A syndrome called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can affect victims of sociopaths. The trauma of losing love, friends, family, possessions and of enduring psychological/physical abuse is the cause of this disorder. To fight the symptoms of PTSD, it is helpful to understand the symptoms and how they relate to loss and trauma.
As I read through the current literature on PTSD, I quickly discovered that there is a fair amount of controversy regarding this disorder. We can actually learn about the disorder by listening to the arguments. The first question on which there is much disagreement is, “What trauma is severe enough to cause PTSD?” There were several editorials by experts disparaging the fact that everything from giving birth to a healthy baby to a boss yelling at an employee is now said to cause PTSD. Most experts are in favor of reserving this diagnosis for people who have suffered truly unusual life experiences, like kidnapping, rape, war, 911, etc.
The problem is that many people do experience severe stress reactions to difficult life circumstances. It remains to be determined what we should call these reactions.
Those of us healing from our relationship with a sociopath often vacillate between accepting the trauma and minimizing it. Thus, the argument about what kinds of trauma are severe enough to cause PTSD has a direct effect on us. The argument can leave us feeling weak, like we should be able to get over this. After all it wasn’t as bad as 911, Iraq or Katrina—or was it?
The second question is “what symptoms constitute PTSD?” The following table shows the most common symptoms seen in a group of 103 British men and women diagnosed by psychiatrists with PTSD (Current Medical Research Opinion, 2003):
| Symptom | Frequency (n=103) |
| Insomnia | 98 (95%) |
| Anxiety at reminder cues | 96 (93%) |
| Intrusive thoughts, images, sounds, sensations | 94 (91%) |
| Irritability | 93 (91%) |
| Poor concentration | 93 (91%) |
| Diminished interest in significant activities | 88 (85%) |
| Recurrent dreams of trauma | 86 (83%) |
| Avoidance of activities or places associated with the trauma | 85 (83%) |
| Foreshortening of expectations about the future | 80 (78%) |
| Detachment from others | 78 (76%) |
| Avoidance of thinking or conversing about the trauma | 75 (73%) |
| Poor appetite | 69 (67%) |
| Hypervigilance | 55 (53%) |
| Startle reactions | 46 (45%) |
| Acting or feeling as if the event was recurring | 37 (31%) |
| Inability to recall parts of trauma (amnesia) | 19 (18%) |
I put up this table because I thought that a number of you would also endorse these symptoms. Notice that “acting or feeling as if the event was recurring” was really not that common. But similar symptoms, like “Intrusive thoughts, images sounds and sensations,” were very common. Amnesia was also uncommon. Startle reactions were only seen in half of the subjects.
A feeling of a foreshortened future is a particularly debilitating symptom because it impairs a person’s ability to plan for the future and leads to a sense of hopelessness. I will expand on this further, but I strongly believe this feeling of a foreshortened future has to do less with our thoughts about our past, and more with our thoughts about our present.
As I look at this list of symptoms, I am struck by the fact that many, many of those writing into Lovefraud complain of these symptoms, particularly nightmares. There is something special about having had emotional involvement with an aggressor that seems to produce nightmares. Since so many have all of the most common symptoms, I think it has to be that the trauma of life with a sociopath is severe enough to cause this disorder in many people.
Here’s where defining exactly what trauma is gets sticky. Rachael Yehuda, Ph.D., said in a recent article published on MedScape, “One of the things that biology has taught us is that PTSD represents a type of a response to trauma, but not the only type of response. It is a response that seems to be about the failure to consolidate a memory in such a way as to be able to be recalled without distress.” Well, this is precisely the definition that is too broad. I personally have a lot of memories that I experience or re-experience with distress. Yet these memories are not accompanied by the list of symptoms in the table above.
For me what made the experience traumatic was the truly life course-changing nature of the trauma. The answer to the question, “Will I ever be the same?” for me defines trauma significant enough to cause PTSD. The trauma that causes this disorder redefines us in a way that is different from other emotionally significant experiences. This trauma strikes at the core of our identity.
The final controversy surrounds the treatment of PTSD. Interestingly, there is no question that medications (SSRIs, particularly Zoloft) are very helpful. The problem is though that when a person goes to a physician and receives a medication, he/she is by definition “sick.” Assumption of a “sick role” or “victim identity” is one of the many factors that slow recovery from PTSD.
Many therapists are of the belief that “debriefing” or retelling the story is necessary for recovery. One group of researchers reviewed the studies on debriefing and concluded that there is no scientific evidence that it prevents PTSD. Instead, the evidence points to post-trauma factors like social support and “additional life stress” being most important.
How can we put this all together? Considering last week’s post, those who experience trauma serious enough to have stress hormone overdose as manifested by dissociation, are likely to also develop PTSD. An examination of the symptoms of PTSD reveals that at the core of the disorder is the fact that the person really doesn’t believe in his/her heart that the trauma has ended. PTSD is about ONGOING, not past, trauma. For those of us whose lives were assaulted by a sociopath, there is ongoing stress. The stress is the social isolation, financial ruin, and threatened further losses long after the relationship has ended. Those who recover from this without PTSD work hard to put the trauma behind them in every way.
Putting the trauma behind you does not mean you can’t take medication to help with the process. It does mean facing those bills, former friends, and other personal issues you want to avoid. Remember AVOIDANCE STRENGTHENS FEAR.
Above all, stop the ongoing trauma by ending contact with the sociopath. Do not assume a sick role, instead, work to stay healthy. Fight to be the person you want to be. Don’t allow this single experience to define you. Make living for today the place you love to be. As Louise Gallagher says in her recent post, “This is, in many ways, the greatest challenge of recovery — to accept the past is simply the route I took to get to where I am today, a place I love to be. The past cannot be changed. It cannot be altered. It cannot be made ‘better.’ It can only be accepted so that it, and I, may rest in peace with what was, eager to accept what is true in my life today.”
I did something else today. After the trip to Peru I was contacted to come and talk at the bureau regarding the evaluations and have a chance to explain what had happened imo. And we had agreed that there was an unclarified issue in all the trips where if someone had an issue with me I had failed in the past to make them change their mind even if I had taken positive actions (even if 10 other tourists gave me raving reviews). In a way I do think the company has started to get expectations nobody can fully fill in. I don’t believe it’s possible to alter the mindsets of people in the course of 3 weeks if people have abnormal reflective mindsets to begin with.In the case of the Costa Rican trip 3 years ago, I had a couple along where the girl had just been healed from glandular fever, and she had not told me until way beyond the 1st week of the trip. She had done every activity we had done, early morning, in the day and late evening. By then she was physically exhausted. She chose to remain at the beach where he had been staying for 2 days, instead of coming along to a very adventurous NP where you need a tractor ride of 3 hours to even get there. Her fiance who had truly wished to join us stayed behind too. So did a guy who before had only gone on all in holidays at luxury hotels.
I helped them by setting up a plan to rejoin the group 3 days later, and did try to prepare them to what they could expect: that after the reunion they might feel left out, because the others would be talking about their experiences in the park (and that basically none of them would be interested in hearing which shop they had visited or which beach they had been relaxing on… didn’t tell them the latter though). And that is exactly how it went when they rejoined us. I myself tried to show interest in their beach experience, but that obviously was not registered. She gave me a bad review on attentiveness afterwards, and her boyfriend did the exact same thing, though he was more positively inclined. He just did what pleased his fiance. I found both logical reactions, never even faulted them.
But anyway the company sees an issue in the fact that once she had a negative mindset, I could not change it around anymore.
In August I saw the benefit in joining a re-evaluation workshop to work on this matter. Whatever more I could learn, the better for myself and my trips. This workshop is next weekend.
However, with the way I’ve been feeling, the state of mmy self confidence, my unpredictability to situations where I feel unsafe, I am now in serious doubt whether I’m even in the right state of mind to benefit at all from such a workshop with role playing, and analyses of myself by peers (tourleaders who train) and 6-7 other tourleaders. I can perceive how unsafe I may feel during that workshop. Worse, it would be a situation, where if put on the spot, I cannot retract from. And my current social issues are deeper and go beyond the scope of group management. I now fear it might even do more damage than good, if I feel unsafe and end up truly hurt.
So, I wrote a very honest mail to one of the women I talked with of the company. She’s also a friend, and she knew that I had a hard time in May because of my ex relatinship. I was very honest in it: that in the course of the past half year I received several blows in my life, which undermined my self confidence to a present low, a feeling of being the beaten dog, and my non predictability at present in situation where I feel unsafe. That I’m probably bordering to depression and have PSTD symptoms regarding concentration and unsafe social situations. And that I therefore must wonder whether I can learn from such a workshop, and may even have reserves whether it might push me even deeper into the pit. I’ve explained that before Peru both myself and my therapist had deemed me still very emotionally and mentally strong, and it did not even seem necessary to have a prolongued therapy. The situation though has worsened and I do need longer therapy. My priority right now must be rebuiding my self confidence and social capabilities step by step, and I can only see myself do the latter in situations where I have the freedom to step away if I feel unsafe. I told her I would be there for the evaluation of the Mexican trip I was administratively responsible for (other people tourled it), and I would like to come to the party Sat night. But I was unsure what to do about the workshop, and woudl not see my therapist before Wednesday. So I ased her what she suggested.
I don’t like having had to admit this to her, nor myself. But I’m proud though of myself of having had the courage to face my present issues, and recognition that in taking care of myself, I perhaps better avoid a possible damaging situation than choose to take it on (I’m normally a fight type, not a flight type).
With the problems of last week and putting my shoulders against the admin stuff, I wasn’t on much… few updates:
So last week I decided not to go to that workshop and actually got a positive response to it: they agreed with my decision, that now is not the time, but both for the workshop and tourleading in the future the door is still open. They asked me to let them know if I feel better again. Since that particular workshop only happens once a year in October, them and I have a realistic outlook. But at least they let me know that the door is not closed on me for them. After so many months of downfall from one functional disaster into the other, it was just good to hear that I still may have a future for the company I volunteered for the past 8 years.
So, at least I have 3 windows that help me create a window for the future:
– studying again for an extra master: check
– visiting apartments with my parents to buy (they buy, I have shares, I rent): check
– I can return to tourleading with my favourite company and travel and do other stuff for them I love to do in the far future after I’m out of my pit: check
That’s one more window than I thought I had over a week ago.
Had therapy session yesterday, and finally printed out some pics of the ex-spath, cause she asked with the excuse of seeing whether I truly fell for handsome guys. We both knew though that if she really had wanted to check on my esthetical norms on men, she would have asked for pics of more guys than just the ex-spath. I printed 4 pics: the first pic he ever took of himself for me, not the shiniest, happy face, but a sly smiley one; a typical one he took of himself (the majority of him are like that, unless he made totally stupid and crazy faces on purpose) on which he just comes across as dark… was difficult to find one though without sunglasses. The third one was his “I’m pretending to be angelic” face. The fourth had his “I’m gonna do some misschief right now” face. The first two were taken by himself, the last two by me.
It was the bland, dark one my therapist had been looking for. She actually shuddered and said, “if I would see this man, I would think he’s a very dangerous man to be around. And as it turns out, he is really dangerous.” As an afterthought she mentioned the handsomeness. I held the prints out before the mirror after the session, because a face reveals even more when you see it mirrored. I could almost see him think in the pictures “Gotcha!”.
The pictures they take of themselves, by themselves, I think show their truest nature. Because there are no people around and no photogrpaher, they have no person to mirror. Just themselves and so barely any expression, except that of their dark and bored nature inside. People with emotional depth who take self portraits (because of it being a special moment or place where they are) have a sparkle in their eyes, a smile… they take a picture in memory of a happy time or moment and then can later share “look I did/see/experienced that and how happy I was!” A spath who takes a self portrait does it to share “You were all happy around me and how I fooled ya.”
But now for an important window: the loss of my school and finding a new one. I hardly ever used to have problems applicating for a new school. Get invited instantly, go over, feel the click and 5 mins later I’d get a call they’d hire me, or they’d let me know instantly. I got only invited twice since half August so far. But I’m starting to understand the true cause more and more. I miss the school where I worked a lot. The way I got dumped also hurt me a lot. I compared the relationship, my bond to a school with my therapist to a relationship. I’m so hurt by losing the school as well as the way it ended that I feel betrayed and do not have any closure either. I was told, the principal was honest about her report (though what is in it, is not something I agree with 100%), and the only thing I was allowed time for to say was, “I’m tremendously sorry it has to be this way.” I’ve come to realize I may need to go see that principal again, have a conversation with her to at least get a feeling of closure. For me, I need to make her aware, how much I actually miss her school. Not to convince her… I can even undestand how she came to her warped conclusion, how I played a hand into it. But for myself, I need to let her know, that she sacked a teacher who truly cared about her school, even if I was not always adequate in doing what she desired me to do.
After my therapist asked me out about why I fantasised about such a conversation, the goal of it for myself, etc… she said that she believed I had been hurt more than I had realized in the beginning, and she agreed that if it was closure I sought then perhaps I should have that conversation. More, before I went out of the door and she checked for the date of our next appointment, she told me to do it in the coming two weeks, before my next visit with her.
My plan after that is to get the union on the principal’s skewed report, because it makes my chances to land a job in an allied school nill (which implies almost half of my cities public schools). And that I will do for pure career defence purposes. I can’t have this principal destroy my career for half my city, simply because I was not good enough in her eyes and she knows shit about my master degree, and therefore shit about her own hs that is an excellent program to my own master’s degree.
Anyway, I realize that while I’m still bonded to that school it’s only normal I have such difficulty convincing new schools. If I don’t feel the “kaching, that’s where I want to teach,” it’s only normal they don’t feel the “kaching, this is the teacher for us.”
Not dragging up the admin papermill I’m still pushing to get my unemployment money, but it’s a true Echternacht process… you take 2 steps forward, and 3 steps back… UGH! I hate it, especially cause I’m spending half a day, going from place to place, office to office, hours long waiting lines to waiting lines to get only a little progress. I’m missing university classes over it, the best times to call schools, don’t dare to make any other appointment cause I can’t promise to be there on time with those waiting lines…. I abolsutely hate this. But it must be done! And I’m doing it! And it will be done.
Darwinsmom:
Interesting comments about photographs. My x-spath is often wearing sunglasses as well. Many of his photographs are “dark” and I cannot remember ever seeing a picture where he looks happy. In those where you can see his eyes, the sociopathic stare is quite obvious and in several chilling.
In online profiles he uses photo in which he looks 10 or more years younger than in person. I always wondered what people thought upon meeting him? He is an attractive, late 30s something guy and why not use current photos?
More important, I am glad you are making progress. Next week, I have a preparation class for a professional certification exam I have been putting off for years. Today, I had some work done on my scar for surgery so I can’t go to the gym or bicycle for a week but I can put that time to studying.
My therapist told me that my biggest obstacle to full recovery from all that has happened to me is to get back to work and I fully agree. I have been networking too and I cannot wait to be back in an office setting. Our worst enemy is too much time to think.
Yup, too much time to think. I’ve always been an introspective person, and when something goes wrong the first thing I try to do is search within myself what part I had in it. That’s good to learn from experiences.
But sometimes you need to first recover from them, and for some judgements and experiences you are not responsible. I feel I’m slowly starting to think less of what I did wrong, but rather about “what do I need for myself right now in order to heal and move on?” I guess the rest will be like getting back on a horse after having been thrown off… you can’t know without actually getting back on that horse… Step by step do what must be done, and I’ll get better at it as I go along, I guess.
I totally get the work being so important. First of all, work creates a financial independence and a sense of security regarding just paying the bills, getting food in the home, etc. Next, you get to be amongst people and less secluded; feel less cut off from society. Of course there may be a spath on the prowl on the workfloor, but most colleagues are decent people in my experience. It gives you something to do, instead of think. And lastly it can give you a sense of belonging in society or world, certainly when it is a job that fulfills you.
darwinsmom;
My last three years taught me some very valuable lessons, number one being the importance of community and belonging in society. Working is part of that and although my last job experience was with a sociopathic employer, I cannot let that deter me from moving on.
Yes, they will be there, but at least now I am better equipped to recognize them and take appropriate action, just as in my personal life. Interestingly, a more important issue is not going back to a workplace full of sociopaths, but going back to one where I simply do not fit in. I am not materialistic and simply want to work hard, be paid fairly and have some security. I don’t buy into that dream of a promotion, big house and fancy car and I fin it difficult to be around people who do.
PS — You need to destroy the pictures of your x-spath; too triggering. But it is good that your counselor saw the evil in him.
Behind_blue_eyes
I’m alright with the pictures. Although I don’t need the prints. I don’t pine over him when I look at any picture of him, nor do I feel pain. I have them as part of my past. He is part of my past, whether I like it or not, even if the man I thought he was did not exist. When it comes to my personal feelings about him, I’m mostly at peace, and don’t care a rat’s ass about him. Don’t want to hear his voice though ever, nor have him physically near me. I don’t know what that may trigger.
What are triggers though are reminders of my emotional despair at the moment, people who I cannot depend on.
I just came across a remark in a teacher’s magazine about high sensitivity and did a test on the internet about it. In some way I recognize myself in it, in other ways not at all… got a 15 score, just 1 point above the mark. But the descriptions reminded me of especially my behaviour as a toddler and youth, which connects to my learning style. I suppose that my natural learning style matches a lot with how high sensitive personalities approach the unknown. And each learning style would probably match with a different nervous system. My mom had her office where she could look upon me play in the kindergarten. And she observed a child that preferred to watch other children play rather than be in the thick of the game. I came across as shy, though once I trust my environment, I’m a total extravert. And my self confidence was so high the past decade that no one would really suppose me shy at all, and not minding the spotlight at all. That’s why I think high sensitivity is just another word for a learning style.
Anyhow, I had been bothered about being stuck in the observation process durign the Peru trip. But I felt I was being very critically watched and assessed by someone qualified enough to make me feel as if I was being watched by the company itself. So, I started to underperfom, because like a high sensitive person, I get demotivated by such watchfulness by others. Something happened similarly in my last school with my principal. I had the increasing feeling over the last 4 months that she was watching me, and that I could not make a mistake. And people don’t need to watch me overtly for me to be aware of it.
So, now I’m considering the idea that my experience with my spath, brought me back to my starting point of social learning. And it was so surprising for me, because I had developed the other three styles as well. It either brought me full circle, or put me back to my innate starting point. It just feels very weird to feel and respond to like how I was as a child again, and I feared that all what I developed so much the past 25 years might be lost. Now, I’m getting more convinced it is not lost. It is still inside me. And I don’t think I’ll need another 25 years to gain it back. And perhaps, now that I’m older, I can develop the assets of my learning style more consciously to my own benefit, including for the work force.
It’s just a realization I had about what mystified me ever since Peru. It’s just my brain that went back to its innate survival skills, and I think I’m even starting to have an idea on how I can make myself overcome its flaws, while using its strengths. I can feel an idea starting to grow regarding my mental recovery.
Darwinsmom,
maybe this article on positive disintegration might help you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Disintegration
When everything you believed in is shattered, that’s called disintegration (of your reality). Disintegration can be negative or positive. Depends on your choices.
Dabrowski calls high sensitivity, “overexcitability”. He says that OE’s are the ones who are more likely to experience Positive Disintegration and make the choice to create their own paths and develop unique personalities.
It’s interesting that he says most people are not at that level and that’s why they just follow the crowd, even when the crowd is evil. It sort of explains why so many people that I wouldn’t consider spaths, are still evil… this is getting more and more complicated. My brain hurts.
there is a very good book by Mark Epstein, ‘Going to pieces without falling apart’, that might be helpful also. Epstein is a shrink but his writing is informed by Judaism, psychology and Buddhism. I think I will go back and read it again – it’s one of the few books i have read over and over. Coming from a western physiological mind set it was a big help to me in building the bridge between that perspective (having a ‘centre’, being ‘grounded’) and buddhism (no ground, no centre, (no self…in a positive way)).
skylar:
Thank you so much for this link on disintegration. I am 100% an OE. I can remember always being made to feel bad because I wanted to watch instead of participate. Or made to feel it was “wrong” because I was somewhat timid instead of the “look at me” type of person. I really hate that…what is so wrong with our society that something is “wrong” with us just because we are not some outgoing freak??
Thank you Sky, and Behind-Blue-Eyes and Oxy and so many others…
I have made a major leap to my self-healing process last night when I wrote what I wrote above. Not sure whether it made much sense… my brain was firing all over the place, as if bridges were being built inside to reconnect the neuron pathways that had been short-circuited.
I haven’t slept as peacefully and as well as I did last night, as I haven’t done the past three years, from even before meeting the spath. For the first time, in a long time, I (my behaviour, my responses, my choices, my inadequacies) made total sense to myself. For the first time, I didn’t feel like a failure, or a loser or handicapped or abnormal… I felt like I’ve been acting very normal; that is, I acted totally normal according to my personality and identity.
To explain this I have to go back a decade ago, when my world around me was collapsing, because it was a world, a life that I didn’t want to lead. Working in office quarters outside of a city where nobody actually lives was a bad environment for me, because it felt fake. Working for profit goaled businesses with no social value to make the world a truly better place was in opposition of my own idealistic needs. And the work bored me so easily that I was distracting myself with challenges all over the place until it wore me down.
Especially because of the latter, my mother had suggested to take a Mensa test. And I turned out to be highly intellectually gifted. I don’t like to tell this to people, because a) people soon assume you’re arrogant b) causes envy c) it’s only a part of who I am. I hate the label at least. But at the same time, it created a context for my work-related issues… why I was so bored, demotivated and seeking distraction so much. Simultaneously, I had also discovered why I always remained at the rim of group situations, instead of a participant, despite my extroverted nature and social capacities: I need to lead and motivate a group. And from that position, I can become part of a group.
I needed to find a career where I could give an answer to my idealism, where I would feel daily challenged, and stay away from specialisation, as well as have a leading role. Teaching was the answer: it gave me a sense of belonging, my rightful place in society, where I could use my talents to the benefit of society. Every class is different, people behave unpredictable, and there lies the challenge. And of course I’m the leader of the group. The adventure tourleading for a company that is almost the inventor of responsible tourism (eco-tourism is not just a marketing ploy, it is a very real goal for us) made that picture complete. I get adventure, challenges, idealistic orientated, making a difference all over the world, and in the leading position on the social level.
But three years ago, something happened. The subjects I had taught so far hardly asked any intellectual challenge for myself. I had for myself also reached a cusp in tourleading. What is an adventurous, exploration zone for many is a comfort zone for me. When I hopped from one bus to another to get to the Amazon past summer and went canooing in the Amazon for 5 days and spent the night in the jungle with nothing else but a mosquitoe net between myself and my environment, sleeping on the floor on a mat, I was in my comfort zone. I was totally in my element there. And when it came to my personal social life I had seemingly come to a completion as well. I had built a friend circle that simply felt complete. And I was totally bored of the going out scene when it came to romance and even making friends. I knew that world inside-out and it started to become superficial for me and meaningless beyond the friends I had made out of it.
So three years ago, I decided not to tourlead for a while, and hardly went out anymore. It was time for a change in my life. I did feel I needed to make it more stable, but I went about it the wrong way… I explored beyond borders that I should not have crossed. My ex-spath was one of them. I felt ripe for a commitment, but I committed myself to someone so unpredictable, so different from how I knew people can be, and if I’m completely honest I did that for the challenge, fascinated by an extreme situation unknown to me. It was just too extreme. No one can ever make sense out of a spath. It is doomed from the start, and I got burned. And while the commitment was born from a need of stability in my life, he just made my already losely structured life more chaotic than it already was.
Simultaneously with the start of my relationship, two schools landed in my lap where I could teach physics and math. Plus the school I was already working in for years gave me extra subjects such as economics. I was finally teaching subjects that were intellectually more challenging to me. But it was too much: working in 3 different school environments which all required my 110% input, having 3 major subjects that I needed to prepare and actually re-study by myself as I went along (was over 10 years ago I had even been emeshed in the material myself), and I was having 2 teachign hours of overtime on top of it, and not one class parallel with the other… My minimal life structure could never carry that. And now I even think that not even a developed, strong structure could have done it to the satisfaction of all three principals and pupils. At least part of it was doomed to fail as well. And of course, my spath’s chaos destroyed whatever structure I had.
I lost the school where I taught physics (the subject I loved the most), and had a part time schedule with more parallel classes, only teaching math and IT (the last I teach for 8 years now) at 2 schools. My schedule was such that if I had an actual structure, I would have performed excellently and would still be teaching there. But I hadn’t anymore.
This is where the stress came from: inadequate structure, the spath destroying the inadequate structure, overworked, and in a panic zone when it came to my personal life. No wonder that I eventually clung to my natural coping skill when I’m in a completely new (mental) world: observer, observe, and observe… while processing all overflowing input (emotional, mental, sensual). With the conjunction of so much input, certainly after the break-up with the spath, it was too much to process rapidly enough to remain outwardly functional. I needed time and space and a stress free environment to digest it all, before any output could come. Of course, I felt like I digressed again to my childlike coping mechanisms again. Elementary school and the first years of high school were a similar conjunction for me.
The tourleading issue I had in Peru was the last drop to make the bucket overflow. I was tourleading in a country I had never been too myself. I’ve done it in the past, without issues, but it is partly an unknown. As a tourleader I had to perform, which added stress. And then I had someone along who came across as my watchdog. The watchdog was the last drop. For my natural learning start point, or for high sensitives, or whatever label you want to give it… having the feeling that you’re being watched for evaluation leads to underperformance. It just adds pressure and stress, leading to fears of failure combined with a perfectionist mentality.
My whole self and life crumbled under the pressure. Is that somethign shameful? Does that mean I’m a failure or a loser? Heck no (and this is what I now have come to put into perspective). It’s completely normal. And how I coped is completely normal considering my basic nature. I know now that I did my very best under the extreme circumstances of the past two years, and have nothing to be ashamed about it anymore. Wouldn’t any person have problems to function optimally when things come together like that? Of course they would! Was my best inadequate? Yes. Could I do better in the future? Yes, I can. Am I in the wrong career? Not at all!
The fundaments of my life is all that I have left, barely. But they are good. I chose the right careers for myself. But I built bad support walls and ended up living in a crooked, shaky house, and when the hurricane passed, it got blown away. The stability will not come from a relationship or a job. It will come from a good, solid structure.
And the outcome of the positive disintegration of the past months is that I realize for the first time that I want to make myself a more structured person. For the first time, I realize how preparation is the key for me, whether I suffer from PTSD or not. It is my biggest flaw. I’ve always known it to be. And while I knew it was important, because my environment felt it was important, deep down I never thought I needed it to perform. Now, I finally realize I do need it, desperately.
As long as I live unstructurized, I add unecessary stress on my plate, stress that can lead my brain to get stuck into observing for too long without getting any output, because the noise of the stress overflows my brain with incoming data. The more structure I have, and the more I prepare myself on well almost everything in my life, the less stress I will have and process more easily, the less I risk ending up in a panic zone, and the more I will actually feel free to enjoy my life – whether it are friends, my home, my job, my pupils, my career – to the fullest potential.
And now that I fully comprehend its importance and can back it up for myself, I feel I’ve just healed the severest of my recent wounds. I actually already know how I can structurize more. I have developed those skills. I just needed the intrinsic motivation to do it forever, day in and day out. Meanwhile my unemployment was perhaps a good thing. It gave me the time to spend my time creatively and start following studies, that got my brain working again, and out of the observing mill. I knew instinctively it would power my brain again to make associations and rewire it so that I could reach out to the developed coping skills, rather than just my innate one.
I feel more confident that I have felt in a long while. I now know what I need to do for myself in my life. I back up the needed change with the whole of my being, and actually started doing it the past two days.
I do not plan to rush myself for any school application. I will seek the ones that truly speak to me as well as give me a sense of “doable”. And I actually intend to search for schools where I think I would really like to teach, even though I have no idea whether they have a position or not. It’s time to take that part of my life, more into my own hands, instead of fitting myself into what’s visible available.