(I had a PTSD meltdown yesterday which I'm going to describe very vaguely, but I do need to talk about it a bit for things to make sense. Generalized TW for yelling, adjacent to domestic violence.)
I have PTSD from child abuse as well as a lot of shit in my adult life. The last several months have been complete shit (getting sexually assaulted at work in two different jobs, money stolen from my paycheck by multiple employers, being on the edge of homelessness, not being able to eat enough, etc) and particularly this last weekend pushed me over the edge.
I got completely dysregulated and instigated a fight with my roommate. I banged on their door and yelled at them and when they yelled back my brain was fully in "I am 11 and about to get the shit kicked out of me" mode and I threatened to call the cops on them, which has completely undermined my roommate's sense of safety in their own home.
I made the best apology that I could via text and my boyfriend has mediated between us slightly, but there's really not much that can be done to repair how colossally I fucked over my roommate for no reason other than not being able to control my own emotions.
At the moment the thing I'm really struggling with is dealing with PTSD from being a little girl while currently in the body of an adult man. I don't really feel like a man in the world, because I'm clocked semi-regularly and even when I pass I'm gender non-conforming and men don't respect me. I don't fit in with groups of men or groups of women, and because I'm half Jewish I frequently don't really fit in with white people but I'm also not connected with a Jewish community. I'm not really connected to any community all right now, all I really do is go work my shit job and then come home and play video games until it's time to go to work again. All of this is to say, my life experience is that as a rule that people think I'm pathetic and they can do whatever they want to me- and they generally do, with no consequences.
I know that PTSD isn't rational but I also know that when I started the fight, it truly did not occur to me that I could scare anyone. I'm scared of everyone all the time, and there are never any consequences for fucking with me, so in my head in that moment there was no way I could have any power over anyone. I was expecting that I would bitch at my roommate and they would tell me I was a dumbass and we would yell at each other a little, and honestly I don't think I had the higher brain function to think further than that. Like, if I had been thinking at all, I would have gone for a long walk to calm down instead of starting a fight.
I haven't had a meltdown like this in about three years and have been working very hard on healing for longer than that. I am committed to ending the cycle of abuse, but I'm really doubting myself after being such a massive idiot yesterday and causing so much harm. I know that banging on doors and yelling is never acceptable from anyone. (I actually learned that behavior in my home exclusively from women, so it doesn't read as particularly male-coded to me, but I get how it works for most people.)
But in the world, to the outside, they don't see the scared abused Jewish kid I feel like, they see the angry white man. And that guy is real! They are right to be scared! I would be scared! I don't get a pass on my actions because I'm marginalized and traumatized, and I don't expect one, but in this moment I don't really know what to do. I don't need consciousness raising because this wasn't a matter of not understanding how society works, it's a matter of figuring out what to do when my brain is a powerless female child and my body is white and male. It feels like giving a toddler the nuclear launch codes. I need to get a handle on this so I don't hurt anyone again, and I thought I had been doing well over the last few years, but I have zero confidence in myself right now.
Has anyone gone through anything similar? Any advice?