower.  I can't even put it into words and keep thinking if I just did, then I wouldn't feel it anymore, but I do.  I vent and vent and vent and it's never what I really need to say.  I wish I could explain it. 

I understand everyone I know has a life, they have friends, and family and social activities.  I don't. I have things I want to do, but unless I do them alone, I have to miss out on them. I've been here before.  I've missed out on so many things, just because I haven't had anyone to go with.  Everyone thinks, oh, I must be co-dependent, I need someone, that's NOT IT. I do not receive enjoyment at doing things alone and being surrounded by couples, and families and groups of people all laughing and having a good time and I just feel like I'm apart from that. I feel like a ghost.  No one touches me, I don't touch anyone, no one even notices me...I have felt this way nearly my entire life. I'm soooo tired of things being this way and I don't know what to change about myself to fix it. 

I hate that the rest of my life is just going to be more of this. 

I talked to a co-worker and he's brilliant at the way he words things and could easily get himself out of this situation, he has so many friends and people that love him and connections...everyone I know does, and yet no one has time to include me in their life.

I had him read something my manager said that was especially triggering and he said he just didn't see it.  He read it, the way she said it, without all the feelings that I have...and then it makes me doubt whether my feelings are real, but when I talk to my therapist, she sees the same exact thing I do....so I just feel lost.  I don't know how to navigate this, or navigate conversations, or interactions, or anything...and then I worry that I will lose this forum too. 

I also don't have any tools to get me out of this feeling/mindstate, because this is just my world.  No friends, no ability to get out of my own head, no one to support me. 

The worst part of all of this, there's a co-worker who also has c-ptsd, but she's got support from colleagues and she's doing a huge presentation about her lived experience and it's being celebrated, yet I'm being punished and about to get fired, because my c-ptsd is caused by work.  I just don't get it, what it is about me that makes everyone dislike me?

Hi Erieanne,

I simply want to say I hear what you are saying and I so get it.  Just my 2 cents but you are saying it, you are getting it out just as it is, you explain what you are experiencing and I understand you and can so relate.

I've underlined the same exact thoughts and feelings you have courageously shared that I think and feel.   We might know, think, feel we are alone (and are physically alone).  This forum however speaks loudly that we are not alone with these thoughts, feelings and beliefs about ourselves.

If okay I send you a warm and understanding hug.

[Armee]

I agree with Moondance. Your post was very clear and also really just articulates so well what it is like to have cptsd. To feel separate from people. Almost alien. Yes. This is what it feels like. And people like your friend at work. Or my H is the same way...didn't grow up like this. Grew up with a normal supportive loving family and no big trauma. He doesn't understand me...or didnt...he finally does but we've been friends for 30 years. It took 28 years for him to understand why the world seems the way it does to me, how I can have so much self-doubt and all the other CPTSD symptoms.

Just...keep going. You will get through this horrible thicket of symptoms. It's slow and painful, lined with thorns. But there will come a time that you'll be able to look back and see how far you've come. And even though it is a painful process, it'll feel worth it. There is a path out. You're on it. Keep going.

I've been on this forum several years now and I still worried too that I had gotten the boot when I couldn't log in,  even though I've been through forum updates before where I've gotten locked out along with everyone else. That's just the stupid cptsd talking.

[Eireanne]

So I still can't log in, but I had messaged Kizzie, only I have too many things going on to be able to clear my cache and wipe out all my passwords (trauma brain can't remember any of my passwords right now, and they are ALL autosaved, so if I clear my cache I lose some of them that I may or may not remember.  I'm trying to get to a point where it's ok...but it's not....because my position at work was eliminated yesterday). 

and that's not what this post is about...it's ok...it's not...but it is, and well staying on topic...I can log in if I log in in incognito mode, lol which is hard to say, and makes me laugh...

I read the word asynchronous today and realized that describes about 99% of my interactions.  Which is why it's so hard for me to have a conversation, because I forget how to talk to people in real time... as I've mentioned in my posts before, I need words, it helps with the trauma...my brain is like a backwards dictionary, where I know "what the word means" but not "what the word is" it's really inconvenient on job interviews...

The way my social isolation presents itself...is because 99% of my human interactions are like that...where I say a thing, and I might not get a response for like a week.  So when I have...real time? conversations, it's my only "practice" at conversation... my trauma comes up (like it does about EVERYTHING) my brain immediately does this thing....

"Grieving and verbal ventilation - grieving restores our crucial developmentally arrested capacity to verbally ventilate. Verbal ventilation is the penultimate grieving practice. It is speaking from your feelings in a way that releases and resolves your emotional distress."

What I mean by this is I start working through something I'm trying to make sense of, so I start word vomiting all this stuff....but my brain can't remember words, so I end up describing what the word means and what I'm trying to say is in there, but it's...all jumbled up, because I'm not used to talking, so I'm still trying to make sense and re-frame what I'm saying...it takes me a few tries before I get to what it is I really mean – but I don't get enough practice refining what it is I'm thinking...and people keep listening to fix, which doesn't help.

and when I forgot the word for word vomit, I wanted to log in...and I read my last post...and yes, that's what my brain does...the underlined/bolded parts are my inner child, and so if you read them asynchronously....it's 2 separate conversations...where the truth is, my truth...and that accidentally must have happened at an in person event...and from that point on, I was on a slow collision course with having my position eliminated, and so here we are, once again, where I've been many times...no job, no income, no insurance, no social support. 

Only...I did manage to find virtual social support. 

When I read your responses, Moondance and Armee I was filled with such gratitude to know that you are all also a part of my little asynchronous support group...and I will tell you all what I told this person I shared with (the one that used the word asynchronous that I was looking for), The fact that I now do have a support system of sorts...each one of you can hold just one part of it, it's enough to help me get through it this time...I haven't had that much before.

Even though I wasn't expecting it to be yesterday, I expected it and have been expecting it since February when it happened...it's just been a slow motion train wreck I've been living, and yesterday the train smashed into the wall, but I am still on my "timeline"- I thought I would have until the end of June...and the optics look really bad for them, that my position was eliminated less than a month after a return from a medical leave for a medical reason the situation I was in caused...

so I can hold onto that, and not listen to trauma brain that immediately tells me I did something wrong...it's over, I know I didn't do anything wrong, if anything, the worst thing I did was some of my trauma over the way this woman had been treating me came out at a public work event and someone told her what I said and it made her uncomfortable, so she made an example of me.

There was NO way I was going back to that, I saw what they were doing, and I was powerless to stop it, so I asserted myself and told everyone what they were doing...I did it for my inner child who never had anyone stand up for her before.

They are paying me and letting me keep my health insurance until the end of June.  I get maybe a paycheck and a half severance? and then I'll go on unemployment and maybe get whatever Obamacare is called now, I just looked up how much it would cost...and my therapist is sending me options on how I can continue seeing her without insurance...so...it's like a plan.

Only...I'm still dealing with recovering from the trauma, so it's really hard for me, and a lot of people view the things that are hard for me as learned helplessness, which is annoying...and I have to go in for dental work today, which I'm absolutely dreading and can tell this dentist isn't trauma informed because he didn't FULLY listen to me when I explained what my dental trauma actually is (my body doesn't metabolize things correctly, so novocaine doesn't really work and I'm extremely pain avoidant to the fact I just avoided going to the dentist since the last 2 times I went hurt SO bad and for so long after....that forcing myself to go knowing how bad it's going to hurt...while also dealing with just losing my job and knowing that I'm "not safe" while also trying to interview (I have one I am so not prepared for later this afternoon)...it's just...a lot. 

I need a few days to re-group, to lick my wounds...to grieve, only I've been doing that for the past 3 months and I can't keep doing that, because I need to follow up with all the wonderful people that are offering me the help NOW.

I said it to a co-worker (former now I guess) last night...it's like a funeral.  Everyone shows up on day one to offer a casserole (I wish - I could use food right now so bad) and to offer condolences, but after a while, those people fade away and go back to their own lives...I need to focus on the help I'm getting now while the window is open...before it goes back to everyone else forgetting the sad, damaged, disabled, unemployed girl who may not be able to find another job for years...and also trying to be OK with that while not trying to think of that, while also trying to dig deep and bring all that up so it no longer is my story....yeah...it's a lot. 

So instead of preparing for this interview, I'm preparing mentally to be in white hot blinding pain...and just hoping it's not as bad as the last time...and then hoping I'm not a total wreck when I come home so I can focus on prepping for this interview, and also working on the things I should have worked on yesterday but was too busy getting fired to get to.   

[Eireanne]

When I had gone back to work, I emailed myself this:

1.   Say to yourself: "I am having a flashback". The feelings and sensations you are experiencing are thoughts that cannot hurt you now. You are NOT obligated to explain your disability to people that are threatening you. 

2.   Remind yourself: "I feel afraid but I am not in danger! I am safe now, here in the present." Remember you are not safe now, so do NOT give them more ammunition. 

3.   Own your right/need to have boundaries. Remind yourself that you do not have to allow anyone to mistreat you; you are free to leave dangerous situations and protest unfair behavior.

4.   Speak reassuringly to the Inner Child. The child needs to know that you love her unconditionally- that she can come to you for comfort and protection when she feels lost and scared.  You are allowed to advocate for yourself.  Do not abandon yourself because you are being threatened. 

5.   Deconstruct eternity thinking: in childhood, fear and abandonment felt endless - a safer future was unimaginable. Remember this situation is counter to your wellbeing.  You do NOT have to receive it. 

6.   Remind yourself that you are in an adult body with allies, skills and resources to protect you that you never had as a child. [Feeling small and little is a sure sign of a flashback]

7.   Ease back into your body. Fear launches us into 'heady' worrying, or numbing and spacing out.
 
          a.  Gently ask your body to Relax: feel each of your major muscle groups and softly encourage them to relax. (Tightened musculature sends unnecessary danger signals to the brain)
          b.  Breathe deeply and slowly. (Holding the breath also signals danger).
          c.  Slow down: rushing presses the psyche's panic button.
          d.  Find a safe place to unwind and soothe yourself: wrap yourself in a blanket, hold a stuffed animal, lie down in a closet or a bath, take a nap.
          e.  Feel the fear in your body without reacting to it. Fear is just an energy in your body that cannot hurt you if you do not run from it or react self-destructively to it.

8.   Resist the Inner Critic's Drasticizing and Catastrophizing:
 
           a.  Use thought-stopping to halt its endless exaggeration of danger and constant planning to control the uncontrollable. Refuse to shame, hate or abandon yourself. Channel the anger of self-attack into saying NO to unfair self-criticism.
           b.  Use thought-substitution to replace negative thinking with a memorized list of your qualities and accomplishments

9.   Allow yourself to grieve. Flashbacks are opportunities to release old, unexpressed feelings of fear, hurt, and abandonment, and to validate - and then soothe - the child's past experience of helplessness and hopelessness. Healthy grieving can turn our tears into self-compassion and our anger into self-protection.

10.   Feeling shame doesn't mean you are shameful.

11.   Learn to identify the types of triggers that lead to flashbacks. Avoid unsafe people, places, activities and triggering mental processes. Practice preventive maintenance with these steps when triggering situations are unavoidable.

12.   Figure out what you are flashing back to. Flashbacks are opportunities to discover, validate and heal our wounds from past abuse and abandonment. They also point to our still unmet developmental needs and can provide motivation to get them met.

13.   Be patient with a slow recovery process: it takes time in the present to become un-adrenalized, and considerable time in the future to gradually decrease the intensity, duration and frequency of flashbacks. Real recovery is a gradually progressive process [often two steps forward, one step back], not an attained salvation fantasy. Don't beat yourself up for having a flashback.

[sanmagic7]

EA, i think that's a lovely email to yourself.  it felt good just reading it.  i like it a lot - a great way to start the day.  thanks for posting it.  love and hugs

[Eireanne]

TRIGGER WARNING



I'm having a really bad day. 







I hate this.  I just want to be able to function like I used to.  I don't understand why these things keep happening to me, over and over until I can't cope with anything, it's all too much, and I get so mad at the people I thought were my friends, and end up taking it out on the people that are still my friends, and I'm being misunderstood SO HARD by neurotypical meaning well people that keep telling me it'll be ok.  It hasn't been ok for YEARS, I was literally just getting back on my feet, I was extending the bubble of phycological safety past my bedroom and into my living room and now I have no idea what it is again.  I don't have a safety net.  I don't have a support system, I feel like I've been given a death sentence...I don't have anything!!! and even as I say it, I know it's not true, so why do I insist on insisting on it? Why do I feel like it's never enough? Because I need to be held, I just want to fully grieve and so this morning I woke up, I had a plan, but my everything had other ideas.  First off, I have this weird thing my skin does.  It did it for the first time with Kyle....and it was terrible then - this burning sensation, primarily in my arms (now) but back then it was my ears, I'd be laying down, almost asleep when it felt like my ears were on fire, and that's not even explaining it right, it's like the pain of being burned alive, but it didn't really hurt, like phantom sensations...but entirely unpleasant and disruptive.  I imagine this is the worst of it, this agonizing...and at the same time feeling like I'm under water. The burning feels like ripples down my back now, and it's like tingling also, like pins and needles, but hot, white hot...and it's like I forget to breathe, like my lungs are cement, and it's  not like i'm gasping for air, it's just my breathing is so shallow and I can't remember how to even function, I just go catatonic, which is why I can't understand for the life of me how come everyone insists I have ADHD, I don't have racing thoughts, I have ONE thought - WHY, why is it happening again, how am I going to survive, what am I going to do? Over and over until I start sobbing and I did that today in Costco.  Why can't I just be normal?

And I can't shake it, even though I HAVE A PLAN, I need to go through my list of all the accomplishments I had made, even in my own words and give it to someone who can make sense of it and write them as resume things...but my trauma is SO bad that I'm fawning and thinking I'm bothering everyone and I'm so full of shame, that it makes sense that none of my friends want to help me. 

I talked to an old college friend recently and she said these things that really bothered me.  Now I don't know if I can continue talking to her, and I really just don't have the spoon for her right now. 

And my neighborhood is so weird, we have movies in the park, so a new friend (who also has relational trauma) invited me to watch Wayne's World with her and her friends tonight.  So those well meaning CBT normies are in my head saying, "see, you're not alone, why not try to have a good time" and I literally cannot remember how to people right now.  Like what conversation is "safe" right now? Not "so what do you do? How are you?" What do you do for fun?" all the "getting to know you" questions I just can't right now, I couldn't on my BEST days. 

I just want to cry and curl up in a ball and wail AND BE HELD while I'm doing it, I...this is just so unfair...I was so good at my job. The last time I was unemployed it was for years...I might go years...without health care...without income...and even as I read these wonderful accomplishments to really sell me, I still feel grief and shame and so much that it's hard to work on this so I keep putting it off, and I can't anymore because I don't have a buffer...I just have to keep going...getting the paperwork, and dealing with having to return the laptop...are going to be more grief days, so I really need to figure out how to get as many interviews as I can before I just become...what I was before this 

[Armee]

 

[Eireanne]

Thank you for the hug Armee 

I've felt this way for so long...and isn't how I'm feeling right at this moment, but I did want to put this here anyway...

Take a look at my body
Look at my hands
There's so much here
That I don't understand

Your face-saving promises
Whispered like prayers
I don't need them

'Cause I've been treated so wrong
I've been treated so long
As if I'm becoming untouchable

Well, contempt loves the silence
It thrives in the dark
With fine winding tendrils
That strangle the heart

They say that promises
Sweeten the blow
But I don't need them
No, I don't need them

I've been treated so wrong
I've been treated so long
As if I'm becoming untouchable

I'm a slow-dying flower
I'm a frost-killing hour
Sweet turning sour
And untouchable

Oh, I need
The darkness
The sweetness
The sadness
The weakness
Oh, I need this

I need
A lullaby
A kiss goodnight
Angel-sweet love of my life
Oh, I need this

I'm a slow-dying flower
Frost-killing hour
The sweet turning sour
And untouchable

Do you remember the way
That you touched me before?
All the trembling sweetness
I loved and adored?

Your face-saving promises
Whispered like prayers
I don't need them

I need
The darkness
The sweetness
The sadness
The weakness
I need this

I need
A lullaby
A kiss goodnight
Angel-sweet love of my life
Oh, I need this

Well, is it dark enough?
Can you see me?
Do you want me?
Can you reach me?
Oh, I'm leaving

Better shut your mouth
And hold your breath
You kiss me now
You catch your death
Oh, I mean this

Oh, I need this

Not sure if the lyrics are 100% right, I just copy/pasted them without checking, but this is the song that I've always related to most...there's a few others...I've always felt like the Little Match Girl, looking in but never really being a part of anything, never really belonging.  I need a village...I need to grieve...I need to be held...and I don't know how to do that alone. 

[sanmagic7]

EA, the little match girl has been with me since i've been very young.  when i first heard that story, i cried and cried, maybe as hard as i've ever cried - i was about 5, i think - and i know now my tears were for me because that's also how i felt - alone in the cold w/ no one to help, care, or comfort.

it still hits me today.  i'm so glad you're beginning to feel some support from this forum.  they're the best people i've never met, and have supported and cared about me like rarely anyone in real life.  glad you're here.  love and hugs

[Eireanne]

I was talking with my therapist and I recognize I have a tendency to want to react very snarky to people that don't really deserve it.  Like the IT person that sent me an email asking me to return my laptop.  I'm just a checklist to her, she doesn't know my situation or know me personally, she's just required to retrieve machines from termed employees, I get that.  Yet the email was so triggering in the way it was phrased - but just to me.  Like saying, "I sent this email to you when you were still working" No, you sent me the email after my account had been disabled, and I wasn't even given the courtesy of a last day, let alone time to say goodbye, process what was happening or get MY THINGS off my computer first, and I thought I would be given the courtesy...or say I had hoped, and that now I have no hope...and I know this is the scared part of me that knows I'm going to be unemployed for years once again, and trying to NOT see the obvious pattern of history repeating itself...and my well-meaning friend suggests I maybe just get a retail job, you know, until something else comes along...and to me, that's the WORST...like for me personally, a retail job is when I'm completely lost all hope and I've become a mindless drone with no options left...the thought of standing 8 hours a day, not even being treated like a person, and spending ALL my energy just on figuring out how to not get fired from a menial job, let alone put ALL my energy into self care and trying to heal from the trauma enough to be functional, while ALSO devoting some time to chipping away at what the obstacles are from me finding a good job...and again, how no one gets it.  The things I get upset by. 


Years ago, I learned I liked hot sauce, and I had people in my life that also liked hot sauce.  We went to a hot sauce festival together and I had the best time. It is a very good memory for me.  Then the pandemic, and the ensuing traumatic experiences that have turned me into this shell of a person that you've all gotten to know.  Last year, I tried so hard to regain the semblance of the life I had lost.  I wanted so bad to go to the hot sauce festival again and tried everything I could to make friends, even found a friend in a girl that lived about an hour from me, and her and her husband agreed to meet me at the festival...but didn't, and I ended up walking around the day alone. 

I had a goal for myself to find a friend this year who would accompany me to the festival, which is in less than a month, and I failed at my goal. Which brings up a lot of grief for me. The festival that once brought me such joy is coming up and although I tried everything I could to find someone to share the experience with, I was not successful. So while I *am* grateful for the potential friendships I have made these past few months, I feel like I failed to find a friend who likes hot sauce, so I could go to the festival again. This brings up a lot of grief for me, and I understand some of you may be curious about it, but I don't really want to have to explain why there's no joy in not having someone to share it with...so I'm sad and I can't help but feel like a failure. For not finding a friend, for not being able to keep my job, for not knowing what I'm going to do and I really just want to grieve for a bit, but don't have the luxury to


I really don't know how to explain to someone that doesn't understand why doing something alone does NOT bring me joy.  I need connection, and a shared experience.  That's why I take photos, I want someone to share an experience with. I went for a walk today and realized, I don't even have anyone to share my photos with anymore. My entire life I have in my head of experiences I just want to share with someone. I WANT people.  Sorry if that makes me sound co-dependent. 

Grieving the loss of so many friendships

I really need to mourn, in depth, how many people I've lost.  I need to grieve them, I need to mourn them, I start getting upset because I'm really upset about something else, I think the thoughts in my head and when I try to tell someone else it doesn't come out right, because I'm saying how I type it to myself which end up not saying what I'm trying to say.

The biggest thing I feel I need to mourn is the relationship I had during the pandemic, when I first became aware that it was trauma, and not depression or anxiety.  As I processed my trauma I shared it with him and he used it against me, every vulnerability I shared with him, because I craved intimacy he used it to psychologically torture me.  He did it in front of everyone, he did it everywhere we went, and that's why I had outbursts, because I would literally TELL him right before a thing, Please doesn't do (action) because it will result in (reaction) and I'd really like to avoid that...but sure enough, he would do it, and I'd try so hard to play it off like it wasn't bothering me, and I'd bring my tools to deal with the feelings, a book, hiding out in another room – no, it's because no matter how hard I tried, I never fit in – and I don't know why this is, when I want to focus one ONE thing, it reminds me of something else, which reminds me of something else and before I know it I go from Hot Sauce to Angela's dog.  Which is why I guess people say ADHD.  But it's ALL connected, and I want to do a deep dive into ALL the things, while at the same time focusing on other things, while at the same time needing to do things...and so I end up not doing anything every day because it's all too much and my brain keeps saying no. 

[Eireanne]

Oct 21 2021 (some frustrations I vented to myself)

I wish every day I could disclose my disabilities at work, and not fear reprisal.  In your post, you say, "If you're a leader, commit to consistently asking how your employees are doing AND then LISTEN! LISTEN for what is said and not said. Make demonstrating empathy, caring, and compassion for people your FIRST priority."  what do you do if your leaders are the old school mentality where business/clients come first and you must only be a problem solver, not a problem-haver? I have been struggling working in isolation, with no team, no support, doing the job of 6 people due to lack of engagement/not even knowing who my colleagues are, and when I go to my manager, she just dismisses me and tells me that my focus should only be on her needs.  I'm incredibly defeated, deflated, and NOT in a mental position where I can risk losing my job/health insurance and start working on my resume.  When I talk to my virtual coworkers they just suggest I get counseling, or call EAP.  I keep saying I need coaching/mentoring to understand how to speak "business speak" so my boss will equate my issues into being better for business and then hear me. My therapist says I should just look for another job.  No one is hearing what I need, and maybe it's my fault, for being too triggered to be able to express clearly what the issue actually is.

[Eireanne]

On Loneliness (I say like a lot, it's a generational thing, and not in a valley girl way.  I really need to stop it) Again, I vented this a WHILE ago, I just need to get it out -

My "friend" was like, "Oh, it's because you're not on Facebook, you don't even have any social media!" and I'm like, "social media is actually really depressing" and they're like, "no, no you have to use it the right way" so I go on social media and society tells me I have FOMO, and I'm like, no, it's not that, it's literally just showing me my one friend's life, every day. A life I'm not a part of, doing things I can't experience, because I don't have a willing partner (hot sauce festival as an example). Also, I'm not going to FIND a willing partner by scrolling social media to see what people I know are doing, and how many friends comment on how great they look and what an awesome time they are having...for me social media is where you go to see the worst of society, not make genuine friends.

I'm like, really isolated, and I'm trying to work out my trauma, and I'm using her house as a safe space, so when I would get stuck on something and I would ask her and she would explain it to me, and then I would understand, or she would have a social gathering and she would always say, "oh this is safe, this is safe", and I'm trying to work out my trauma, you know, so I probably wasn't the best FUN to be around, and then after a while of course she's going to be like, you know you really need therapy, you just can't keep using me as your tool for healing your trauma, so she took it away, and then Facebook is just reminding me what her life is like every day, and I go to her "coven" and they are like, "oh, we are all your friends" and I think, no, none of you are either. You don't even talk to me outside of this thing that we do. I'll prove it, "everyone, I want the next one to be at my place", and then what happened? I have no clue, but my "friend" stopped talking to me, so I'm thinking, "oh is it because everything has to be about you and I asked if one thing could be about me, I didn't realize you had the monopoly on covens, but apparently you did because it's like, I felt like demeaned, you're calling me a baby witch all the time and we're doing  your arts and crafts projects that you find on TikTok and it's just more social media garbage, I want to have deep meaningful connections and I don't understand why I can't get that, and then I'm watching these cptsd gurus telling me it's because I'm self-isolating, and I'm like, no I'm not! I'm in survival mode, I'm begging people to show up for me, no one is showing up!!"

Segueing over to the old meditation group - I'm feeling really isolated right now, and very vulnerable and I don't like the term negative reel because that's not what it is, it's my mother's voice, it's literally people talking to me. That's why their meditation wasn't working for me, I kept telling them that, I was using that time to journal, I wasn't even meditating, I wasn't getting anything out of it except a sense of connection and it was all a lie.  That's the hardest part for me. 


A collage I have hanging on my wall - all of this is staged, I don't even remember those people's names, the facial expressions I was making in the photo. I put it there for self esteem because I think I look damn good in those photos, and then I see myself in the mirror and I'm like, well !@$%.  Like, I completely totally missed my window to ever be with anyone again and I'm a spinster.  And N's all like, "that's a great thing to be, those are some of the most happiest people I know, and I'm like "no, I'm not happy, I'm isolated, I don't want to be like this, I don't want to feel like this and I realize I've never really had any support ever". Doing my makeup and I don't even know how to do my makeup and the voice of my mom in my head is like, well I sent you to Barbizon, invalidating my own thoughts. I'm constantly invalidating myself because it's all I ever heard, so people tell me I have low self esteem, and I'm like, well of course I do, I've never had anyone show up for me, I've been figuring * out for myself my entire life. Since I was a kid, I had to decide what HS I would send myself to, I had to fill out the application, with my level of intelligence, that's the thing that kept sticking out, you can't solve the problems with the same level of understanding...I've never had help, I can't figure out how to get the help I need, because I've had institutional betrayal my entire life. That is so unbearable to think about and I tell you and I tell you it's a shame and I'm like finally, validation, but I also need help.
 
People have their own definitions for things people immediately envision their own understanding of what that means to them without knowing my life experience. So of course when I want to know their perspective, they assume I just need a pat on the head because I'm insecure. 

[Eireanne]

Also more venting from a while ago

I keep thinking I can explain it, that I can put it into words and when they are still in my head, they sound dumb, and I don't even know what the point is.  When I say something to someone they misinterpret it immediately and I don't understand why, and so I think I don't have enough conversations with other people and I need connection, but the things I have been doing to get more social activities, I need to be around other people, to make connections, not just transactional activities for a short period of time.  I want to talk to someone, when I ask my friends if we can talk more often, they hear "we are not medically equipped to help you, so we need to give you space" and I get caught in this loop, my cognition is lowered because my amygdala is hijacked and I can get myself out of it by talking to someone, but no one seems to get that, or has the capacity to listen.  Then I sound angry, and then I get caught in that loop, I know what I need to be doing, but I can't answer people's questions right now, I ask a simple thing and people misunderstand and then I get confused and then I get caught in a loop and I can't find the words to say what I am saying. 

The specific help I asked for recently was to take my story and turn it into bullet points on my resume, not for the job I had, but for the potential I offer.  I tried talking to a (former)co-worker about it and right away he started lecturing me about how you can't put things on your resume for things you'd like to do, only things you have done (BS) and you can't "spray and pray" you have to use your network (I don't have one) and he's like sure you do, you have everyone I'm connected with, so I'm going on LinkedIn and searching for job, what is your salary range? I'm like, I don't care about money (am I the ONLY one who doesn't care about money??) I just want a job where I'm not going to be abused anymore. He's like, well what are you passionate about? I am like, I have NO clue, I'm barely surviving, I don't have the luxury of thinking about passions, I just want to be able to do my job and not live in fear all the time.  He says well what parts of your job do you enjoy? I said well I liked training/teaching (which is why I'm trying to pivot my career and need help wording my resume!!!) And then comes the question that everyone asks, "well then why don't you go back to teaching" What part of I don't want to be abused anymore does no one understand? I HAVE a plan I need help with this, and I get so dysregulated trying to answer everyone's little cookie cutter checkbox questions that DO NOT FIT me.  So I started not understanding how to answer his questions and getting distraught at not understanding how to continue or get the conversation back on track, and he says, "I don't have time for your spiraling right now" and I am sorry but I wasn't even close to spiraling, so I said fine, ok, I'm not, and we didn't really get anywhere at all.  I can tell this is going to be rough.