Decision Part B

[Blueberry]

(Note from Kizzie - this thread carries on a discussion started in Part A here - https://cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=9792.0.)

Recently somebody who works with adults with a range of disabilities and illnesses who I came across privately gave me a slightly different perspective on the work I do. She said that my goal maybe isn't to be a successful businesswoman in the normal sense but to allow myself to grow with my work and use the abilities and creativity that I have. ..Not banning myself from teaching or translation because I can't work quickly and efficiently enough (yet) to earn a decent hourly wage. Instead: See the good both do for me and allow myself to do them anyway. ...I'm actually enjoying doing the necessary terminology research without worrying about it being time-consuming   

I'm proofreading somebody else's translation this evening and the above applies. I've copied it for myself because it's so important for me to note again. My SH impulse is way down, which says a lot This time too I'm enjoying checking terminology and learning new terminology as I go. I don't know how much of it I'll retain but it's interesting anyway.

[Not Alone]

glad you are enjoying it and being kind to yourself.

[Blueberry]

Just noting for myself that I got the go-ahead for a small, fairly simply translation this morning and my heart sank. There was a version a) and version b) and the client decided on b). I'm charging more for version b) but the prospect of the money doesn't seem to be helping.

Though I do remember 2 ways in which I might help myself: remind my ICs and Inner Teens that they run off into their play-and-relax spaces and leave the work to the Adult in me AND put FOO behind their dark bullet-proof screen and send them to the forests of northern Scandinavia.

[Bermuda]

I just stumbled on this post, and I just wanted to say that I really needed to read this right now. Thanks.

C-PTSD is for me also a disability. It's certainly not an advantage.

I know the feeling of dread over tasks, and money is hardly an incentive either. It's almost as if traumatic avoidance kicks in to save myself from the ironic disappointment of possibly failing. Which of course is a cycle that ends with me giving up and starting something new to eventually give up on. Everything is overwhelming, and C-PTSD is exhausting.

I feel like I'm treading mud, and breathing mud.

It's as if with C-PTSD we are moving mountains every day, but not like the idiom is typically used. We're moving invisible mountains that will not get us any acknowledgement or accolades.
I say this because perhaps you are feeling like I am, and maybe taking a small moment to be aware of all the mountains you've moved just to type out your situation, maybe that alone can offer you some relief.   

[Blueberry]

I know the feeling of dread over tasks, and money is hardly an incentive either.

That makes two of us. Sometimes it does help to not be alone with a result of cptsd. 

It's as if with C-PTSD we are moving mountains every day, but not like the idiom is typically used. We're moving invisible mountains that will not get us any acknowledgement or accolades.
I say this because perhaps you are feeling like I am, and maybe taking a small moment to be aware of all the mountains you've moved just to type out your situation, maybe that alone can offer you some relief.   

Thanks for saying that. It does help to think about all those mountains I've moved! It's a bit like acknowledging those small steps and then seeing some of those small steps for what they actually are for us with cptsd - huge steps. But I like the way you put it with "invisible mountains" that don't get us acknowledgement or accolades. Except here on OOTS of course

[Blueberry]

I got the go-ahead for a small, fairly simply translation this morning

When I'm doing this type of work OOTS is a lifeline for me. I think mostly because I feel a need to communicate my progress with somebody and none of my freelance colleagues and/or friends really understand my difficulties with work. Besides, if I phoned one of them up, it would be difficult not to listen to some of their day as well which would not help me in this situation at all. On the contrary.

I also think the need to communicate in this situation comes from a younger part of me. Hm. Those younger parts of me are supposedly in their play-and-relax spaces. OK, now I get it - they do go into their spaces so as not to get involved in the actual work I'm doing, but they still have a need to communicate what's going on. I would say that that is good for my recovery, so legit. In fact it's much better for my recovery and for my translation deadline that I don't need to go into any real Inner Child work where I'm comforting the ICs and doing dialogues, feeling clueless about what the problem is and then feeling frustrated. It all seems to happen much faster on here.

Though I do remember 2 ways in which I might help myself: remind my ICs and Inner Teens that they run off into their play-and-relax spaces and leave the work to the Adult in me AND put FOO behind their dark bullet-proof screen and send them to the forests of northern Scandinavia.

Just writing the above down on here seemed to work. I mean, I didn't actually have to do any of those imagination exercises. What has worked in addition is reminding myself that I'm translating because a little bit of that is fun - working out terminology, finding out some new information from the actual content. I'm not translating to get a good hourly rate. That's not my focus. Also when I find some solution, especially to formatting and tables, I get an internal which does me good.

[Blueberry]

Noting that a lot of the realisations I wrote about on here tie in with what I just wrote on my Journal. So, I've realised these things before, it's just that now a T has given me a diagnosis that explains this better and it's as if I can now better give myself permission to be this way.

[Blueberry]

I feel like giving up teaching now too. It's not the teaching that is so difficult, although it sometimes is. It's everything else round about being a freelancer - keeping my papers filed and sorted, doing the taxes which in my case just means getting the correct documents to the accountant, paying the overheads, advertising and marketing. Teaching used to keep me going, give me a reason to get up in the morning, but it's not doing that anymore. 

When I last spoke to psycho-T, I said I thought that once I give up my freelance work, I'll never go back to it. He nodded. But I guess it doesn't have to be that way.

I am getting closer to calling it all a day so to speak. Like, I've struggled long enough with my freelance work. I don't think I'm being 'just lazy' when I prefer to roam around the Internet, read books I almost know off by heart and sleep.

Who knows what might then happen? Finding a trauma T and moving along in my trauma therapy would be more important than working, especially considering how strenuous it is getting for me.

[Blueberry]

I checked the beginning of my thread Decision Part A in June 2018 to find: Yesterday in my therapy session I decided officially and finally to stop trying to get a 'normal' P/T job in the 'normal' workforce, with an employer. After 17 years struggling in therapy and work-onself between times to recover enough to support myself in the medium-term or even long-term, I have decided that a) it's not going to happen in the medium-term and b) it's just not worth the price I pay in exhaustion and in pressure.

And now the decision is: I'm giving up translation for a good few months, more likely 1-2 years even - except I might dabble in lit. translation but w/o trying to make any money or get anything published. If I think it might be fun, I can do a bit, knowing that that could turn out to be 2-3 sentences and then no more stamina. Otherwise translation's a goner. I'm also giving up my office end of this month, though not everything in it. I've already reduced number of students and I note that thinking about teaching adults or even tutoring school children who are above Class 10 makes me shake internally so that's obviously no-go atm too.

[Gromit]

Good to find this thread and these last comments.  I teach classes to adults but, now my kids are grown I am trying to find a part time job to fit inbetween. It is demoralising. I already have invigilating, but that is ad hoc and I failed at an interview for that somewhere else that paid more. I have picked up a casual bar job, just for the rugby season, but again, well paid, for that kind of work, but casual. My bar manager rates me anyway.

The normal part time jobs seem beyond my reach and got me wondering if I am neuro divergent, the conclusion being that CPTSD makes you 'different' anyway.

Self employment, although precarious, seems the answer. More of it. For me, anyway.

G