The Longest Journey

PTSD – post traumatic stress disorder. War veteran mental health issue. Word cloud sign.

Healing from trauma is a long journey. Lifelong, for some. In my late 40s, my own journey is just getting started. There is a lot to work through and I’m not exactly sure where to begin however I know it has to happen if I’m ever going to start thriving. Since I was 17, it’s just been surviving (and sometimes barely, at that).

Usually the advice is just to start at the beginning, square one, but we’re talking about going back to before I was born, with my mother’s toxic relationship with my father, her dysfunction in the way she treated my grandmother, and my grandmother’s own dysfunctional upbringing. This realization that it goes way back prompted me to purchase a book entitled It Didn’t Start With You by Mark Wolynn. My daughter, who is going through her own healing process, bought it about 4 years ago and strongly recommended it to me. It addresses generational trauma and PTSD with studies backed by leading experts in neuroscience and post-traumatic stress.

At its most basic, it affirms that in histories like mine (and by proxy, my daughter’s), some of the behaviors I exhibit may not come from abuse handed to me throughout my life, but may be pre-programmed types of reactions to things that happened before me and have been passed down genetically. It would seem the genes we carry are programmed for far more than blue eyes or big thighs. Mental states, even reactive memory, too can run in the family.

This honestly takes a lot of pressure off. Instead of asking what’s wrong with “me,” now I can go back and see that it wasn’t me. It does not become a matter of shifting blame for a rotten situation – I am not looking to blame – it instead becomes a matter of, “where did this come from – this trauma response to every little thing, this fear, this anxiety and regression, depression, these trust issues, this inability to relate to others or hold a relationship, this inability to care for myself, this inability to thrive?” Once that is sorted, the next question becomes, “how do I heal?”

I know forgiveness is going to be a major hurdle in healing as I am nowhere near ready for that yet. My dad (who I met finally when I was 24) taught me that forgiveness does not mean saying what a person did was acceptable. It means that you – the forgiver – are willing to acknowledge it happened and essentially erase that debt, let it go. It does not mean necessarily forgetting. It simply means moving on. As of today though, even hearing the name “Brenda” automatically makes my jaw clench, my body tense, and triggers me to either fight or ball up and cower. That is the power she had over me and still does even though she’s finally deceased (and I do not regret feeling relief and even joy over that fact).

And this is why it is finally the right time for me to begin this journey through facing the pain and abuse, facing the fallout, and clearing my path to healing. I don’t want to carry all this trauma the rest of my life. It’s too much. The burden has kept me from so much happiness, health, and success that I can no longer accept having the baggage.

Burnout Rant

Image: Stressed call center agent

Call center work is burning me out. For the past year I’ve been working in a strictly sales position (and I am not a salesperson by profession) with no break in my work routine. There is also no work-life balance to speak of and it’s wearing me down.

Several times throughout my tenure there I have tried to go into other positions to get out of the aggressive and often dirty sales tactics we’re forced to use. Twice I’ve applied for a position in Quality Assurance and been denied, another time I applied for just customer service and they wanted me for that however before I was able to make the move, they shut down that department! The only position for me to go into at this point would be a downgrade, both in position and pay, which I just can’t afford.

My shift, which I have no say in, takes up the portion of the day where I don’t have time before or after work to get anything done. As I’m leaving for work, things have just opened and after work, most things are already closed. I get home usually around 9pm, try to decompress from the day, eat, and pass out for a bit, then I’m awake for several hours because it’s screwed up my sleep schedule so bad. I try to be asleep again by 2am so I can be up by 9:30 to do it all again.

My health is legitimately suffering. My mental health is deteriorating. My stress levels are through the roof. Management is on us constantly, pushing us for more and bigger results at everyone’s expense. With the exception of the rare nice and civil person who calls in, most of the people on the other end of the phone are utter asshats who feel they can be abusive to a stranger with zero accountability. I take it from all angles. My anxiety over walking in on Monday mornings begins in my stomach on Sunday and I dread thinking of what I’ll be walking into. On the drive in, a 45 minute commute, I get heart palpitations that terrify me because often I feel like I’m going to pass out at the wheel while driving. That Monday morning meeting is always about how terrible we’ve done and how much harder we have to push. Stop pushing me!

So, for the almighty dollar, I keep plugging. I go in every morning only to hear how bad I am at my job, to get pushed harder and watched under the microscope, afraid to stop to breathe. I’ve had medical issues this year between COVID and heart issues brought on by the stress so I don’t have time off to use for a break. Plus, we are heading into the busy season where all time off requests are in the blackout period for most of the rest of the year. I need to be in therapy for C-PTSD and stress but I have no PTO with which to schedule it. I need 2 weeks off to breathe and reset but I can’t get to a doctor to recommend a short-term for mental health. I can’t afford to just leave because I’m already living paycheck to paycheck and I am the only income in my family. This job is gonna kill me.