PTSD

I worked for 26 years at a competing company to where I'm currently employed.

Last April I put in my notice and jumped ship to a "sane company".  The culture here is so much more pleasant.

Initially I was reminded of the early, good and positive days at my prior employer and loved it. Now I just love it and rarely think of my former employer.

At the first of this month, I had to draft an action plan on what I was going to do in March and how I would achieve it.  Yesterday, I received a quick note saying "I see you're up 79K for the month, what growth do you anticipate by month end?"  It's a very normal request and nothing weird about it, just positive management, recognizing a decent number and asking how good it will be by the end of the quarter.

I sent back my well thought out response with what I would achieve and why.

I received a response back a few hours later and when I saw I'd received an e-mail from this guy (upper management), I was temporarily triggered, remembering the e-mails from my prior employer that no matter what was going on, was always negative, despite whether the results were positive.  I had a sense of dread to open up the e-mail.

When I opened the e-mail it was very positive and just said "I believe".

Upper management was letting me know he believed in me and my plan.

As I sat there with my heart rate slightly elevated for a moment, I realized, if I'm still triggered almost a year later by weird things like that, why would I not understand that my baby girl will still be triggered by things that seemingly have no reason to trigger her? Why would I not understand that she had 11 years of turmoil and instability? Of course deviations to the normal day would trigger her. Of course if she doesn't anticipate a positive response, she will assume that any response will be negative.

I am reminded to show compassion, repeat positive feedback constantly and let her eventually (in her own time) realize that our positive treatments are genuine and she doesn't need to wait for the other shoe to fall, just as I can trust my present employer to not be a nutcase like the prior one.