EF at work

[smg]

Yesterday at work, I was triggered when a co-worker came in feeling depressed, and started muttering that he was going to kill himself. (Please note, that, as his good friend told me, he's a bit of a drama queen and says these things without serious intent. He is safe.) I think it was the slightly angry/defiant/closed-off muttering that did it -- that he was acting out his feelings somewhat destructively, rather than exploring them to figure out what he needed to change to feel better. Two things arise from this:

First, I think I was flashing back to being afraid for and of my mother when she was depressed. I don't actually know that she was ever depressed, but it seems to fit. I haven't managed to feel much of that fear yet.

The second thing I have to deal with is going back to work tomorrow while feeling ashamed of my weakness. i told my co-workers that it was ptsd and I ws probably feeling fear from the past when my mother was depressed. I think that I could see them finding it strange that I couldn't stop crying for hours. My inner critic is always very active on the subject of emotion being weak and shameful, and it may be extra amped-up because if my mother ever was depressed, it would have been particularly bad for me to be unhappy at that time.

I don't want to have to go back. I don't want to have to be extra good and useful to compensate for secretly being awful. I don't want to try not to feel anything bad, when I know that doesn't work

smg

[Kizzie]

SMG, don't know that your coworkers will see you any differently than the fellow who was angrily muttering away about killing himself   They will probably just think that two of their colleagues were having a bad day.  It happens.

And when it happens to any of them I'm sure you will cut them some slack because that's what (normal) people do.  I don't think you need to be extra good and useful  because there is no reason, you did not do anything wrong.

[Butterfly]

smg, tread lightly and Kizzie's idea of chalking it up to a bad day is great. You can even light heartily call it that if it helps. And there's no reason to go over and above 'being extra good and useful' at all. Just do what your job requires no special behavior needed. That's what toxic parenting made us feel we need to do as a child but that's not what our adult self needs to believe anymore.