Living At Work

[TLight]

Aghh.......

So, through several sessions of therapy and having lived it for over 30 years, I understand I have complex trauma and PEOPLE are a trigger. I find myself jumpy and the anxiety just builds through the day to untolerable levels when I'm faced with having to interact with them constantly.

I use all my 'skills' including trying to calm my alters, take breaks, even dissociate a little so I can get through it.

Here's my situation. My husband and I own and operate a large horse boarding facility and we are getting busier and busier. Plus we live IN the barn. I can and do HIDE from time to time, especially when the anxiety forces me into complete exhaustion. I take my meds. I'm coping OK by walking away with 'things to get done.' It's a social place, sort of like having a large FAMILY, which of course is a dirty word.

Seems all I do is cope. When I ride my horse and spend time with him, I'm calmed a bit. But I'm so busy running the barn and dealing with the horse owners and horses....I'm stretched to my PTSD limits. My husband does help and I am able to spend entire days in my room, but then I venture out and everyone is like, "Are you OK Terri?, Are you feeling better?" etc. I do say, "Sometimes I just have to hibernate, the 12-15 hour days wear me out" Or the 'I have fibromyagia" line.

We are open from 9 to 9 and people are here 9 to 9 for sure. Right outside my door. Can't go to the bathroom without crossing their path. So I pee in a cup a lot.

Any suggestions on how to cope better without taking more and more meds to control the hypervigilance? Sometimes I just walk out in the fields acting like I'm doing something.........coping. always coping.

 

[Sues]

I'm sorry you've had to deal with this. It sounds like it's 24/7 since you live at work. It's hard to cope, and I feel your pain. Can you get some help at the stables, maybe from kids doing after school work? It might give you a break enough so you can get away from all of the people everyday. A lot of cities have work/volunteer programs for youth for work experience.

 

[TLight]

Oh, thanks for your response. Mornings are pretty good. I clean the stalls. When lots of people are here, I have been hiding in my room and my husband has to make 'excuses'. He says we are all a big family and they just 'care'..........then when I see them again it's always, "Are you feeling better?' He usually says she didn't sleep well and isn't feeling good.

Ah, living a lie on top of PTSD. Like I have to hide even more. AND I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING WRONG!

Would be so nice if we could just 'tell' and get supportive responses.......but I've tried that before and it has ALWAYS backfired on me. Not people's fault, they can never understand what this is truly like.

So isolating.

 

[AS1975]

Yeah mate, I've lived and worked in the same place too many times, but predominantly as a barman, so my hours were more nocturnal, but I do know where you are coming from.

You are lucky though, you get to live and work with horses, personally I think that nothing is quite as good (I used to clean stalls, yards and sundry jobs for my grandmother who trained racehorses as a kid) for mental health. Hard work, creatures that for all their bad points, are honest, trustworthy (mostly) and incapable of considered deception, plus the smell of straw soaked with horse urine is incredibly good for blocked sinus';)

I remember the people who used to be around when I was a kid at the track, quite a few of them simply ignored the people around them and us kids just accepted that, we looked at people the same way we looked at horses, some are jittery, some have been mistreated, some need work, others just need to be left alone.

Unfortunately this view of the world affected me, I was one of those people by the time I was 25, I just needed to be left alone, able to contribute to the group, but not really interested in socialising (put frankly I badly needed a tail someone could tie a red ribbon on to warn the world I kick). But even the area I enjoy spending time in most, where people are just allowed to be ornery, cranky and eccentric is changing, people just have never learned to respect boundaries (or see boundaries that are more extensive than theirs), so they intrude (and wonder, or cry foul, when they get kicked).

Then again, I've seen plenty of twits on horses that insist on riding up behind something wearing a red ribbon in its tail, everybody seems intent on ignoring decades of wisdom and butting in where they really aren't wanted. My advice, precisely what I saw my grandmother do for decades, practice the 'old lady' act, "Oh yes lovey", "that's nice", or act deaf a lot, maybe 'smile and nod' (I've long since learned that some people only deserve passive-aggressive, they won't help you, they won't do anything good for anyone, and they aren't worth bothering with, simply pretend to agree with them to shut them up, or ask them for help to get rid of them). Watch other older people who've been around horses for years, much of their behavior comes from associating with their animals:hug:

 

[Sues]

we looked at people the same way we looked at horses, some are jittery, some have been mistreated, some need work, others just need to be left alone.

So true! and I love the "old lady act" idea. I'm gonna try it.

 

[Me2]

Question: (feel free not to answer this)

What did the trauma that gave you PTSD involve?
Again don't have to answer but it may be because out of that trauma your mind has developed a survival tactic that involves disassociation with people. If you can convince your mind that it has no need for that tactic then you may be able to get over your "fear" of interaction.

 

[TLight]

Brutally beaten and raped by father beginning at age 3, sex games and bondage, films from neighbor kids and their parents all my childhood. Other family members verbally brutal and blaming toward me. escaped at 14.
Rape at 19, two black guys.
Found a dead body at 35.
Sexaully harrassed and staulked at 28
Nervous breakdown at 29.

I'm now 48...........years of pain.

Seems the house wasn't safe, so I went out side and wham bam, the neighbors jerking dogs off in my face, tying me up, sex games while sister videoed. Any human I had contact with in the isolated country home seemed to violate me in some way shape or form.

I'd like to believe and convince my brain humans are safe......but nearly a lifetime later, can't come up with too many incidents where they haven't been cruel, abusive, or nasty. Extended into jobs, 'friends,' men. Pretty tough to convince myself humans are safe. Even here at the barn, several examples of horrible human behavior. One woman got in my face at 7 a.m. and threatened me, she even brought two guys with her to intimidate me. I was just trying to hold her to her contract which was 30 days notice. I did it politely the day before. She didn't like that answer. Bad manipulative human.

Needless to say she won. I ended up that night in a stall with a gun in my mouth.

Really trying to calm my alters when around humans, using grounding techniques, etc......using all the stuff I've been taught.
In the end, seems it's a bandaid and I end up collapsing for days or weeks after bad things happen.

 

[myvetswife]

Can your husband maybe say " She is doing some paperwork/phone calls" or so? People will not ask questions that often about it I think

 

[TLight]

On top of the humans....we live in three separate rooms, no where to hang clothes, dogs taking over the kitchen area since we have to constantly stuff them in there, they sh*t at night and I come in to 2 s.f. of counter space to make coffee, do dishes.................aargh. Piles of garbage in the corner. Dog shit smell. I'm really losing it.

This morning, I'm in this room, trying to drink my first coffee, there's a pile of shit in the corner my husband apparantly was leaving for the right moment to pick up (three days), the dogs are fighting on the floor and the 80 lb one about knocks me on my ass on the way to the coffee. I've no where to dump the grounds to make more cause the gargage is just in a pile in the corner and we've no garbage service...........

We've been living this way since April. He did install a tub in the tack room, so at least now we can get clean. He is now responsible for laundry which he does at our rented out house up the hill...............so he's the laundry guy now, so of course there is three weeks of dirty laundry always on the ground in the one place the dogs aren't allowed in. And loads of beer bottles of course...........

Venting........not sure how long I can live like this. He quit his job, so now this is his job. Cleaning 12 stalls daily with fibro is wiping me out and then no clean decent place to sit and just watch TV without constant yelling at the dogs............if we put them outside in a kennel, they'd constantly be barking at our boarders coming to ride.

At this point I'm finding myself kicking them and yelling constantly, especially the big one, who likes to run between your legs for fun. This morning I almost fell on my ass as she swiped me through the hallway. I lost it and started yelling..........so my husband ran off somewhere, thinking I was mad at him. Then a fight ensued. He quit his state job without telling me.

So now this is his job.......yeah right. Seems I'm busting ass.........he does stall cleaning like he does the dishes and laundry.

Oh.............and he's off hunting with his buddies next week, leaving me with this load of 12 horses, boarders, fu*king dogs, ...........this is like the 5th time he's left me here alone, for a week ontime.

I hate my life. Seems I'm always hating my situation, on the verge of yet another complete breakdown, and searching for a way out. Never ends.
So I drink and smoke. My only respite.

 

[Katz2]

Tlight, I'm glad your on here, I hate the thought of you going through all this, I'm glad you have this forum. I've had a few mental breakdowns, and I understand the wanting to hide and rest. The one I do if it's too much, is I think of myself in a bubble and no one can touch me, the more I did it the more it worked. I can do my shopping whilst in my bubble!!!

 

[The Albatross]

TLight... Worrying a good deal for you.

 

[Katz2]

Albatross...me too.