Sufferer New Guy

[intothelight]

@Mike W Welcome!

Keep focusing on the things that help you to manage. Do you currently have a therapist? They can also be a great resource for finding ways to help.

 

[hodge]

Welcome, Mike. Good job on not drinking and taking a walk. I had outpatient hospitalization at my clinic several years ago, and it did help. I learned more coping skills and got to know a couple other people with PTSD.

 

[Mit]

Welcome Mike. Have you been in touch with your doctor recently? If not it might be a place to start, somebody to talk to.

I was dismissed from my job a few years ago, self esteem very low and i assumed, like you they would all be talking about my fall from grace. I don't know if they did or not and now I don't care or think about it. As time passes it will become less important. What is important is that you look after yourself and seek whatever help is available.

I think you have behaved very honourably by the way. Best wishes.

 

[seedling]

I did anger management with my therapist and it helped a lot. Really got me to examine where my anger came from, what the signs were before it got so huge and what I could do about it. He had me keep an anger diary - write down my feelings, what the situation was and what I did about it (even if I felt like it wasn't much).
Good luck, keep on going.
Good for you for getting out of a toxic spiral at work.

 

[Mike W]

Thanks for the encouragement everyone

My doctor is a good guy, he agrees that I needed to leave a job where I was unhappy & unhealthy and is helping me get unemployment

I journal a lot - mostly hateful angry crap that I rip up the next day, then I start over. Also writing many nasty Christmas cards to miserable former coworkers but not sending them lol

Keeps me from texting and emailing angry threats, which is what I used to do

I feel bad that no one from work has called because I did have a couple almost sort of casual friends there, if my injury was physical I would have heard from someone I think

A clean break is probably best tho, and that was my choice

I might look into a self esteem class at the Y if they have one, I'm feeling pretty low. They give a free gym membership to people who complete mental health classes, I've wanted to lose my medication weight for years, I guess this is the time to do it

 

[seedling]

You are on a great course. Glad unemployment looks doable.

Happy to hear that you found a way to not send the angry threats. That keeps you in the cycle. It's hard to break the cycle, we seem to be drawn to our abuse, reliving the same old crap.

Sorry there was no one there that called you. It's hard when you let go of the relationships you do have, even if they weren't that healthy. The ones that were casual friends may be thinking of you and wishing you well but may not call for a variety of their own personal reasons. Sometimes people are just busy, period. But also they might feel they are not sure if you would want them to.
Hard to say what others think of us.
Take those work relationships for the positive thing they were and build on them next time.

Glad you have a good doc, that can make all the difference. Keep letting that anger out in safe ways :)

 

[Mike W]

Thanks for getting how I feel
There are a lot of kind and smart people on this site, I feel a lot better than being alone, which is how I've felt the last 10 years especially the last 4 years working
Thank you seedling

 

[Changing4Best]

Welcome to the Forum, man. You will find a lot of support here. I have quit jobs before when I got caught in the office politics crossfire. There are many good reasons to quit a job, and you had a very good one. Have you thought of going into a different profession? Give yourself another kind of job, you don't need the job stress of working in a high stress occupation. What is your training? Or did you train for that job?

 

[Mike W]

Thank you ShielaKathy

After surviving & my diagnosis in 2005 I completed my Certificate in Applied Counselling. On my own with no family support or friends while living in squalid crap.

I received a lot of commendations from guys in the field who I dispatched to emergency situations - domestics, suicides, assaults over the last 4 years. I developed Branch radio protocol for calling in back-up for code 99 (Officer in distress) situations, and was always the first to react to get help for an Officer in distress.

Management was focused on niche projects not involving immediate safety of the people we were trusted to keep save, or the guys in the field who I cared very much for.

Then when I needed help, after 4 years looking out for them, they all turned on me. My behaviour had a lot to do with that. My cycle of anger then shame and self hate had to stop, so I resigned for everyone's good. Now I sit here by myself. And the smug self satisfied assholes don't have to deal with me anymore. Our Branch policy toward diversity is to overwork, ignore and humiliate anyone with differences until they break and leave. I've never heard racist, homophobic, anti-poverty comments at work until I came to work for the Goverment of Manitiba Security Branch.

The best part of my job was talking to and helping people with mental health, because the other call takers and Management wouldn't, and if they did would laugh at them later. Povert profiteers with no hearts or soul. I cared about our tenants and my work, and I was shut out and ridiculed for it.

They made fun of me too, for having lived in social housing (we dispatch for at risk vulnerable people) prior to my employment. They looked down at me for having worked my way out of poverty and constant crises, and wanting to help others do the same. They would read my former tenant records out loud and laugh. Gave me the worst shifts while newer call takers got hire pay and weekends off, after I had trained them.

I asked for help by moving off of weekends, not working alone, with admin things I didnt understand, and the only help I ever got was silence - no response in months of asking for help.

Laughed at me when I was triggered at work. Asked not to be left alone with me, in front of me. Made me hate myself and feel like a freak in front of me. Every damn shift.

I was made to work extended and extra shifts with no breaks, while they would loudly play their phones, swear and laugh while I was trying to take calls and help the people they laughed at. Sit behind me & make loud noises on purpose to make me jump & scream, because they thought that was funny. Even after I asked them to stop.

Made homophobic remarks and gestures even when I asked them to stop. When I finally reacted they informed management, after years of me covering their asses for breaches of protocol. And these were the best, the ones I considered my friends. I had no work friends, I was a freak and a joke to them.

My manager was former Canadian Armed Forces, I feel so bad for his former colleagues with PTSD who had to work for this horribly cruel unfeeling man. I hope some of them have survived.

My job was important to me, and they took that from me, so now I want them to pay. They took my income and purpose from me and they laughed at me, plotted and enjoyed it. My life and my sanity was a joke to people I cared about and helped protect the whole time.

I'll be ok for an income for a while, will spend my pension payout surviving while they drive their cars, celebrate Christmas in their nice homes with their partners whining and complaining about which rich normal has it worse. They love feeling sorry for themselves without knowing what real pain and hurt is.
Having to live after accepting a horrific certain death. f*ck I wish I hadn't survived it because having to survive the bullying, disrespect and humiliation every day from normals is so much worse.

f*ck I hate normals.

Still I don't wish what we live through every second we're awake on any of them. They would break under the weight of their privileged entitled self pity.

When I'm cleared to work I'm planning on finding something else job wise, get some career counselling. Likely without a work reference because normals just look after themselves and spit on those of us with PTSD because they're cowards for not having to live after going through real shit like we do.

Got a Support group to go back to Wednesday.

Started drinking early this AM

Thanks for letting me vent.

 

[Mike W]

Also guys on their breaks would sit around me casually wondering out loud if they had PTSD too, like it was a catching cold.
If they had C-PTSD, they would sure as hell know by not being able to breath or function without constant mind f*cking fear, hate, anger, shame.
It's like them sitting beside a horribly burned, broken mutilated car crash survivor wondering if they also need morphine and looking for pity.
f*cking normals man

 

[Gadgie]

Quote........"Also guys on their breaks would sit around me casually wondering out loud if they had PTSD"

When I worked in the emergency services we used to use black humour to disguise any thoughts about we had about having it.

We were offered "counselling" but none of us took it, because we knew it wasn't so "confidential" as the management led us to believe it was?

So we kept quiet, but would use the black humour just to show our bravado, just in case we gave ourselves away?

 

[Mike W]

I think you have something here
When the guys come back from a DB, usually suicide, they would use a lot of black humour that just horrified me.
But they were the guys on scene and this is how they coped.
And they weren't all bad to me, some had arranged for a ride home for me a few times after a rough shift. Other times when I worked alone they would bring in pizza or ask if I needed anything
I guess because it's so fresh and all consuming right now I'm thinking the worst
Only a few guys knew my diagnosis, maybe the rest really didn't know and I gotta see it wasn't all about me all the time. It sure felt planned like they were all out to get me & everone was in on it.
I'm just on a roller coaster right now, a lot of conspiracy thoughts and paranoia
Thanks for your insight, objective opinions ground me and you helped