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#16
Employment / Re: Working with a triggering coworker
July 29, 2017, 01:03:12 AM
Hi everyone, first of all, thank you all so much for your responses. I love this community and how compassionate and supportive everyone is, I hope to be more active and show my support more around here as well. *hugs to you all* who said you have similar struggles.

Here is an update on this situation.

For a while, the problem sort of went away, because me and said coworker were working on different things. But I knew it wasn't fixed forever. We started a new project recently, and as expected, the bad behavior resumed. I noticed that he would often interrupt me in the middle of my points specifically by saying "no no no" in an argumentative tone, and then go on some tangent to patronizingly explain something to me that I already knew. He automatically jumps to the assumption that I lack knowledge, and that things need to be explained to me, because he won't listen to me fully and understand what I'm actually trying to say.

Since my last post, something new happened in my team. The aforementioned female ally and I had pushed for regular meetings where we discuss how we are doing as a team (this is part of a normal process for engineering teams). After this past week of meetings that went badly for me, triggering schema attacks and a high level of anxiety, I decided to bring this issue up in our team meeting. It's obvious at this point that it wasn't effective to just tell my boss, and I still didn't feel like I could just tell this coworker privately (and I still have doubts whether that would be effective anyway). Everyone else on my team is cool, and I felt that it was a safe space where they would have my back, and also, I probably wasn't the only one who noticed there was a problem. I thought we'd all benefit from the discussion, and I planned to be as positive as possible: state the problem, use "I feel," suggest a behavior change, phrase it in terms of the benefit we would all get from positive communication as a team.

I was so nervous this morning that I was shaking and couldn't eat my breakfast, knowing that I'd have to bring it up in front of him. He would definitely know I was talking about him, even though I didn't name anybody. But I said my piece. I was specific, and said how being told "no no no" in the middle of what I'm saying makes me feel invalidated, frustrated, and flustered, and shuts down my ability to communicate, as well as all my other points. A couple of other people thanked me for bringing it up and said it was a good point, and then continued with their thoughts. The coworker in question didn't say much about it, then he quitely turned to me and said, "I wish you had told me directly."

Ultimately, I feel validated by my team, and I'm so grateful that they supported me today. One guy even messaged me afterwards to give me kudos for saying it, and we had a good conversation about it. I still feel a bit unresolved because the coworker didn't really take any responsibility for his actions. An apology would have been nice, not that I'm surprised I didn't get one. But I think the behavior will change. If coworker's behavior doesn't, the rest of the team's will, and it will be harder for him to carry on acting this way.

I spent the last 3 or so days in so much anxiety that I think my body is still full of the stress hormones, although it's dropped off a lot. And I still find myself slightly preoccupied, replaying the conversation from today. But I feel better, and the anxiety is a lot less. I hope I can get some sleep tonight.
#17
Employment / Working with a triggering coworker
April 22, 2017, 01:37:45 PM
I'm a female engineer on a team of mostly male engineers. There is one coworker in particular I have difficulty with, who is triggering to me.

This past week was a difficult ongoing argument with him about how to approach a project. In our team online chat, he criticized my proposal in an unconstructive way, saying it was the "complete reverse" of what was needed (when actually, there was only one piece of the proposal he disagreed with -- he ignored the rest and of course didn't give me credit for it), rather than pointing out what could be improved and constructively communicating towards a solution. In our meetings, as per usual for him, he interrupted me loudly in the middle of my points -- his default volume in meetings is "SHOUT." A female coworker and ally agreed with me that his behavior was out of line, and I had a couple of conversations with our boss about it. Boss was understanding and responded well enough, but I was surprised that she didn't seem to see a problem with his behavior until I pointed it out, almost excusing it. "Oh, we all speak loudly sometimes, to make sure the people on the conference call can hear. I know I do it, too." What?? No, this wasn't that at all, he was yelling to talk over me so that only he could be heard, which is a common pattern for him in meetings, when talking to anyone.

Ultimately, I won the argument yesterday, because I finally found and pointed out the one fatal flaw in his proposed solution that could not be ignored. Without giving me any credit for pointing it out, or for having the proposal that would have worked all along, he agreed that what had to be done was basically what I was asking for. I felt so high I was giddy because finally, I had won. But today, I realized I'm still full of anxiety and anger.

Until yesterday, I didn't have the confidence to keep pushing for my point of view during the earlier meetings. I had conceded and was ready to do things his way, even though I didn't agree with it. But why did things end up this way? It wasn't because an intellectual decision had been reached where everyone put their minds together to choose the best option. It was because somebody played dirty: talked loudly, interrupted, and used distraction tactics, such as asking me irrelevant challenging questions that would put me on the defensive and actually distract me from conveying the real reason why his proposal didn't work. If he had communicated in a cooperative way, we could have all found that fatal flaw earlier. But he shut down my line of thinking in a show of dominance.

I'm not good at these kinds of debates because they are very triggering for me, and I have tons of trauma of emotional abuse in these kinds of situations. I'm sitting there in a meeting having a schema attack and wanting to cry or shut down, but deep down inside, I know that I have something valid to say. And if I could just be given enough time, I could argue intelligently and not get caught up in someone else's dirty tricks. But it usually takes me about a day to figure out what happened and what I really wished I had said. A day of sitting there, obsessing and replaying it, because all the way down into my body, I know that something happened that was wrong. Then, once I figure that out, it gets stuck in my head, imaginary conversations where I finally the say the right thing, over and over, and I can't let go.

I don't know what to do. I talked to my boss, she said she'd talk to him about being more open-minded to others' ideas. I don't know that that will be enough. I have a feeling people will suggest that I talk to him directly. I don't know if I have that level of bravery. I also don't know if it would accomplish anything. I had done that in a previous job with a difficult person, and while we had a good conversation and he said he understood, he really didn't. His behavior continued because fundamentally, he didn't understand what he was doing wrong. He lacked the awareness.

I have been in this place before, many times in my life. This is a deep, old trauma, and still a hurting wound. It's the trauma of knowing that I'm right, but people are acting more powerful than me and shutting me down, not listening to me, invalidating me, and making it so that my voice can't be heard. Deep down to my core, I am enraged: at this coworker, at previous coworkers, peers, teachers, "friends", and the originator, my father.

I'm still trying to find peace.
#18
Quote from: radical on March 05, 2017, 04:00:26 PM
I needed to change how I experienced myself, and how I responded to interpersonal discrediting and abusive behaviour.

I forgot, I had meant to reply to this point as well. This reminded me of something that had been helpful to me. I realized that when I'm having any kind of anxious trigger response, the repeated conversations in this case, there is an emotion driving that response, and an emotion that responds to it as well. The imaginary conversations are most likely prompted by fear, so I would try to talk to that fear inside myself, ask it what it is feeling and why, thank it for trying to protect me from some perceived threat, and reassure it that it is safe. The response to the imaginary conversations might be some sort of frustration, or perhaps stress over losing sleep, so I would talk to that part also, in a similar way, and reassure it that it's OK to have the thoughts, there's nothing wrong with me, and validate that it's uncomfortable to go through.

Validation is such a big issue for me. Something I try to remind myself is that when I feel invalidated by others, and I'm in a trigger response because my need of validation isn't getting met, the most important thing I can do is validate myself.

Quote from: sanmagic7 on March 11, 2017, 02:36:22 PM
the other thing that's helped me is when i saw the movie 'a beautiful mind'.  our hero had hallucinations and he learned to live with them by acknowledging them, saying good-by to each imaginary person, and finally ignoring them by basically telling them that they are not on the menu for him to indulge in anymore.  that was very powerful to me - a mind over mind dynamic.  and a true story to boot - he went on to win a nobel prize.  so i knew it was do-able.

OMG, this movie really resonated for me as well!! I actually forgot about the specifics of how he said goodbye to each imaginary person, that is so powerful. Thank you so much for reminding me of this. I will try this.

Again, thanks for everyone's replies, it is helpful!
#19
Thanks for all the replies. I probably should have replied earlier and said, I'm not really looking so much for advice on how to fix the situation, but more about the imaginary conversations and letting go of those thoughts. It's like radical said, both problems need a solution. But actually dealing with the coworker, while unpleasant and stress-inducing to do, I know *how* to do at least. I would use the interpersonal skills from DBT and talk to him directly. While I haven't done it yet, I know it is an option and something I'm very willing to do if it comes to it.

The other piece of it -- calming the mind and body down from the anxious thoughts of the conversations that happened or might have happened but didn't -- that's the piece I didn't even know *how* to solve. It's interesting, one of the main reasons why I was prompted to post about it is because of the insomnia piece. I feel like I can tolerate uncomfortable thoughts and anxiety, but when it interferes with my sleep, then the consequences become unbearable. I'm really not good with sleep deprivation, which is unfortunate because I need a lot of sleep ideally, and I have insomnia so easily, due to trauma and anxiety.

Anyway, I started seeing a sleep therapist a couple of weeks ago who specializes in patients with PTSD who have insomnia. I told her about my concern about how getting triggered -- by anything, not just this specific manifestation of anxiety -- will affect my ability to sleep. I told her how I do meditation and breathing and all this stuff, but it often feels like it's not enough. She agreed, just breathing alone isn't enough to calm down from the stress response, which was validating to me. (And I just want to SCREAM when people tell me to just "let it go" or "just relax" when stuff comes up that is triggering to me -- AUGH. So there, you were wrong, everyone who ever said that to me! But that's a whole rant for another thread...) She gave me a little device that tracks your pulse and guides you into deep breathing in order to trigger the relaxation response, but there is more to it than just breathing. It's kind of hard to explain. Anyway, I'm supposed to practice using that and then maybe I will get better at it.

But anyway, I have slept better since sleep therapy started. It made me realize, a lot of why these triggering incidents have so much effect on me is not only the initial anxious/angry reaction, but then the loss of sleep, and then all the effects from that afterwards. It's like a domino effect. If I could still sleep well even after being triggered, everything would be a lot more manageable. It's made me see this in a whole other perspective. I think that once I get a better handle on my sleep, I'll be in a much better position to manage the rest of my anxiety.

Also, I want to say thank you once again, because it just feels good knowing I can post about this and others know what it's like to experience what I'm going through. Not that I'm glad that you suffer with it too, but we can all support each other this way and know we are not alone. Most of the people in my life just don't get it (as I mentioned above, with the "let it go" advice and such). *hugs to everyone*
#20
A pattern for me: Someone says or does something to me that makes me feel invalidated/disrepsected, and I get triggered by it. I find it difficult to let go of it, and I keep replaying what happened in my mind, sometimes rewriting what happened so I'd express back what I was really feeling, or maybe imagining what I'd say to the person in the future. I don't want to keep thinking about this at all, I want to move on, and it's especially a problem for me at night, because it can cause me to lose a lot of sleep. I'll feel very tired, nod off, but then keep jerking back awake all night, plagued with thoughts about the incident.

I wanted to know if anyone had any ideas for how to soften the reaction and let the mind and body let go of these thoughts and imaginary conversations. I want to also mention that I've been to a lot of therapy, including DBT, and have lots of skills for general relaxation and dealing with negative emotion, but it often feels like all the yoga/meditation/CBT/various other skills in the world are not enough to fight against this strong response that takes over my body and mind.

All I just want is to be heard and validated by the other person, but in many cases, this is impossible because the other person isn't capable.

If anyone is curious, the current situation I'm dealing with happened on Friday (2 days ago). I'm a female engineer, and I have a male coworker who constantly asks if I need help, tries to explain things to me that I already know, and tries to "correct" my work before even fully understanding what I did and why. He does not even specialize in my area of engineering, so the knowledge he offers is general and theoretical, and often not applicable to what I'm doing. After he caught my frustration with this once last week, he actually apologized for overstepping, but then on Friday, he was back to offering help when I didn't need help. It makes me feel that my level of knowledge and experience is being totally invalidated. He's not a terrible person and I think I could maybe even talk to him about it, but if I decide to do that, I would want to just worry about it when I do it, not feel like it's constantly in the back of my mind, ruining my weekend and keeping me up at night.

I'm interested to hear any thoughts and ideas, thanks in advance.
#21
Wow, thank you so much mourningdove and Sienna for your thoughtful replies. It really does feel better to connect with others who understand, and to be met with such welcoming and compassion here. Sienna, you took the time to write so much in order to be helpful, and I so appreciate it. There is a lot of good information in there and it always helps to hear about others' experiences. The info about cortisol is very interesting and makes so much sense to me. Really explains a lot.

QuoteOur brains also remain what is called *hypervigelant*-
meaning, that we are on the look out for danger, even if there is no danger in the present.
Yes, this. Again, makes so much sense and I can really relate to it.

QuoteIf you have been seeing your therapist for 5 years, and she doesn't have an idea what this looming presence is-
it could be that either you haven't told her that much about what happened in your past to cause your CPTSD, maybe you don't remember, or find it hard to talk to her,
.she could be simply saying that she doesn't know-
and that she wants you to figure it out for yourself,
.or it could be that she does not specialize in trauma and in treating Complex PTSD.
.or maybe you guys just haven't managed to figure it out yet.
I can explain this a little more. I actually didn't talk about this in therapy too much, I mentioned it towards the end of our last session, and we didn't really get into it that much. I'm sure that what it represents is my father. But I think that what my therapist was saying is that it did not sound familiar to her as a psychological phenomenon, to just have it be ever present when I'm alone in the house. Well, maybe I should bring it up and ask her/tell her more about it in our next session. Anyway, part of the reason why I came here to talk about all this was to see if others had the same symptoms as I do, and now two people said that they do. Honestly, you are the first two people I've ever encountered or even heard about who have this experience, so that in itself is huge for me.

This is slightly off-topic, but one thing that always perplexed me is the cause of my CPTSD. The descriptions of the causes of even the complex type of PTSD usually seem more extreme than what happened to me. I grew up in a typical Asian American household with a high pressure to achieve. I'm sorry if that sounds at all like I am racially stereotyping, and I don't mean to offend anyone, but that is just the culture that I observed not only in my family, but in all or most of my Asian friends' families as well. My Dad had a temper and would get angry unpredictably, and I would be criticized a lot for not achieving well enough in and out of school, and not meeting my parents' very high expectations. I think the worst part is that when I would get upset in reaction to getting yelled at, my parents would act in invalidating ways. My feelings and experience -- being scared, angry, crying a lot -- was never what was important. My Dad at best ignored it, and at worst got angry at it and yelled at me some more for it. And while my Mom would be more sympathetic and feel bad that I was feeling bad, she would explain it as "Dad just loves you so much. Don't be angry at him." Still very invalidating. And then there were a few particularly bad incidents that stand out in my memory. So yes, that would explain why I have CPTSD. I just sometimes feel like I don't really fit with it, because it seems like other people have gone through worse things, like sexual and physical abuse, more extreme emotional/mental manipulation, alcoholic parents or parents with disorders, etc. Also, as I said, many of my Asian American peers endured similar or even far worse. I understand that my predisposition has something to do with it as well. I just wonder if there are also others who have CPTSD that did not come from as extreme conditions. I think hearing about this would be of comfort to me as well, because of that part of me that sometimes tries to tell me that I'm just "overreacting," or that what happened to me wasn't actually that bad, there's just something horribly wrong with me for having the emotional responses that I have.
#22
Hi, I'm new here and this is my first post.

I have been in therapy for many years, with a diagnosis of PTSD. Over the years, I didn't learn that much about PTSD, because the therapy I had been doing focused more on skills to deal with difficulties, and I didn't think the exact diagnosis was that important. I did look up stuff on PTSD, and never felt like it quite fit me, but I didn't think too much of it.

I recently got more interested in the exact diagnosis because I realized that I never knew anybody with quite the kind of symptoms I have, and it would be good to connect with others who are going through healing from something similar. So I asked my therapist in my most recent session, and she said that what I have is actually Complex PTSD, which is different from PTSD. Since then, I have done some research on this site and elsewhere to try and understand it better and see which parts resonate with me.

I want to talk about one specific symptom I have in particular, which I never understood that well, but have been really making more effort in the last few months to examine it and not run away from it. I have a fear of being alone at night, that was diagnosed for a long time as specific phobia, but it was not until I started working with my current therapist about 5 years ago that it was diagnosed as PTSD. She said that what I have is more extreme and goes beyond phobia.

There were times in my life when this fear didn't affect me as much, because I lived with somebody else who was around in the evening. So it came up infrequently. However, the problem was still always there, it just wasn't getting triggered. There were other times in my life when I was able to live alone and somehow made it through, but it was always difficult. The traditional method of exposure therapy for phobia (where you expose yourself to the thing that triggers your fear repeatedly until the fear subsides) never seemed to apply to me, because no matter how many nights I got through alone, it did not seem to reliably reduce my fear over time. Now I'm 34 years old, and I cannot recall a time in my life when I was ever not afraid of being alone at night.

This interferes in my day-to-day life because my husband works the evening shift, so I have to be alone in the evening and fall asleep alone most nights of the week. It manifests in very specific ways, like certain rooms of the house will feel a lot safer than others, certain activities will cause the fear to spike, and so it's very difficult for me to live comfortably and do the things I want to do on those nights. It fluctuates too; some nights I'm really doing all right and I could almost forget it's an issue, then suddenly a thought will enter my mind and I will reach a near-panic state.

I have been practicing mindfulness and meditation, and the idea of leaning into the fear as opposed to running from it. From this, I have been able to observe what goes on in my mind and body when it happens, rather than just trying to shut it out. I noticed that I sense what I can only describe as a "looming presence" perpetually in my house, that is somehow observing me, waiting until my guard is down to leap out and do something to me, though what that something is, I'm not quite certain. I have a sense that there is a door in my mind that I am desperately trying to keep shut, because if I open it, something terrifying will happen that will be so overwhelming and horrible that I won't be able to handle it, and it will be the worst experience I've ever had. Yet, whatever is on the inside of that door is trying to come out. I know that I need to make peace with this somehow, to accept and be okay with anything inside of my mind, and be able to sit with the scared feelings, no matter how difficult it gets. I think that's the eventual goal. I just have this fear that whatever is inside is so large that it will destroy me. It's a fear of the fear itself.

I don't know if any of that made sense to anybody. That's the part that I realized I never really met anybody who experiences something similar to that, or even seen it described in all of the psychology texts I've read. Even my therapist said she didn't quite know what that "looming presence" was. I realized that it could be helpful if I found anybody who could just understand. If this could be explained as a psychological phenomenon, so I don't feel so much like there is something "crazy" and "flawed" about me for being this way.

This was long, thanks so much if you even read this far.

-A