devRant - A fun community for developers to connect over code, tech & life as a programmer

i have figured out the PTSD from my job is just fear and evidently I've never had fear so I was confused
was always an angry kid so I guess I never felt fear before then...

... also apparently all fear is caused by thinking you'll lose freedoms

my job was like a prison... except then I figured out how prisons are, and a prison would be a utopia

so now I literally just can't even bring myself to reply to interview emails cuz I just feel "fear" at them... which I thought was PTSD

and fear always seems big and functions irrationally... and not having experienced it I didn't know that obvious tidbit -.-
all I knew is I was "broken" somehow by that whole experience, even though at the time it didn't seem like such a big deal

people think if you're unemployed you'll just "get off your ass and stop being lazy" when they starve you to death, but starving you to death is just another fear. the first fear and the second breed and power each other up like a reverberating resonance. I rather starve to death than go back to prison so that was never helpful "advice" to me

I've generally been an angry person. I've been fearless quite literally and pretty chill, but when people push on me I get angry though don't necessarily show it. while working I was angry all the time. the interesting thing I noticed about anger is the resonance -- the angry CEO potentially being angry at me didn't scare me, and one time he was finally angry at me. the interesting result was that instead I couldn't keep a lid on my own anger. I got angry at him back. this made me realize you can't suppress an emotion if someone else is throwing the same emotion at you -- it just powers them both up

anger is about territory. either you want something or you're protecting something. it's important to you. anger also seems to dispel fear. ran into something recently and it said "fear is dispelled if you have something more important". just "surviving" is not more important than being free to me, so "starving to death until you get off your lazy ass" was the most annoying bullshit

I've noticed if I'm mad at a job-related person I feel no fear. the anger dispels it. because I was mad at that job all the time, I don't think I noticed my fear. they were frequently using coercion as a "motivational" strategy on everyone... and even though I didn't react to it or was motivated by it, they didn't adapt and try different motivations. I figured I agreed to be doing this, so there's no point in threatening me, and just ignored it. but they never stopped. and things got shittier and shittier. the price they paid me to tank my freedom for purely arbitrary means was just too low, and I couldn't feel any of it because I was angry all the time

I interviewed at companies fine before I left. now that I left I actually can't. because there's no anger. I'm happy. so there's nothing to dispel the fear. therefore I'm cursed, broken, and non-functional... from some mystery I could never figure out before

and I know, this, also. because any time I was harmed socially in these years since, suddenly I could function again, because I was angry, and suddenly I could do so much. but who wants to live life purely angry just to function? it didn't feel right to me. I was so confused