Friend is a trigger...i'm confused

[LoveTea]

So I will try to explain this as best as I can. My supervisor at work is one of my closest friends--she basically knows the most about what has happened to me. I really do like spending time with her, and she says she loves me in return (she calls herself our "den mother"). I've known her for about 2 years now. About 6 months ago she slowly started to cut me out of some work stuff and stopped talking to me socially. I'm really not sure how much of it she is even aware of, how much of it is real, and how much of it I've just made up. I know it's true to an extent, I have multiple concrete examples of that, but I also try to recognize that I probably make it out worse than it is because I'm "used to" people abandoning me.

Anyway, it has gotten to the point where I feel like the only times I interact with her are specifically for work or when I panic or dissociate. I know by now it's partially my own fault because I've started to pull away in an effort to protect myself (I'm trying to stop this habit). The problem is that at this point the only way I know how to interact or talk to her is when I'm having some PTSD reaction. She is very good about it, stays calm and can generally help resolve it relatively quickly. But, this has developed into a response that sometimes when I'm around her, I automatically dissociate or panic now. My T says that means she's a trigger.

I don't know how to handle this. My T recognizes that talking to her would feel way too confrontational to me. I don't want to stop talking to her all together. She is one of the only adult figures in my life that I can actually depend on, and she does help me ground much more affectively and quickly than I can on my own (for right now, I am still working on it on my own for sure). I want to be able to be around her without reacting like this. I know that ignoring the problem will probably only make it worse, but I feel like anything I say or do will make it worse too.

 

[Deleted member 541]

Is it possible that you have depended on her too much when you're having a PTSD symptom and she is overwhelmed at this point??? Just a thought!

 

[LoveTea]

That's what I used to think, when it first started happening. she said that she'd tell me if she couldn't help, and she has occationally followed through on that. Now, litterally all she deals with are my symptoms, it feels like she doesn't see me anymore, I'm just a walking embodyment of PTSD. I don't knwo why she would only interact with me for the PTSD, it would more sense to me the other way around. Now that she is a trigger, it keeps spiraling. The less and less I interact with her without the PTSD, the worse it gets, and the more it happens the less I interact with her without it

 

[EveHarrington]

I think it would be best to consider her to be only a supervisor from here on out.

Unfortunately it can put a strain on a relationship when we turn to someone to pull us out of dissociation, an episode, etc.

How often are you turning to her? Are you ever pulling out of it on your own? I fear she's become a crutch to you.

 

[Deleted member 541]

@LoveTea Is she a trigger or a stressor. Very different!!!!

 

[Deleted member 37474]

I am living this right now. I have a friend who was helping me ground and I was going to her right away instead of working it out myself and I get it now. The other day she ignored my disassociation and it made me so angry that the change in emotion actually did ground me. It is so easy to become codependent with our friends. :-(

 

[A concerned spouse]

Okay, maybe I can help you out on this one. I am a supporter and I am also a supervisor over 40 employees. I too am the mother hem. I love each one of my employees and try to always be fair. As a supervisor I am usually the one that knows what's personally going on in each employees life. They come to me with everything and I am there for each and everyone of them.

I have this one employee that had a horrific childhood and very abusive marriages. She is probably the sweetest person with the biggest heart I know. She does not have a lot of friends and does not have any family to depend on.

She has a lot of health and emotional issues and sometimes goes into a complete panic attack and melt down. I'm the only one that can calm her down at work and I've been trying to build up her self esteem. I've even got her into counseling.

Sometimes I distance myself a little with her because I have other employees that may think I'm showing favoritism with her. Other times she's having such a good day I don't want to spoil it for het in any way and thete are other times I am so busy and stressed with everything I have to Do, I just down right don't realize that I'm ignoring anyone but unfortunately I do.

Also, since I'm a supporter at home, I have learned that when my husband avoids and disassociated, it's my wife to back off, give him his distance and allow him to cope. So when this employee does this, it's my natural response to do the same for her. It's because I care!

I also take some work load off her on her off days and its because I care. She is her worst critic and puts a lot of pressure on herself. I truly love and adore this women and I see all the awesome qualities she has and I believe in her ability. Unfortunately, she doesn't see it in herself (I'm working on that).

So please don't think your boss thinks of you differently because it sounds like to me that she truly cares for you as a person but she she is a boss first and we aren't perfect either. Hugs going your way!!!

 

[LoveTea]

@EveHarrington I don't tend to actually go to her, she tends to come to me. I am trying to teach a couple other people at work to know what to do (simple things like getting a frozen orange or handing me altoids), since sometimes people will go and get her when I am unresponsive. I can sometimes pull out on my own, but sometimes I am REALLY out of it and it takes an outside force to get me back a bit. I do think you are right in that she has become a bit of a crutch, and I project a lot of my abandonment issues onto her. I think it might make it worse if I just have an employee/supervisor relationship with her though because I only have a couple friends, who are all very close with her and I think I would feel even more left out, which would probably make the trigger more intense.

@She Cat My T thinks it is a trigger. Sometimes she will walk into the room and I will almost instantaneously dissociate or start to panic. It's not quite the same as some of my other triggers (which happen every single time). But, unlike my "internal" triggers, it doesn't take any time to build up before I react. Plus, my reactions have been increasing in frequency.

@A concerned spouse Thank you for giving your perspective (and the hug!). It's nice to hear from someone in a similar situation to her. She has been above and beyond supportive of me and she understands that with me the more work the better. She will frequently mention my value to me and to other people. It's just hard sometimes because I love working, and she hasn't been letting me really work on particular projects that I really like to do, and I have a feeling it's because of the PTSD (I am perfectly capable of doing them, and I didn't have a problem in the past before she knew about my symptoms).

I just see her chit chatting with everyone else at various times and she doesn't do that with me anymore. I feel like the only day to day things she knows about me anymore are PTSD related. If I mention I am going into the city, she no longer asks what I'm doing, she doesn't ask what classes I'm taking or how they are going. Sometimes I feel like I am just being overly sensitive and projecting, and other times it feels very real.

 

[Tornadic Thoughts]

I had sort of a similar relationship with a former supervisor. She was very much like a mother figure and nurtured me and many others through some rough times when we otherwise would have likely lost our job. But it became an unhealthy attachment, for sure, and seemed to foster dependence much more than creating leaders, which is what she often claimed to be trying to do through her actions.

She'd provide learning and other opportunities for some that she wouldn't offer to others (many times it was classes and such being taught in a church...which was frowned upon heavily, as we worked at a state facility....but we were willing to go and learn if it meant we could advance our careers and benefit greatly, eventually, which is what she promised more often than not), she often verbally based all her moves (and suggested we did, too) on her religious beliefs during each interaction, and it created a tense environment, to say the least. I later learned she was pretty much gathering information from each staff member about the others which eventually fostered an environment heavily fueled on gossip and back stabbing. That's when the red flags finally flew up and hit me in the face and I backed off, no longer communicating unless absolutely necessary.

Drama was stirred in almost every pot daily. She made many staff very heavily reliant on her methods of operating. Then she suddenly took an early retirement and there was a new boss in town. Totally opposite, very little empathy, strictly by the book, highly against any religious speak within the workplace, changed everything she had put into place, came up with new policies and procedures, and everyone's work life as they knew it was changed. I stayed for several years after that, still in shock, sort of, to learn how much all she did served to cripple more staff than it helped, and never again observed another supervisor conduct themselves in the manner she did. Although I observed enough unethical behavior of many other flavors to eventually be the cause of me no longer being able to spend my energies there. Tread carefully and don't fully give your power to anyone in the workplace. Scripts can flip in an instant.

 

[Supervixn]

Oh wow this post and the replies are so interesting for a different reason.... I too had a motherly type supervisor which at times bordered unhealthy. It's kind of interesting to see there are a few of us PTSD sufferers who have had the same kind of experience. Are we subconsciously seeking out a parent?

Anyway, didn't mean to side track. I think anytime a work relationship gets to that personal of a level, it's hard if not impossible to bring it back to a more professional place. You both have expectations now for the relationship... roles are already established. I think your fear around her is probably because you sense a change in something (her, you, the relationship...) but you can't definitively attribute it to anything. You probably feel on edge about your behavior and how she may respond because your relationship is in what feels like a weird spot. Why not cut through the unnecessary worrying and stress, and privately ask her about it? Either way you're going to feel uncomfortable, whether you ask or not, so why not try to take it in a more productive direction and have a conversation with her about it? Is this possible? Good luck.

 

[LoveTea]

I did try to talk to her about it yesterday, I got so upset and overwhelmed that I called a mutual friend. She came over to give me a hug, and she said I have to talk to my supervisor about it. I did agree to that, but when it actually came to talking, I just curled up in a ball and I couldn't say anything. My supervisor was good about it, but it still accomplished nothing. It's just hard because I keep hearing about friends who are sitting and chatting in the office for 2 hours, or going to coffee, or meeting her friends. I get that not all relationships are going to be equal, but she has never invited me to anything. She says she loves me, but it doesn't feel like she likes me and just feels obligated to me.

 

[Renew]

I have been where you are at where you feel like you are kind of an outcast or that people don't like you because, there is something wrong with you. Not that there is but, you know what I mean? Like, I used to tell people my business and then they would use it against me. Even my own Sister used it against me not too long ago. It may be a trigger because, subconsciously you feel vulnerable now that she knows the deepest parts of you? I mean, I am just analyzing and speculating. I very well could be wrong. I am sorry you are dealing with this, though. I know how uncomfortable it feels.