Starting a new job is bringing up memories of my previous breakdownHi
everyone, I’m in my mid-40s and have recently started working again
after being unemployed for about four years. The job itself has been
okay so far, and part of me is pleased to b...
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Starting a new job is bringing up memories of my previous breakdownHi
everyone, I’m in my mid-40s and have recently started working again
after being unemployed for about four years. The job itself has been
okay so far, and part of me is pleased to be working again. However,
starting this job has brought up a lot of difficult thoughts and
emotions that I wasn’t expecting. The last time I worked in customer
service, I experienced a major breakdown. I gradually lost the ability
to work full-time, could no longer afford my mortgage, and eventually
lost my house. I think returning to the same type of work may be
reminding me of that period, even though nothing particularly bad has
happened in the new workplace.I have also been looking back at the
amount of difficult material I have carried throughout my life. I was
born with severe eyesight problems and two rare genetic conditions. One
prevents my body from producing testosterone properly, which affected
puberty and led to years of bullying and shame about my body. The other
causes repeated basal cell carcinomas. I have had roughly 20 to 30
removed, many from my face. I have experienced sexual boundary
violations, domestic violence, serious relationship difficulties, and
years of feeling ashamed about my body and sexual functioning. My first
romantic partner was experienced schizophrenia, it was undiagnosed and
at the time I did not understand that what she believed was caused by
psychosis. I thought it was really happening. It was a lot to process.
We broke up after 3 years.. My sister also developed schizophrenia
during this time from possible trauma and drug use while overseas and
struggled with it for many years. She died in a car accident during a
relapse a few years ago. I have experienced several other major losses
in my family. My stepfather died suddenly from cancer in 2002. My
biological father died in 2006 after my sister found him critically
unwell at his house. He had apparently suffered a massive heart attack
and later died in hospital from severe sepsis or septicaemia. Alcohol
abuse had also badly affected his health, although the exact sequence of
what happened was never completely clear to u My brother-in-law is now
seriously ill and may be dying from a severe form of non-tuberculous
mycobacterial disease. I am worried about him, the effect on the family,
and what the future may look like for the younger family members,
particularly my nephews. This is an ongoing source of stress rather than
something that is safely in the past. I was also badly assaulted while
trying to protect my mother from an abusive partner. I had recently
undergone facial surgery, and the assault reopened my stitches and left
me with a permanent scar. Later, the breakdown that affected my work
happened around the end of a long-distance relationship. I had saved for
years to visit the person overseas, but the relationship ended painfully
soon afterwards. It felt as though my relationship, career, financial
stability and home all disappeared around the same period. For most of
my life, I have dealt with difficult experiences by being pragmatic. I
have told myself that other people have it worse and that I should
simply endure things and keep moving. I was also raised to believe that
I needed to be tough. I am beginning to wonder whether I have minimised
the effect all of this has had on me. I am not asking anyone to diagnose
me. I am trying to understand why starting work again has caused so many
old memories and emotions to surface, particularly when the new job
itself has not been bad. I suspect that returning to customer service is
reminding me of the period when I previously broke down, while the
current situation with my brother-in-law is adding another layer of
grief and uncertainty. Has anyone else found that returning to work, or
returning to a similar type of workplace, brought back feelings
associated with a previous breakdown? How did you separate
understandable anxiety and old memories from signs that you were
genuinely becoming unwell again? I would also appreciate hearing how
others learned to acknowledge what they had been through without either
minimising it or becoming overwhelmed by it. Thank you for reading.
PTSD for Medical and First Responders
