Self-degradation and exaggeration to provoke humiliation.

There's this part of me that feels safer if unsafe people see me in a bad light.
Instead of masking my vulnerability and things one would normally feels embarrassed about, it's like I'm unconsciously provoking the shame by presenting the worst version of myself.
I don't even identify to this version anymore, but it's a mask I suddenly wear when I'm triggered.
It's seems easier for me to face degradation than to share what I am good at.
There are things I excel at, but I just keep them to myself.

I wonder if it's the result of having shared all the positivity I had found back with my avoidant/narcissistic ex, who just fed on it and used my inner world as an inspiration to create art and make loads of money while sabotaging the relationship and breaking me to the core.

Or maybe it comes from an older wound, the same wound that creates creative blocking.
The wound of being psychologically destroyed by my family every time I accomplished something or was just experiencing joy.

I had an appointment with a job counselor and I started to mention my psychiatric issues (insisting on the word psychiatric) and how I don't feel able to do anything and how the system is f*cked up, nobody is listening to me, etc...
I then realized it was an open-office and there was no privacy whatsoever.
Right behind me was a guy who used to hate me in high school because of how depressed I was (goth kid, deeply disturbed teenager).

I came home and felt humiliated to my core.

Giving that image of being the same pathetic loser twenty years later to that guy lead me to unnecessary rumination and a spiral of shame.

But I know what I've been through.
I know the work I've done.
I know the stage I had reached before burning out and losing my job.
I know I'm not AT ALL the person I pretended to be during this interview.

I know this teenager was not a "pathetic loser" but just a human being suffering from shame and self-hatred due to family abuse.
And currently I'm doing somewhat ok.
I am quite self-aware and I know how to regulate myself, I recognize the dysfunction when I see it, in others as in myself and I'm still doing my best every day to be mindful of my interactions.

But this behavior of self-inflicted humiliation... it's beyond me.

There probably was a part of me looking for the compassion I didn't get when I was, really, at my worst.

As if retroactive empathy could erase previous damage.

Is this common with cptsd?
If it was a thing for you, did you find a way to stop these behaviors?