Unemployable, and paralyzed by job-related trauma and cptsd,

[oak]

Hi RightInTwo!

Oh I see! Your difficultly is not interviewing, thankfully, but getting established. That's good to know.

The good news is that you identify the issue clearly, and have no illusions about yourself, your past, and your current issues. That puts you in the top 25% of people, IMO.

I do send encouragement, and even better: courage, as you face this. Please do keep us posted. In the meantime you are Enough.

[RightInTwo]

I just wanted to encourage you to give yourself a bit of a break in personalizing all of these situations too much. (This is coming from someone who struggles not to take everything personally on a daily basis!)

Also, I read every word of your story & the replies and you have my support. Please keep posting.

rivergirl

Thank you rivergirl.

I honestly don’t know how to even begin not taking things personally. I am lost, trapped in my own personal hellscape where I clearly see connections between my ignorant cringe-inducing actions and the subsequent bad things that happen. My mind continuously, usually without my permission, finds more and more connections, further cementing in stone, the blame that I carry.

I am obsessed with the question of “why” did these things happen, but even after all of my analyzing brings a little bit of clarity, it does nothing to help assure me that I’ll do better next time.

How did you learn to give yourself a break? I’m willing to try new ways of thinking about things.

[rivergirl]

I'm sorry I missed this post earlier in the week, RIT.

With the caveat that my own mental health has been full of ups and downs in the past six years, during that time I did learn not to blame and hate myself so much. I think what made the biggest difference for me was therapy over several years that helped me identify where my self criticism and self hatred originated (harsh parenting, fundamentalist religious background, etc.) Other things that helped: developing a more compassionate spirituality and world view (mostly secular), meditation, MIHH and other mental health podcasts, the kind people on this forum.

I hope you're able to find a path toward more self acceptance and peace, RIT, whatever that looks like for you.

rg

[manuel_moe_g]

Hello RightInTwo. Just in the last couple of weeks I have been pretty successful with shutting down definitely the mean voice in my head that tries to attack my core identity. I shut it down immediately every time it dares to speak. It is a tricky one, and I indulged that mean voice for too long, because it always couched its language in terms of "hey, I am just trying to make you a better person, showing you the mistakes you made in the past so you don't make those mistakes again", but now I know better. I have already learned the lessons from my mistakes in the past, that voice is simply mean and wants me to harshly judge my fundamental core identity, judge myself as a very bad person, and feel massive shame. I have no time for the mean voice now.

I am lost, trapped in my own personal hellscape where I clearly see connections between my ignorant cringe-inducing actions and the subsequent bad things that happen. My mind continuously, usually without my permission, finds more and more connections, further cementing in stone, the blame that I carry.

I am obsessed with the question of “why” did these things happen, but even after all of my analyzing brings a little bit of clarity, it does nothing to help assure me that I’ll do better next time.

All this sounds familiar to me and sounds like a very mean voice. Please try shouting it down.

I have more to say, but for later, I hope this little bit can help you for now. Please keep the lines of communication open. All the best.

[manuel_moe_g]

By the way, in the beginning, you will have to do a lot of shouting to shout down that mean voice in your head. All kinds of shouting. Wishing you power in those first critical few days of starting this new habit, you don't deserve to suffer like you do from the fallout from that mean voice.

[RightInTwo]

By the way, in the beginning, you will have to do a lot of shouting to shout down that mean voice in your head. All kinds of shouting. Wishing you power in those first critical few days of starting this new habit, you don't deserve to suffer like you do from the fallout from that mean voice.

Thank you manuel.

A few years ago - and a few jobs ago - I had read “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz, and there was something in that book about how you choose your words, whether speaking to someone else or your internal voice, to yourself.

I recognized the truth and the message was clear. I used my imagination to see the source of that scathing, abusive voice that has been so cruel and destructive. It looked like a dragon monster, with a red face, always wearing a horrible look of disgust and hatred.

For a while, that helped me deal with my internal abuser.

But now, after several job “failures”, I seem to have just accepted that the monster was right about me all along. The self loathing runs too deep, like dandelion roots, all the way to the beginning.

The truth is, I am missing a very important set of interpersonal skills that 99.9% of people take for granted; skills learned during the formative years growing up; how to make friends, and build lasting relationships of different types.

I have a nearly 100% track record of broken relationships, going all the way back to my very first childhood friend.

Many of the cringey things I referred to were me trying to fit in with coworkers, but being completely unaware that I was alienating myself more and more, because I have nothing in my history or background that would have helped me find common ground.

No friends, no siblings, no family anywhere nearby… no college (online does nothing to build irl social skills), no specific career goals, no kids or family of my own. Not religious, so I’m not meeting people at church. My isolated upbringing has destroyed all the potential that I had for success. I had good grades, artistic and musical skills, but no guidance or encouragement whatsoever. I had no identity, and still don’t.

When I first left home, it was obvious to me that I needed a job. I believed that it didn’t matter what job I got, as long as I did my best, success would follow. So, the idea of choosing a specific career and actively pursuing it never even occurred to me.

Not until just a few years ago did a random conversation with a colleague reveal how my lack of direction, which is still lacking today, looks to others. I’m just drifting at sea, going wherever the wind blows. (Fwiw, this was not said to me as a criticism, but it blew me away.)

Sometimes I wish for a lobotomy. I can’t just let myself be happy. Or, just be.

[manuel_moe_g]

I hear you, RightInTwo

my difficulties are more in the personal instead of the business arena, so i can speak about that. grade school, high school, college, and the first few years out of college were torturous for me, I am on the Asperger's/autism spectrum, i have social anxiety, along with depression, so personal connections, especially with the opposite sex, were terribly challenging, which left me massively lonely during those times

the "dragon monster voice"/"internal abuser" is kinda right, kinda wrong, that is the tricky part

it is OK to thank the voice, kindly, for what it is right about: the immense challenges that mentally ill people, like myself, have. i need that correct information to navigate my world, now. so that information is so important that it is proper to thank that "dragon monster voice" for bringing it to my attention...

...but after that, after the very first time of bringing it to my attention, the situation changes... ...i am intelligent enough so that people don't have to repeat information for me, after the first time, i got it... ...it is no different with the "dragon monster voice"...

what the voice is wrong about, wrong to the point of allowing me to shut-down that voice harshly (after I get that good information, of course), what the voice is wrong about is that my <CORE-SELF> is disgusting and bad.

my core-self is to be protected, any attack on the core-self is immediately recognized as being unallowable

it is a subtle but important distinction

the "dragon monster voice" is wrong that i am <ONLY> my track-record of failure, it has <ZERO> good information about my future, and i shut it down when it tries to speak about the future

the "dragon monster voice" wants me to think i have zero identity, or an identity only consisting of humiliation, failure, and pain. but the "dragon monster voice" has <ZERO> good information about my identity, its domain of knowledge is limited to my past <BEHAVIOR>, not my identity

it is hard, because my early care-givers were full of criticism, so critical voices like the "dragon monster voice" are heard loud and clear because of my early training, but that makes it all the more important to shut it down when it speaks out of turn or it speaks about things it knows nothing about

i am speaking from my own autobiography, of course, i am not here to tell anyone else what they should do, what i am saying is just another piece of information, like the information the "dragon monster voice" gives sometimes

but repetition is not information, i don't need you to repeat endlessly the same criticisms, you dumb "dragon monster voice"

and attacks on my <FUTURE> and my <CORE-IDENTITY> are not information, so shut up "dragon monster voice"

keep the lines of communication open, RightInTwo, you are a great addition to our little group here!

[Beany Boo]

The voice is natural. Everybody gets one. It flares up when I am in a location where I experience a loss of privacy or autonomy. Then the voice will do what it can to protect and warn me that I need to move or act. It does what it takes to get me to listen. This usually means talking in a frightening tone. It seems to revert to the last instance where I responded actively to an alarming voice, which is when I was small and others were larger. If the situation is extended, the voice stays in alarming mode, even escalating to find something that I will hear and respond to. After a while it can stick on a loop.

Once I find privacy or autonomy it drops out of alarm mode. If it’s been in that mode for a while it may take repeated attempts before it’s convinced I’m in a safe location.

The tricky question is what constitutes privacy or autonomy to that part of my brain from which the voice comes? Finding that out is trial and error.

[RightInTwo]

you are a great addition to our little group here!

You have no idea how much that means to me.

I sometimes think I must come across as one of those “my trauma is worse” game show contestants.

I really just find it difficult to pinpoint exactly what it is that has me so messed up… There are so many things to choose from lol… And after sharing some stuff here, I find myself later on thinking, “but that’s not _really_ the thing” so I tell more of the story.

Like the job/money situation. I completely forgot to mention that I get triggered into full blown panic attack each and every time I read even a single job listing. Even though I know full well that they always ask for way more than they actually expect to get, I can’t get past what I am reading. It’s in writing, and published, so I am compelled to take it at face value. I can’t get past it and immediately give up.

Conversely, regarding my own resume, I feel compelled to full disclosure of each and every detail, and all the well-meaning advice I have received over the years, telling me to spin a different version that matches the job description, just further escalates my panic spiral. It feels dishonest and nefarious. And it triggers a whole series of horrifying memories that I really truly just want to forget. And ideally, do this over and over, for each application??? Oh, hell no. No, no, no, no, no.

I like your approach to the dragon monster voice. I’m going to try new ways to apply this going forward.

[manuel_moe_g]

Panic attacks are no joke, I am sorry you have to deal with this major challenge, you deserve better. Please take care, I really enjoy reading your writing, keep the lines of communication open.