• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

Need support

Status
Not open for further replies.

CT_Girl

New Here
Hi I'm new to this forum. I was diagnosed with PTSD a few years ago and I'm in my 20's. I got PTSD from being sexually assaulted as a teenager. I had a couple of years of therapy for it and I also take medication (Paxil).

I need support/suggestions for dealing with work. It's not that I don't like my coworkers but I get triggered very easily. Anytime someone talks too loudly or laughs I get stressed out. Anytime anyone yells then I become a nervous wreck. So I try to go to the restroom to calm down. Well the restroom is even worse because there are constantly other women going in and out, slamming the door, flushing toilets, etc.

Today one of my older coworkers collapsed at work and was taken away in an ambulance. (He probably had a heart attack.) I didn't know him that well but I was a nervous wreck after that. I often think about going to the hospital and saying I feel suicidal and getting help. But I have been to the psych hospital before and honestly I didn't feel it was that helpful. Plus it would upset my family so much if I was back in the hospital again. Sometimes I call the suicide hotline and it does help. So just to be clear I do not feel suicidal right now.

I need some suggestions for how to deal with work. I like my job and my coworkers for the most part but like I said I get triggered very easily. In the past I've tried to wear headphones and listen to music but it makes it worse because then I don't hear when people walk up behind me. Thanks for reading.
 
Welcome! I am sorry to hear about what you went through as a teen, that must have been difficult to deal with I can imagine. Would you say one of the biggest triggers is sudden noises-such as laughing or talking loudly- and conflict? Hm.. well I don't know if this is an appropriate response or not but, for both of those kind of triggers I tend to just disassociate and kind of block it out. I have Sensory Processing Dysfunction so since I was young I used disassociation to help with sudden noises and touch. As for the conflict well it stresses me out a lot as well- more since developing PTSD. Again I just shut down and disassociate-I am not very good at handling conflict at all. Is it possible for you to just kind of start thinking of something else or drawing/writing on a piece of paper to get your mind off of it? I'm sorry if I'm not that helpful. If you work at a desk with a computer maybe just start concentrating on the computer work really intensely and kind of block out the other things going on around you?
 
Thanks that is a good suggestion to doodle on paper (like I did in school when I was bored haha). I also chew gum a lot and it helps sometimes but other times I forget that I'm chewing it and then I get scared that I will choke on it. You are right I get triggered easily by noises and conflict.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top