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The thing that has me tied up in knots in my work relationships - CPTSD is also the thing that makes me good at what I do.  It's a double edged sword.  So - I'm a teacher.  And I "get" the kids with behavioral issues, the kids who struggle, the kids who aren't successful in other classes.  So - I get the kids.  Year after year.  And this year - again -  I get a whole bunch of them in one class.  Don't get me wrong - I love working with kids who have struggled.  It's an important part of what I do.  But when there are too many of them in one class, I get overwhelmed and I can't help any of them - and it has a huge impact on me and my health.  And then when I complain - I am told that I am "imagining" things and that classes are really placed fairly.  I know that this isn't true - and my principal knows it isn't true - but there isn't really anything I can do about it. 

This year will be the worst year, because the group I am getting are very severe.  So I have asked for a meeting, again, to lay out my case.  I have practiced with my T.  And even that was traumatic because the realization that I can't discuss a conflict without my body going into full "fight mode" was rather frightening to me.  The conscious attention I have to give to slowing my breath and speech, softening my facial muscles, relaxing my body posture, and all while I have to carefully think about delivering a message in a non-threatening way has me wanting to just not go there.  But it's more than just me.  I have this whole class of kids that will be affected too.  Feeling sick to my stomach.

On an earlier post, one person referred to "themes" regarding their triggers.  I am beginning to discover my themes - e.g. control by shame, control by fear, abandonment, not being heard or understood, not being valued, etc. 

I have begun to create a trigger log.  And now each week when I see my T, we go back over the triggers and find memories attached to them.  It is a little bewildering really, there are so many. 

And the memories keep popping up out of their little hidey-holes.  It feels like a game of whack-a-mole; just when one is processed, another equally vile one takes its place. 

I am discovering that much of the damage wasn't just my FOO - it was the people around me as well - classmates, neighbors, teachers, other relatives, etc.  My family was so dysfunctional, so chaotic, and had such a refusal and/or inability to follow the rules of society that we were social pariahs wherever we went.   I am thinking it is this theme - the outcast from society, that is the absolute most difficult to deal with.  While the abuse and neglect that causes CPTSD in itself leads to a lack of a sense of belonging - moving over 50 times by the time I was 14 and being told repeatedly things like, "You don't belong here;" "My mom says you can't come into our house; "We don't want people like you in our town," has magnified this theme.

This is almost a daily trigger for me.   

Does anyone else have this theme, and have you found effective ways/tools for working through it? 

Here is my wondering.  Coming to this diagnosis of CPTSD has been a journey of about 30 years now - 30 years of therapy, self-help groups, workshops, and an entire library of books.

I will say I have made some huge gains in my ability to be functional.  My parenting improved (Thank God!).  I hopefully have not passed on the family curse of dysfunction and abuse.  I am watching my son and daughter in law raise my 9 month old grandson and am awed at what terrific parents they are. 

My ability to provide for myself financially has improved considerably.  I have a career that I love, doing work that I find worthy and fulfilling.

I am married to a wonderful man who is supportive and kind.

I am tremendously grateful for these things.

However, my ability to manage friendships, relationships with people I work with, and stress, have deteriorated.  My life has become much more narrow and isolated.  That is my wondering.  Why is this area of my life so much worse than before?

This is affecting my health, and is now beginning to affect my marriage and my workplace.   

The issue I have with friends is that I have so very few of them.  I will take responsibility for that.  My perfectionistic ways have led me to such a single-minded focus with my career that it has left little time to develop other interests or pursuits.  To be fair, it is also difficult because I am the primary caregiver for my adult developmentally disabled son.  I have had some people though who I have considered friends, but for some reason or another - they just drift away. 

I wish I could have a conversation with one of my friends who has distanced themselves from me and ask why - specifically what is it about me that is so difficult.  Too work focused?  Yes, but I see others who are very career focused and they have friends.  Too needy?  I have tried very hard not to be.  Have I tried to hard and it came off as distant? 

I find it rather odd.  In my younger days, before years of therapy - I had many more friendships.  I consider myself much more functional now - but considerably more lonely.   

After years and years of therapy, self help groups, and self help books - I finally have a name for "it."  "It" is the compulsive states of shame and spirals of self abuse that I now understand to be emotional flashbacks.  While I have long suspected that I have some form of PTSD - as a result of a severely dysfunctional and chaotic childhood, characterized by years of emotional abuse, neglect, and parentification (6 brothers and sisters - five younger than me) by my substance abusing and mentally ill parents; I didn't know about Complex PTSD - until today.  Maybe I just wasn't ready.  This middle aged grandmother is tired of holding it all in.  I am grateful I found this site.