The past few weeks I’ve been temping a little south and west of where I worked 09/21-07/22. In much nicer conditions, for a lot more in part because they’re trying to comp me for the long drive. I’ve still been stressed since workdays I don’t have that much time to draw or walk AND cook AND unwind without really screwing my sleep schedule. And if my folks want me on a weekend that’s more stress, less down time.
This has really established to me that the prior employers were truly bastardly, enough that where I thought I’d fucked up (this segues to my next point) that’s largely places they expected great performance and dismissed okay or good.
Larger point; whenever there’s a mistake my mind simultaneously plays out How Are these People Going to Punish Me and What If I Really Am this Inept Asshole Who Inevitably Fucks Up and It Won’t Stop Until I Die.
I now think this suggests I’m actually NOT stupid, because I have enough brain power to scramble for possible technical solutions while also doing this horrible CPTSD stuff. (Similar to “I was never actually stupid, it’s easy for an experienced teacher to assume material they know is obvious when it ISN’T and express frustration towards me not getting it” which in turn is similar to “I was never actually the out of control monster which they taught me I was.”)
The rest of learning from profound discomfort lately gets personal enough that it’s stuff I’d want to tackle in therapy if I HAD a therapist, but tldr is I tend to worry that I am or will be perceived as some form of fictional villain and therefore anything that happens to me is a presumed very deserved comeuppance (rather than the sort of random impersonal horrors that happen). Even after all the work I’ve done, my mind STILL holds onto that, if that makes sense?
@Oneironott thank you! Helps a bit.
@Leucrotta It does. Frustratingly, I think part of us can believe one thing while a part of us still, on some level, believes another. even if they seem paradoxical.