Anxiety is embarrassing

[Papa Coco]

This is embarrassing. My anxiety has been triggered.

Some contractors are at my house today doing a full day's job. I can't stop trying to help. I keep offering them soda or coffee or to let them use my tools. I'm embarrassing myself...AGAIN! Or at least I'm triggering my lifelong fear that I'm humiliating myself like I've done a thousand times before.

My Fawn personality can be helpful, but sometimes I push it too far and people don't respect that. (Or at least that's what my trigger says to me). It makes me look like a nervous old nutjob. (or at least that's what my trigger says to me).  I'm hiding from these guys right now. I need to just trust that if they want to borrow a tool  they'll come ask to borrow one of mine. I need to stop offering!

I feel like I just had a gallon of caffein injected into my veins. I'm shaking from the inside out. I'm starting to picture them laughing at me to my face. (I know they won't. They're very nice young men--this is a trigger from past abuse and I know it--I just can't seem to escape it). I feel like I'm thirteen again and about to be pounded on by classmates or eyerolled and scoffed at by family. This gets so exhausting. When they're done tonight and they leave, I'm probably going to collapse in total exhaustian. I'll most likely have to deal with an evening of crushing depression and self-hatred. I had to quit drinking with AA 7 years ago, so all I can do tonight is eat tons of comfort food and try to distract in a James Bond movie or something. I'll likely imagine that these guys are laughing about me in the truck on the way back to their shop. Thank god I quit drinking or tonight would be a major binge!

I'm not a stoic, coldhearted John Wayne. I try to be a kindly, gentle Mr. Rogers, but at times I feel like I'm a nervous Don Knotts that people just laugh at.

I'm going to stay hidden from these guys until I start to feel my chest stop vibrating from nerves. Maybe I can feel like a grownup around them again if I give it an hour or so of no contact.

Gads! This is so humiliating! It's exhausting! It's TRAUMA!!!!!

[rainydiary]

Papa Coco, I do the same thing when contractors are around - I want to make their job so easy.  I really don't like people I don't know (or even that I do) being in my house because I feel so raw and exposed and like I need to keep the ugly stuff hidden.  I hope that you find a way to feel some ease with them in the house. 

[Papa Coco]

RainyDiary, 

Thanks for chiming in. It really, really helps to see the support. I am so grateful to have a place where I can report my triggers as they happen, and get a response from someone who "knows the feeling."  It's amazing how just having someone to vent with helps. I don't have to feel like I'm the only person with these silly triggers.

UPDATE: The guys went on lunch and came back an hour later. Meanwhile, I distracted myself by cleaning in the garage. Knowing this was a CPTSD trigger helped me not feel so consumed by it. A few years ago I'd have just kept stressing until I went full-on crazy, but these days, addressing the trigger while it's happening, and acknowledging my nervous humiliation as just a triggered response helped me wait it out until I calmed down. When the guys came back from lunch I sat outside on the patio and just watched them work. I didn't say much. But pretty soon they started joking around a bit with me, and I joked back. I DID stop fawning over them, I stopped offering coffee and pop and tools, and I ended up feeling a lot better about interacting with them. They worked a full 8 hour day, finished the job about 20 minutes ago and left. They shook my hand and thanked me for being so kind. Apparently they have a lot of customers who treat them like they're not really human...like hired contractors are "the help", rather than actual hard-working people making a living.

In the end it was a success, but I owe it to a) admitting this was a Trauma Trigger I was reacting to, (rather than letting myself feel like they really did hate me), and b) posting my nervous trepidations on the site and seeing a response. I always say I can take on the world if I don't feel like I'm alone when I have to do it.

Thanks for being my sounding board.

[rainydiary]

I'm glad you are on the other side of the experience now and have had the chance to reflect.  I hope this awareness you are bringing makes future experiences as manageable as they can be. 

[Kizzie]

Boy can I relate to the whole contractor thing!  When I first started this forum in 2014 it was after moving into a new house that was still being finished.  I had to deal with everything because my H had to finish up work in another province. Normally I'm great at organizing and managing but they were in my house and on top of that being new in a neighborhood of people who were very curious about me, I felt like I wasn't safe in or out of the house.

I was so triggered because I didn't have a safe space and back then I didn't quite realize what was going on; very  triggered because I couldn't flee to a safe space. I was quite fawning because that's what I had to do at home as a child. It makes a lot of sense now that I would do that. 

Yesterday we had two contractors in to replace a couple of taps in our ensuite upstairs and I was not fawning at all.  I sat in the bedroom and looked at my iPad while they did their thing.  Half an hour later they left and that was it.  I remember having a little pep talk with myself before they arrived about the fact that they were people I did not have to please, keep happy and that they were in my house. I even asked them to wear masks which is a bit awkward.

My point is that It really does make a difference now that I understand what is going on, not always but most of  the time.   You're looking at what you're doing and why so        

[Papa Coco]

Kizzie,

Thank you for sharing your similar experience. That sharing is all it takes for me to not feel alone with my anxiety triggers.

Sharing my anxiety while it's happening, with others who can relate, is the most powerful tool I have for managing my triggered responses. That's why I joined the group--so I'd have people to share with. I'm calling yesterday's sequence of events, which went like this: [1) Trigger > 2) React w/anxiety > 3) Reach out to the group > 4) Feel the support > 5) Relax in the reality that this was just a Trauma Response] worked perfectly.

It turns out they thought I was a nice guy. Just as I expected, the whole problem was all in my head that they were laughing at me.

(PS: I still destressed by eating way too much comfort food and watching movies way into the night last night) Ha ha.

[Kizzie]

         Keep on keeping on as a member from the first days of OOTS would say.

[Papa Coco]

LOL.

Thanks for the encouragement. Keep on keeping on!

In AA meetings I learned the value of taking each day, one at a time. Just focus on getting through my triggers today and let tomorrow come when it comes.

My biggest challenge now is to stop making my posts so detailed and complicated. I write too much. I need to learn to trim it down. So today I'm going to keep my posts short.

I need to feel a connection to people who understand CPTSD so I don't have to feel so alone with it. I've spent my entire life feeling like there were two teams on earth. Me on one team, and everyone else on the other. I don't want to over-do my welcome here. I need this connection.

[Kizzie]

No worries Papa, new members tend to write longer posts for a bit and that's fine, good even because it's generally such a relief and release after years of feeling like the lone member on Team CPTSD.  We do ask that members try and keep things to 3 paras after settling in just because there are so many posts to read daily.  The journal is normally where members write longer posts.

[Dante]

I didn't see this when it was posted (sorry!) but I can completely relate.  I do the same thing, fawning, trying to be helpful.  I had some contractors in this past weekend, and also had to ask them to wear a mask (uncomfortably).  I didn't even realize this was what I was doing.  Thanks for sharing your experience.