Trauma

Trauma is an interesting thing.  It really can, and does, play havoc with your brain.  They say that trauma experienced from bullying (or any other kind of trauma where it is prolonged) plays a different kind of havoc than one-time short-lived trauma.  Either way our brains don't cope well.

Today, I had a counseling appointment.  It was tough.  I realized again how much trauma from previous workplace bullying that I still carry around.  Add to that my counselor thinks I am a highly-sensitive person. (This is just a fancy way of saying what I have known for a long time. I take in other peoples emotional energy much more than the average person).  Add these two things together and you get a tough situation.

I have been struggling with the depression since the beginning of the year.  It's better now, but I am still having my struggles.  Much of this is related to work right now.  So, here's the trouble with trauma.  When something happens at my current workplace that  resembles the things that happened before, I have major emotional flashbacks.  I get so overwhelmed with the emotion I can barely function.  And this scares me, a lot.  And so, I try really hard to leave a lot of myself at the door of work.  The part of me that reacts to things this way.  The sensitive part of me.  The empathetic and caring part of me.  Any part of me that feels at all vulnerable.

Oof, what and exhausting way to live.  And on top of that, I can't really leave part of me at the door.  So, practically what this looks like is pretending a lot.  Putting on a mask and being someone different than who I really am.  It's a vicious circle though.  The more I try to do this, the worse I feel and the worse I feel, the worse I feel and the more I try to do this.  And ultimately it makes me hate my workplace for things that aren't even happening there.  I start to feel like it is the old situation all over again, when that is not true.

So, how to break the cycle?  How to convince myself that the trauma is old and that the current situation is not the same?  How to remember that I survived that trauma and did the best I could?  How to remember that I am different now?  I know things I didn't know then?  I have treatment for depression?  These are the questions my counselor asked me and questions to which I don't seem to have any answers right now.  And yet, I need to find some answers.  If I can't figure this out, no matter what job I am at, this will happen.  Sigh.  Trauma is nasty stuff.