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very much so.

If you are benign, you are weak. Simple as that

and if you are weak, you are not trying hard enough and you have to be pressured.

aye the end game seems to follow a distinct pattern. They flatten you by attrition and then when you finally look like escaping they offer either their victimhood and beg for understanding or, if that fails to deliver, they throw everything they can at you as you walk.

I've been on tender hooks all day because there was a hugely significant meeting at the major client as the hand over to my new team member starts, but frustratingly he was there too. I'm being knowingly paranoid but I can guess that I'm going to have been given a bad press for basically having been ill with C-PTSD. The great irony is that I've performed perfectly well with it considering what has been going on. He hasn't. Being greedy and overestimating his self-worth has done him a lot of harm, but at least he gets paid for his crisis, I lost money with mine, tens of thousands in fact.

The frustrating thing is how the sensitive are so easy to pile on the offloaded angst, we show our feelings and that seems to be an open invitation to pile on more of the same. This is the thing that makes me want to be reclusive, to avoid interpersonal relationships ever again because I've seen nothing but selfishness and indifference throughout a time when I was pouring out help and support for people who took everything I had to give and when that ran out, they held me down and pulled my teeth out. I just expect the same... sigh.

I dunno, this is the last big separation. 3 down, just this one to go. After that, I may feel very very different. I hope so. I'm a social giving person under all this, it's not natural for me to be so introverted and alone. Once the dust clears I guess I'll know.

it's (almost) interesting this. I've seen it in all four of my protagonists.

Essentially, they use your easy going tendencies to dig in with their eccentric behaviour and they make it last years, gaslighting you everytime you raise any defence and making it more emotionally expensive for you to defend yourself than to give in. Gradually, you shed every last bit of your self until finally, usually because they get caught out elsewhere, the whole construct starts to collapse.

Then, as the end rolls up, they have to start facing the reality of who they are and how they behave and they start to scramble to regain your goodwill having spent years flattening it. Right now there's this mix of condescension and self pity oozing out of him, one minute using my PTSD to claim he's been heroically carrying me, then the next asking for understanding for his clear emotional incompetence trademark selfishness.

To give you an idea of the guy... He is always late, always. One time I was working away, just after the death of my mother and having left my alcoholic ex and I was with friends in the US. While there I was still working flat out, because he was late, but I was fully on time myself. Then I get a Urinary Tract Infection and take an hour out to see the doctor.

He went to the client and told them that's why we were late. Yup, he used my UTI. He told the client I had a UTI to evade taking responsibility for being late.

There have been hundreds of things like that.

All the people around me were like this, pathologically unable to take any personal responsibility for their own mistakes and failings and utterly judgemental towards me and anyone else that got in their way. It just astonishes me how that kind of narcissistic persona functions. But they've collectively put me through * and I'm done with it.

thanks all.

I'll get there. I can smell the sea, I'm just weeks away now. Head down, engines on boost.

persistance

so. I'm just one month away from being free of my business partner and his gaslighting chaos. One month before I get my finances back under my own control, one month.

but he's gonna deal me one more joker before he goes, having ruined my credit rating and my cashflow comprehensively before the end. I have no alternative but to have a fight I've been trying to avoid and enter a whirlwind of triggers.

just outrageous. What the * is wrong with these people? I've been awash with them my whole life.

into the last valley goes the one

so, finally, after years and years of strain and complexity, my business partner and I are parting the ways.

Add to that at least another 2 years of work that just came in and finally, after so much doubt and worry, I'm ready to move out of the beachhead and into open country.

My feelings are very complex right now. Relief and vindication in many ways, but also the agony of C-PTSD ready to fill the void. So many wasted years and confidence-sapping work patterns. So much financial insecurity and on top of all that, the family and relationship trauma alongside it.

I had four major life issues in concert. Four individuals with bizarre behavioural patterns and a total unwillingness to compromise. One I may have weathered, two at a push, but four was just too much for me and I broke.

Seven years of crisis, 3 years of aftermath (so far). My health is still very erratic and unstable, both mentally and physically. My stamina is shot, my muscle mass has pancaked and my sleep patterns are up there with bats and moths. I've drunk too much, cried too little, become reclusive and mistrustful and have left many, many people behind.

But this is a big moment. It's the last of my four horsemen to go and the last industrial-sized compromise I will have to make.

Over the last years I have learnt far more than I have been able to carry out, having been trapped in a corner by contracts and habit. Now I can finally start to build my boundaries and chose who I give to and who I trust.

I'm still very much ill. My sleep patterns are exhausting and I have huge problems with concentration and memory, but I can now begin to control my own time and money and to factor in my symptoms and needs to begin living.

It's not a return to my old self, that's not how this works, it's a new self. Now I have to find things I love and that make me happy as I am and to simply embrace what comes next.

It's life, and living it is my biggest priority now.

one thing I would say is not to put expectations on recovery times, this is a complex old beast, you will need time to adjust to a whole new way of thinking in order to get back on track.

Learning to see the world with a balance of caution and realism and yet to embrace the best that life can offer is a big challenge. Often these things can seem almost impossible to have in your head at the same time, but it's all a question of perception. The world around us is a mirror of the natural world with its beauty and wonder side by side with predators and parasites. There are a million ways that nature can harm us but we accept it as something special even so. That is how we have to learn to see our personal interactions after C-PTSD. Yes, we have been badly abused and harmed by the worst of human nature, but these people, destructive as they are, are in a minority. There is beauty, honesty and integrity out there in a far greater quantity and so we have to learn that the bumps we have suffered are in isolation.

Narcissists are deeply sad people. They can seem powerful, all knowing and powerful if they have you compromised but they are merely parasites and are not more impressive than a tick. They exploit because they cannot possibly win a fair fight, cannot be loved unless they trap and they cannot hope to be in a meaningful relationship even with themselves.

Their victims are always kind and well meaning people or those for whom this broken trust was forced upon them by fate. But we feel pain and bewilderment because we believe in integrity, fairness and humanity. That's what hurts the most, isn't it? That meaningless abuse of what should be a gold standard of human behaviour.

Well, I know who I'd rather be, and for all the pain and unhappiness that I've been through because I was the only one of my family and associates to stand up and be counted in a time of acute challenges, my moral compass is not a glib concept, it is matter of fact, a historical record.

To be exploited, we had to have something to give, something valuable that they didn't have. It could be integrity, purity, beauty, innocence, a willingness to give, love; but whatever they chose to take from us, we at least know something that they will never know, that is that we have something they don't have and will never have - humanity.

yes, citizens advice, mind and possibly even one of the trade union groups affiliated with that industry.

Older docs, especially men have a pathetic view view of mental health. I've hit it once or twice but younger doctors never take these stances. There is a big initiative to change all this now so go with it.

You should try and get your new GP to refer you to a counsellor as a first move too. Then you can increase your case.

Meanwhile it is very important to get to grips with the key thing we all have to understand in here to get recovery started, this is not your fault, your reaction is normal and the thing can be beaten. You'll be fine, you've made your first importnant steps to turning this around and you are not alone. Horrible as you feel now, trust in the fact that this will change the more you learn and understand how it works. It's your brain doing what your brain does under difficult conditions. Anyone would react the same way with the same stimuli.

Defiance.

Understanding.

Persistence.

well there ya go. The doc was either an idiot, narcissistic or both. Certainly a dinosaur. A lot has changed in the last 5 years so go for it. You have a lot of science on your side now.

I think you have a very good case. Reach out for advice everywhere and anywhere you can.

Hi

it might be an idea to talk to Mind

https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/

they have a lot of practical help available and may be able to point you to others that can.

knowledge is power.

Can I ask what kind of business you were in? It may be that there is some kind of representation available that is biased to that industry.

well I know how that feels. Sigh.

Where are you based? In the UK I think you can appeal and there are various support systems available to help you fight your corner. My advice is to reach out to every avenue of help you can find and build up advice.

Abusors of any kind are extrememly devious and have low cunning in abundance. But you must ackowledge that you are far from alone in this scenario and that others have been there and will have advice and wisdom to impart. First move is to develop some defiance and rule out self harm because, quite simpl,y, you should not hand them such a conclusion. You thriving is the antidote to this and you need to turn round and fight back.. not so much by going at them, but more that you have to cut the threads o then... to now. Stuff em, they ruined things then, but that has to stop now.  Enough already.

But, as I always say, you ae not wrong to feel the way you feel , nor have you done anything wrong. C-PTSD is a natural reaction to unreasonable unnatural behaviour. Your brain is trying to save a vast puzzle with no instructions and it's struggling to cope. Realising that there is no point to looking for answers from such situations is a big start. Yes it was unfair, is unfair, and will always be unfair, but it is casting too strong a shadow so you have to step away

Glad you are in here with us. This is a great place with amazingly strong, brave people. You are understood and you are always going to be able to express yourself so welcome.

Time to fight back!

Hi thetruth,

welcome to the forum!
Totally understand the dynamics of what is affecting you. Many, MANY people have issues with mental health deriving from workplace bullying and abuse. You are not alone there. Reconciling it is tough, somehow the injustice of these things can go round and round and it is seemingly impossible to make sense of, but then that is the sense in a way, it is meaningless. Selfish, narcissistic people will do anything to shore up their flagging sense of self and when they feel they have a captive audience, just like they have in a family, they will be very abusive to anyone and anything that gets in their way. Accepting that such people exit and that you did nothing to make things go the way they did apart from be in the way, is critical. So many of these stories are similar, these are regular patterns that recur, but rest assured that they were wrong and you were right, no matter how weird and strong the message they threw at you may be.

If you feel it helps, then tell your story in here and get it out onto the forum. Telling the story is a huge part of recovery.

In the meantime, check out the brilliant Spartan life coach on youtube. Was a revelation for me and probably a life saver.

Hang in there, it WILL lift. The poor old brain has to run through its security checks and it can make you feel like *%&#. Bt you have to feel it, it's part of the cure.

Tomorrow is always another day.

I think there is a big factor of trying to push out from under disassociation by ramping up the extremes of things, and sexual feelings can be part of that. It was pointed out to me that it also happens with food in that your senses are numbed and you taste less, so hey presto, hotter foods get craved. As you recover, all this calms down but it's pretty normal to have your sense of self and your interactions with the world around you get badly squeezed by the sheer weight of sludge we get used to having on us.

There's no shame in it. Zero. Accept it all as part of the process and give yourself a break.

So... updates on the journey with the meds and the rest of my life generally.

Typically Escitalopram (Lepraxo) is supposed to have a half-life of 4 weeks but in many cases, me included, this goes on longer. Brain zaps are down now, but still present, but the worst of that is over. Definite increase in cognitive function but not at the leap I was hoping for, still a slow recovery but at least it is there.

Still getting energy drops tho, and I can definitely feel pressure in the pre-frontal cortex, behind the forehead, which is where C-PTSD has done it's best to mangle my mind. For those of you new to this, PTSD shrinks the prefrontal cortex, which is a shame, because that's the reasoning part of the brain, sort of like the one guy on a hike who insists we take another look at the map when things look dodgy. It also enlarges the Amygdala and Hypothalamus, which is like the two old people on a hike who think they are lost all the time and panic endlessly about bears, the cast of deliverance and insect bites. As you recover, the prefrontal cortex recovers through a process called neuroplasticity, gradually coming back to its old size and chemistry and putting the rest of the brain in order.

I swear I can feel that happening. I have, not so many headaches, as tension all across the front of my brain and I've noticed how it increases as my mood dips or as I try harder cognitive tasks and my frustration grows when I struggle with them. I have also seen a pattern where dehydration feeds the dips, so I'm guessing that any reduction in hydration levels will shrink the brain and aggravate recovery. I'm now testing more frequent drinking of water and am starting to avoid excessive tea, alcohol or any other intake that encourages fluid loss.

Alcohol tolerance post meds is definitely better, but this led to me being a little too carefree with my intake. I notice that it takes a few days to hit back, but it definitely does. Am limiting it now to social events where I can and trying to avoid anything too strong. One thing I'm sure of is that red wine is an absolute pig. White wine seems fine but the weaker beers are best of all. Lightens the mood, but stops the brain from suffering excessively. It's a fine balance. The social aspect is very healing right now and I've finally got some real proper friends around me who understand what I'm coping with and who believe in me. This has been sadly lacking for the last 2 years and led to excessive reclusiveness in me. That's really lifted now.

Filling the evenings is a big challenge. 6 - 8 pm is a definite danger zone. My mood really starts to dip when my work is done and I find myself either craving alcohol or carrying on with work. This is bad for recovery both ways and finding solutions to this is hard. During the lead up to my illness, the evenings were dominated by my partner's decline and as things worsened, TV, meeting friends, chilling out, exercise... the whole range of things that I'd do for fun were knocked down one by one. Getting a new pattern to stick is hard.I literally don't know how to relax. Working hard with friends and my counsellor to address this tho.

I'm really waiting on my head to clear enough to start writing again, partly for fun and relaxation, tho it can be hard, but more because it also feeds into my income. Amazingly, considering how bad I was on the meds, I've succeeded in teaching myself a lot about marketing my books, and all I need to let rip is the conjunction of my income and time. Deep in work right now, however, and I'm about a month off getting paid, so I have to be patient and ride it out.

Painting has been good tho, I've done 7 canvases now and apart from the mess of the thing, the effect on my head is good. I do think a whole lot less while I'm doing it, all of which takes the pressure of the prefrontal cortex and lets it recover. They've gone down well with people so I'm looking at building up a collection of 50 or so over the next year and pushing for exhibitions.

One big deal over the last week has been the appearance of a peregrine falcon on the church tower opposite. They nest nearby and I can see them very close up hunting, eating the results and generally looking magnificent, all visible from my desk. I got a real thrill from that and it reawakened a side myself from way back, when I was untouched by all this. I think this ties into my landscape paintings and being here in Wales which is just plain beautiful. It's therapy.

The big challenges for me now all lay around income and work. My business partner is out of the picture soon, which will make a huge difference, and I'm waiting to see what work may or may not follow on from the regular clients in the meantime. It's all a bit up in the air but my stamina is returning enough for me to feel that I can take on other projects down the line. I'm also raiding my back catalogue to see how I can use it to create passive income.

It's a tricky manoeuvre all this. Yes, you come out of C-PTSD, but you can't come out to immediate happiness. Once you emerge you still have the trauma to reconcile, it's just that the side effects are lessened and the really extreme emotions and physical signs and replaced by plain old depression and sadness. That's not as disappointing as it sounds, it would be absurd to have it not be that way if you think about it, it's just that you are seeing events without the severe lens of C-PTSD between you and an objective view of events.

My trauma was all about multiple people behaving selfishly, malignantly and irrationally over a very extended period, it swamped my optimism, my hope and my levity. I was outnumbered, bullied used and then abandoned, it certainly damaged my health, it nearly cost me my life.

But it's over now. Now it's all about making sure I protect myself from any new traumas and complications as well as being open enough to love, live and trust... with the right people. The world is not full of monsters, it is so easy to feel that way, but it's wrong. We were unlucky, yes, but we were not fated, cursed or punished, we just stepped out into the traffic on the wrong day.

But there are so many lessons for us in all this, wisdom that can only come from experience and the sharp end of human nature. I encourage you all to read all you can, understand as much as you can and then, once the trauma is understood, look for the staircase out of the cellar. 80% of the abuse we have suffered was not even happening with our abusers present, most of it was the anticipation of what they could do, which of course is the way a narcissist gets what they want. Defeat the abuse in your own head, and you defeat the abuser. But it takes work, tough tough work. The last two years has been like picking through the aftermath of an air crash. Seriously grim, sad and painful... but it HAD TO BE DONE.

At times it will feel like it will never lift, that it's how the future will be, will always be. But it isn't. Those around you, if they are true supporters, will be able to see the changes better than you. Keep on pointing ahead with your head down and in time, your head will be high again.

What has been done to us all is unforgivable, just plain wrong by any metric of decency and fairness. That's the truth. It musn't become the frame in which we exist. Turn it round in your mind and make the recovery a defining moment.

From pain... comes strength.