PTSD

It was years after leaving, when I was working as an admin assistant at a non-profit social service agency, that someone first pointed out that something was wrong.

There was to be a meeting about our website, which was terrible. One of my coworkers suggested that I attend, as she knew I had skills in social media and online presence.  I had designed the website for my previous job and gotten them onto social media.

I know now that I disassociated in this meeting, but afterwards I was approached by more than one coworker to ask if I was ok. The person leading the meeting had opened up the meeting with a rant, at length, about how it was unnecessary to have me in the meeting, that I couldn't possibly have anything to contribute, that I was *just* an admin assistant.

I had simply zoned out and taken the abuse.

Because I had learned to zone out and take the abuse.

That was nearly a decade ago and it has taken me this long to see this as a sign of PTSD. A lot of work I've done in the last year plus has been about finding my boundaries and sticking to them. That means I will not tolerate being spoken to like I'm a piece of shit. This has been especially hard to do with N who seems to have learned in the womb to speak to me as if i don't really matter. I don't know how to course correct that, but I suppose it doesn't matter since he doesn't speak to me at all anymore.