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Was just wondering how other polyamorous people have fared with their CPTSD, or with partners who have CPTSD.

I've only recently come into realizing my own commitment to polyamory as a relationship model. I don't want to be someone's everything, but I do want to be their something, though I admit that part of the reason I began researching poly further was from a sense that all human relationships were inherently unstable, and that at least this way more diverse people can love and support each other through the maelstrom of circumstance. 

I thought that my traumas and the abuse that I faced had come in different stages from childhood until the age of about 22, but now I'm starting to wonder if I've been getting worse, not better, because of my work environment, that it has been yet another source of systematic abuse and disempowerment.

I'm nearing the end of my PhD, and am wondering if many people have developed or experienced worsening of their symptoms in university.

My experience of professors abusing students only deepened when I entered grad school. One professor I had even defended his actions by saying that public humiliation was the most effective teaching method he knew. Ususally, however, it's been more subtle than that.

I picked my adviser poorly. She does not appreciate mental health issues, is intensely paternalistic, and interprets any show of weakness as a personal sign of disrespect. I'm chided for not being able to keep my personal life out of my professional life.

Last year I accepted a sessional position to help pay off my student debt and took a leave of absence from my PhD. My adviser was not happy with this. Later she said that she was going to be car pooling with a bunch of students to a conference and asked if I needed a ride. I did, but when I got there she told me that she'd not actually invited anyone else. She said that the three hour drive would give us time to "talk about my life choices." Suffice it to say, this was rather triggering, worse, because I knew I could not express my discomfort for fear of being "unprofessional." 

I also worked with her as a TA.  She's been changing how I marked, both up and down with every assignment, all year. This is the first time in my twelve years as a TA that this has happened. Then in the exam marking meeting she said that she'd be marking with "0.2 and 0.8"s of a grade as well as 0.5 and whole marks "because she was careful" (unlike the rest of us with our crude 0.5s?).

Another TA asked me what I would give as a grade out of 5 for a short answer on a question. She'd given it a 4. I said I'd give it a 2.5 or 3 and gave my reasons. Then the TA asked my adviser, and my adviser said that she'd give it a 3.5, and wanted to go around the room asking everyone what mark they'd give it.

I hesitated too long and she singled me out, didn't address my reasoning and said that my students were probably doing so badly because I was marking them too hard (I had to regrade all my batch of exams).

She then read another question and went around the room to confirm that all the TAs would give it the exact same mark as her... Saying "3.5" without thinking about it has never felt like such a defeat. After another unfortunate series of events that day I ended up getting what I can only describe as anxiety induced vertigo. I could hardly stand.

I'm so close to being done, but going over my adviser's final round of comments on my dissertation actually feels physically painful, like they're not about education, they're about control (the other members of my committee have said that they'd be willing to sign off on my dissertation, saying I'm ready to defend now). I've been having some fairly major mood swings, emotional numbness, suicidal ideation, and sleep disturbances. I have to be done by the end of May. I think I can do this, but I know it will hurt me.

I don't want to be a scholar anymore. I didn't work this hard to impoverish the children of immigrants and the poor, or to trust up the systematic abuse of an entire generation.

I've been training for this my whole life and now that I'm nearing the end I can only think of my profession as being inherently abusive in the current university system.

I would like to thank everyone in advance who reads this for their time and reflections.