CPTSD critic and self worth. Work harder or work less?

[DelphicDreamer]

Hi i’m new to this forum and have CPTSD.

Can anyone relate to this? A lot of the time i try to distract myself or disociate. Any time anything bad / traumatising happens i disociate it which usually takes like a week. I feel useless/worthless so i try to study or think / journal to figure out things but end up feeling inferior again because other people are so far ahead. All the time i feel like i should be doing better but even when i am working at reasonable/good jobs i feel unworthy and sabotage or make mistakes and lose the job. I feel like a retard a lot but i’m always trying to fight against that to prove i’m not one. A lot of situations make my brain peace out and go blank which leads to a kind of failure cycle. Anyone relate or know someone who can relate?

 

[arfie]

hello dreamer. welcome to the forum. sorry for what brings you here, but glad you are here. posilutely i relate to your frustration. i call my version, "the dropout syndrome," but it be a booger bear by any name.

Hi i’m new to this forum and have CPTSD.
. I feel useless/worthless so i try to study or think / journal to figure out things but end up feeling inferior again because other people are so far ahead.

recovery is not a race. it is far to erratic to respect the tomes of rules and regs it takes to turn human violence into a respectable competition or even a healthy war. (oxymoron intended). my recovery from child sex trafficking started in 1972 and my life has improved immeasurably since then, but i still feel the aches and scars of that human atrocity and am frequently rescued from that quagmire by the fresh enthusiasm of newer refugees. everybody loses when we treat recovery like a competition. by whose rulebook shall we proceed with the competition?

All the time i feel like i should be doing better but even when i am working at reasonable/good jobs i feel unworthy and sabotage or make mistakes and lose the job.

in my own recovery, this is part and parcel of the dropout syndrome. i have 50 years of accumulated proof to the contrary and i still feel like that lost little girl being bullied by the cheerleading squad in the girl's locker room. the good news is that i have gotten quicker to recognize and remediate. the bad news is that my foster daughter (my first girl) wants to be a dancer/cheerleader and has been showing me how far i have to go. do you really want to be one of THOSE girls?

I feel like a retard a lot but i’m always trying to fight against that to prove i’m not one.

potentially off-topic
i started kindergarten as in 1959 as, "retarded." contemporary pros have wondered if "autism" was a more likely dx, but in 1959, it was a little known and even less understood dx. circa 1964, i busted out of that cage and rose quickly to gifted math and science. i still couldn't talk, but i adored working those numbers. alas, the gift was math and science. the political outcry over my being the first girl in the gifted math and science program blew me away. by the end of it, and to this day, i still think "retarded" is the way to go. the expectations are far more realistic.

A lot of situations make my brain peace out and go blank which leads to a kind of failure cycle.

am i parsing words to question the "brain peace?" brain piece? gotta love those homophones. i hate them so much that i suspect myself of homophonia. (sorry. couldn't resist)

this description fits what i experience in the initial phases of my dropout cycle. in psychotherapy sessions we call ^it^, "dissociation." recognizing and remediating the cycle from onset has saved me from quite a few spins of the not-so-merry-go-round.