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Triggers - At Work

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Thanks for the support everyone. I work long hours as an office manager for a digital media company. That might be some of the reason I am so stressed, working 10 to 12 hours a day 6 days a week. I do not enjoy my job currently although I haved held a similar position at a laarge well known company before. My stress level is at an all time high and need to find better ways to cope.
 
Yep, advertising was where I worked my first (and only, thank god) 70 hour week as a freelancer. And they would pay for car services to pick me up and drop me off at my house. (this was in NYC, where accounting for transportation is its own beast, and well-funded palces like ad agencies will comp those kind of services to their staff - anything to keep them at their desks and working. Lots of catered lunches and endless beverages and faerie food completed the workaholism perks trifecta). So I would wake up, catch the car service to work, work 10-14 hours, then get whisked back home by another car service, go to sleep (I've already had dinner, at the office, catered), then wake up, get in another car service, be whisked to work, etc. It was only for about a week or so but it was very surreal living in only 3 places: bed, my desk, or the back seat of a car with someone else doing all the driving. I didn't much care for it.
 
I didn't even have an office for that. I was a freelancer. Ad agency hierarchy and the high cost of NYC real estate means 'my desk' is 'whatever's free that day'. There was one couch in the office that occasionally people would rack out on. But it wasn't exactly a comforting environment.
 
Triggers at work - obnoxious people, people speaking down to me, being treated with utter disrespect as a human being, idiotic acts of stupidity and safety issues.
 
Triggers at work? Most of the time I work alone, either at home or driving to see clients. I started to do this work as I thought that working on my own would eliminate many of the usual office triggers, and in a way it does. But, it is also really isolating, and means that I miss out on the good stuff that can come with working in an office.

I still have to deal with the triggers when I go to offices for my clients - driving long distances when I am tired or in peak hour traffic is guaranteed to ruin any peace I may have had for the day. Then when I arrive at a clients office (about 2/3rds of the time) I have to deal with some really difficult people who seem to enjoy being as nasty and destructive as possible. I think they are like this with everyone, but they seem to believe that as an outsider I am deserving of a special dose of their abuse.

I have to prepare for this happening by arriving early to get over the drive and to meditate for about 30 minutes so that I enter the office calm and able to cope. Then once I have finished I go for a walk to get over the nastiness so that I can drive home. It can be very difficult at times and I often end up pulling over to cry out the stress and anxiety so that I can get home safely.

As I work on a sub-contract basis I don't really have any protections from an employer. I do keep a log of the really bad cases of abuse, and let my clients know it has happened. I wouldn't say they don't care as this sort of abuse costs them many sub-contractors which makes business difficult for them, but at the same time there is very little that they can do to address it, as to do so would involve criticizing the staff of their clients - not usually good for business.

I manage as best as I can, and don't beat myself up when I loose the ability to cope - I try to remind myself that these people have bigger problems than me, and that at least I don't have to work with them for 40 hours a week, which I could not possibly manage to do.

It has been quite lately so not much work, but this also means not much money so I get to replace the stress of work with the stress of not working - and I would defiantly prefer the tress of work! It keeps me occupied, I feel good that I can plan to cope reasonably well with the triggers, I like myself for having implemented a good response plan to recover from whatever gets thrown at me and I get paid which I far better than not having any money at all and being homeless.

I am starting to use my trigger and stress management plans to cope with the anxiety of not getting much work. This works a little, and I hope to be able to manage OK until work picks up again.......
 
GreenFrog2, I think it's terrific that you can handle it so well. I haven't been able to work due to physical issues since 2000 so almost forgot what it can be like. I've been very fortunate in that I've worked most of my life. (In between episodes). Under the old CPTSD most people didn't understand people like me. But this new category PTSD-DD I think those who bother to read it will actually understand so people like me don't lose jobs over something that probably won't ever happen. I mean, now they have mental health days to give people a break from the stress. For me, I had to take a leave of absence and lie to them to get a day or two up in the mountains to get unpeople polluted.

I used to beat myself up all the time, so I am very impressed with you and those here like you. You have a good attitude in spite of the stress in your life. Keep up the good spirits.

I hope I'm making sense. I'm rather fractures just now.
safenow.
 
Hi Safenow, yes you make lots of sense to me! I think here we all do make some kid of sense to each other, even when we are far from our best, which is really comforting.

And I can't tell you how surprised I am to read that you think I am handling it all so well - I feel like I am falling apart, and don't have the energy to hold myself together. Thank you for saying this, it means a great deal to me.

Take care and :hug:. GF2.
 
It is a very small company only 4 employees including the owner. There are some business partners who are not directly involved. They were told of his behavior and were honestly not surprised. Apparently his temper is well known.

... I actually moved here because of this job and now dont want to get out of bed in the morning.

Isis, I'm so sorry for your situation. This year I finally got away from an aggressive and hostile work situation, and a lot of what you say sounds horribly familiar.

Do you see a therapist? It sounds like you wanted - understandably - to leave your PTSD triggers behind, but unfortunately we carry the effects of our experiences with us and can find them wherever we go. For me, working with my therapist on what was happening specifically at work, and the meaning that had for me given my history, was necessary to help me through the situation and even find some healing in the process.

In my case, if I didn't look at what was going on in the context of past abuse I was at risk of moving from that bad work situation to another bad one.

I agree with others that the only good option is to find a different job. I recommend beginning to look straight away, because the longer you're in the situation it will erode what self-confidence and self-esteem you have, warp your perspective and exhaust you.

If it's an option to move back and rely on the support of family and friends for a while, or perhaps get a "McJob" (something to pay the bills rather than a career move) for a while, I think it's worth considering things like this. I understand the need to support yourself, and don't recommend doing something financially reckless, but if there's a non-abusive option that isn't ideal but gives enough financial stability that might be a good thing to do for now.

To help understand and deal with the situation while I had to, I found the late Tim Field's website helpful - Link Removed. Its old and the legal information is specific to the UK, but the way it looks at the phenomenon is relevant. It explained and normalised a lot of what I was experiencing especially the pages on why people bully (ie, act abusively) - [DLMURL]http://www.bullyonline.org/workbully/bully.htm#Why[/DLMURL] and the other links under the heading of that page.

You're especially vulnerable because your new, you're away from home and comfort, it's a small organisation, and you have PTSD. Please be realistic about what you can achieve and what you can cope with. I know we should be able to enforce our rights, and things about your work situation probably contravene state or national employment law and regulations, but something that Tim Field says which I found very true is that it's pointless complaining to people who have authority and responsibility in the situation, because they're precisely the people who are already ignoring it and don't want to deal with it.

So, I think all you can do is protect yourself as best you can, get away from the situation as soon as you realistically can, and look at it with support to understand the dynamics in relation to your past experiences, and how to heal that.
 
Hashi - thank you for this link.

I think it will be my Christmas present to myself (along with some mindfulness links).

The information articulates everything that I have been through at work so well, and even on a brief reading has provided me with a huge amount of relief.
 
GreenFrog, I'm glad if it can help you. I also felt great relief when I read it. I was ticking almost every single bullet point on that page.
 
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