Long Time; No Post

It's been so long since I last wrote, that I don't even remember how to do things.  These two pictures were taken in 2019 on Wolfe Island one of the Thousand Islands directly across from Kingston, Ontario.  Different times.

*****

Life.

As it was.

As it is now.

As it will be.

Once we get past all this ...

Junk.

The pandemic.

Lockdown.

A continuing rise in the numbers of infection.

Recurring PTSD from the workplace bullying - 9 years after the fact.

Anxiety, fear, lack of trust.

And more.

Just because we're in a pandemic doesn't mean life stops.

It doesn't and it hasn't.

What we were dealing with before the pandemic struck, we're still dealing with.

For me, that means the ongoing jouney towards recovery.  Dealing with anxiety.

It means new ways of dealing with life.  Finding new coping mechanisms for such simple formerly normal things as grocery shopping.

It means realizing the damage done in the past and it's residual effects.

People scare me.

They scared me before the pandemic.  Now they scare me even more.

My greatest takeawayl from the workplace was that people cannot be trusted.

My former co-workers did things I could not have imagined.  

They went on my facebook page, which was public at the time, and reported what they saw there to management as an ethics issue:  "Bullies 100; Suzanne 0.  Off work again."  Management not only demanded I delete the post but also was checking my facebook post.  Until I made it private.  Which really upset the manager as she was checking it regularly.

Since no names were mentioned and there has never been anything on Facebook as to where I worked, one would wonder how that becomes an ethics issues.  If these people saw themselves in that post, does that mean they were in reality bullying me?

My teakeway?  That it was OK for them to do these things but not OK for my to say that they were being done.

Then they crafted what I now know to be a petition which was taken as a formal complaint.  Their basic premise was that they deserved a stress free workplace and that I was the stressor for all three shifts in a 24/7 environment.  All but one person in our small office, signed the petition.  The rest of the petition was comprised of unsubstantiated allegations.

I was coerced into signing a legally binding agreement with the company to resign while having a coffee at a Tim Hortons in our community with the Union Vice-President there.  I was still on sick leave.  My Global Assessment of Functioning was 69 which was below functioning and also probably on the high side for my actual ability to function.  I was given no heads up.  I was told that if I did not sign I would have to return to work when my sick leave was up.  I was blindsided.  I signed.

This incident added more injury to insult.

*****

This time of pandemic has brought about not only an exponitional rise in anxiety but also a rise in memories.  Yes, these things happened eleven years ago, but they've never been fully deal with.

Why?

Partly because I was afraid of my co-workers.  If they were able to go on my FB page which was in effect cyberstalking me with impunity.  What else were they capable of?

The Union Vice President told me that nothing would happen to me that I did not initiate. 

??????

I asked him how getting sick and having two back to back stress breakdowns and being off on leave initiated this.  He didn't answer.

Therefore, I made a choice.  I could go after revenge or I could go after recovery.  I went after recovery.

I laid low.  I did nothing that would aggravate the situation.

I was silenced.   And I was silent.

The fear of possible repercussions ever present.

Now, I believe is the time to regain my voice in order to recover more fully.  In order to be able to put the past in the past and leave it there.  In order to fully heal.  To become stronger mentally.

Doing this during a pandemic is not easy but I do believe it is possible.

It's time, past time, to shake off the fear and move forward.

Now during the pandemic

Adapted Cycle; Adapted Laptop; Adapted Life

Life is never the same after workplace bullying.

The target/victim will never be able to go back to what they were, who they were before the assault on their value, their integrity, their personality was launched.

However, that's not to say that it can't be as good in its own way - or even better.  It just won't be the same.

It depends on how the target/victim adapts their life to meet their present challenges.

*****

Just as when my laptop got "baptized" a few weeks back and damaged some of the connections on the keyboard, it will never function the way it did before the "baptism"/injury; however, it can be functional again - with some adaptations.

In this case, I took the (at that time nonfunctional) laptop to a who tech reconnected things inside so the laptop would turn on (Yay!) and then advised me to purchase a new keyboard/mouse set as a workaround for the now defective keyboard.  Which I did.

Unfortunately, without thinking I went for the cheapest keyboard/mouse set I could find.  It was a cheap fix but that keyboard is one honkin' big thing. My grandson says he's never seen one that big. Then there's the presence of two mice: one for the desktop and the one for the laptop.  Have you ever tried sitting in a chair with the laptop on a desk in front of you, two mice (one for the laptop and one for my desktop) trying a balance a huge keyboard on your lap?

Clumsy does not adequately begin to describe the new set up - especially if I continue to use the desktop as I've used it in the past - to do two things at once like watching a DVD on the desktop and writing my blog on the laptop.

I've also discovered that picking up the desktop mouse when using the laptop does not work - and vice versa.

Final solution in this case: buy an affordable laptop.

Of course then, I have the challenge of learning to use a new laptop with a different operating system.

I think I can do that.

Actually I know I can do that because I am writing this blog posting on the new laptop.

*****

Similarly, when my balance became seriously disrupted along with cognitive skills, and other things like high anxiety in the fall of 2011 and continued on for months, either I had to give up cycling period or find another way to do something I enjoyed.

My Adapted Bike Freedom Hope
in a victory moment at the top of a steep hill

Me being me, I chose the latter - to find a way to make cycling safely a reality in my new life.

Solving this problem involved a different process than adapting the laptop.

The existing bicycle, a 10 speed mixte frame Raleigh Grand Prix, could not be adapted for my needs.  So I had to construct a whole new set up from the ground ... er ... should I say from the wheels up?

I did some preliminary research on the net and discovered some options: a trike - either a regular adult trike or a recumbent trike; stabilizer wheels which are about the same diameter as the bike's wheels and set close to the rear wheel; or adult training wheels - similar to a child's training wheels but bigger and sturdier.

I chose the latter.

Again, it works.  Again, there are adaptations involved.  Again, there's a new way, a different way of doing things.  Again, like the laptop with the huge keyboard, it's a visible adaptation. 

It's not the same as riding a regular, two-wheeled bicycle.  For one thing with the additional set of wheels, it's heavier than the normal bike.  Also, with the additional wheels, it's clumsier than a "normal" bike.

But it works.  Like the adapted laptop and a workaround in the workplace, it's not optimal but it works and it's giving me a piece of my life back.

Freedom Hope all ready to participate in this year's
Great Cycle Challenge

*****

And now we get to the part about the adapted life which is something else altogether.

Since all the damage/injury is internal due to stress from the bullying, there are no appliances I can add like a cast, crutches, wheelchair, artificial limb or other device that's visible.  It's all internal. Nothing visible.

In this case, the adaptations are called coping mechanisms: alternate ways of dealing with situations; alternate ways of looking at things; alternate ways of making things work.

For example, I used to cook almost exclusively using a recipe.  Now I've learned to be more creative and throw things together.  When the cognitive skills won't cognitate (I think I made up that word), the creative skills have kicked in.

For the times when I'm too weak and shaky to function (which still happens on occasion), I try to keep frozen entrees from the store on hand.

When all else fails, hubby makes a mean chilli. 

For me, it's also meant reinventing my self plus my lifestyle.

It's meant walking with a therapist during the duration.  Learning my strengths and weaknesses.  My value.  Accepting myself for who I am; for what I am ... and also for what I'm not.  Realizing that I'm human.  I'm not perfect ... and neither is anyone else.  I'm learning that I cannot control anyone else and at that same time that I should never allow anyone else to control me.

Recently I tried to sign up for a local group ride with the Great Cycle Challenge only to be told that if I'm the one with the training wheels, this ride is "appropriate" for me.  Two things: (a) I hate the word "appropriate" because it was continually being thrown at me in the workplace during the bullying years and (b) go back to the paragraph above about not allowing someone else to control me.

It's meant realizing that there are chronic sometimes debilitating affects which appear to be here for the long term although they are significant better than seven years ago when they first not only appeared but took over my life.

The weakness and shakiness I've referred to earlier is not only an ongoing concern, but is currently a very real and present concern.

You, my reader, cannot see it in action; however, it has kicked in viciously during the writing of this post.  I've writing it - slowly a few sentences, a paragraph at a time.  That's why there was no post on Monday. 

But I've also learned to be gentle with myself.  To not kick myself in the butt when I cannot do things.  To treat myself with grace - just like God does.

Fatigue, lack of balance, cognitive disruptions along with other affects come and go.  Every year though I see a piece of recovery. 

I've challenged myself in ways that I could never have imagined when I was still "healthy".

I'm not the same person who had the energy to go places and do things.  Not the same person at all.

Yet in many ways, I'm a new person.  Able to enjoy life in ways that I never could before.

Victory after Group Ride #2 in the Great Cycle Challenge

For that I am thankful.

Recovery Behind Bars: Handle Bars That Is

Gathering for Group Ride #2

As I start living life as it happens after turning the corner, my ongoing recovery from workplace abuse continues to just get better and better.

A significant part of my journey of recovery post workplace abuse has been regaining pieces of my life which were an integral part of me before all the junk in the workplace happened.

Writing, knitting, reading, cycling.  They have all been a part of the whole process of recovery.

Today I'm focusing on the part of recovery which involves cycling.  Something I wanted to do but thought I couldn't after the debilitating chronic/physical affects kicked in in the Fall of 2011.  Balance being the most critical challenge but, but by no means the only one.

After falling off my two-wheeled, Raleigh Grande Prix in the middle of a busy road, I realized that I would have to say good-bye to something I loved.  Something that made me feel free and whole again.

But then ... me  being me ... I began to think of ways to make cycling happen again.  Me being me, I researched things on the net.  I already knew that there are adult trikes both upright and recumbent.  I also learned that there are both stabilizer and adult training wheels.  Stabilizer wheels being fitted close to the rear wheel and about the same diameter as the rear wheel.  Adult training wheels being ... well ... adult training wheels.  Just like the ones on children's bikes only bigger.

Armed with this research and a good idea of what I wanted to do on a bike and what I needed to do that, I went into several local bike shops.  Only one paid me any attention.  I owe all that's happening now to them.

I've written and posted pictures about my adapted bike which I have now named Freedom Hope because that's what she gives me.

I discovered though that having a bike I can now safely ride was only the beginning.  Learning how to ride a bike again was also a beginning.

However, there are challenges in the area I live in:  traffic, hills, one way streets just to name a few.  I wasn't able to fulfill my ambition of taking a nice ride into Uptown Waterloo which is only about 5-6 km or riding in the country due to some of these constraints.

Sigh.

Gathering for my first group ride ever
at the Cataract Trail in Ontario

This is where the Great Cycle Challenge comes in.

 I discovered it in 2016 on my Facebook feed.  It is a self-directed ride to raise funds for research for pediatric cancer at Sick Kids in Toronto.

By self directed, I  that the individual rider chooses his/her own routes, challenge distance and challenge sponsorship.

One thing that has always held me back on these kinds of things is that with my "altered abilities" especially the fatigue, I could never guarantee I could be at a certain place, at a certain time, on a given day and ride a set route consisting of a set number of kilometres.  This challenge gave me the flexibility and the control that I needed.

So with fear and trembling I signed up for my first Great Cycle Challenge in 2016.  My goals:  50 km/$50.  Both of which I wasn't sure I could meet.  Both of which I not only met but surpassed ... which surprised the heck out of me.

It was good.  Very good.

I signed up again last year and this year with slightly higher goals.

Each year I've seen significant gains in my progress both in my overall journey towards recovery and in my comfort as a cyclist on the road.

This challenge has challenged me to cycle both inside and outside the box.  To find alternate routes to get in kilometers around the area in which I live.  It has challenged me to set what I call "goals within the goal".  Personal goals I hope to meet at some point while cycling.  At this point, some I've met; some I've yet to meet.

This year, the challenge has added something new.  Group rides.  As the Great Cycle Challenge is usually a solitary thing unless you're part of a team or whatever, they decided to instigate these group rides so that if people chose they could meet each other and develop a sense of camaraderie.

This year for the first time in seven years, I was able to commit to being at a certain time, at a certain place to ride a certain route - on an adapted bike no less.

I did it.

Note: a group ride has never been on my list of goals for the simple reason that I never thought I could do one.

Group ride #1 was on a bike route which created from where railroad tracks used to be.  It's relatively flat and something I not only can do but have done. As I expected, I was the cow's tail, but that was OK.  I challenged myself and rode 26 km on a set route - a multi use trail part of which goes around Bellwood Lake near Fergus, Ontario.  My longest bike ride ever - even when I was young and healthy.

I was happy.  My only wish was that someone would have waited for me to arrive at the "finish" line to celebrate my victory.

Freedom Hope and the "gang"

So I geared up again for group ride #2, a road ride starting at a car pool parking lot.  Something I had wanted to do these last years and thought I would never do.

Challenging hills, hills and more hills.

 I did it.

But not without a lot of support and encouragement from the rest of the team.

Introducing myself as the "challenged" rider, they seemed to accept me as a bona fide, valued member of the team.  Not a handicap.

I was never left alone to ride by myself this time as I had been on the first ride.

Someone was always either ahead, aside or behind me.  Encouraging me up those hills.  One lady even biked beside me up a hill and when I started breathing heavily coached me on breathing - which helped a lot.

At another point, these incredibly supportive people even let me be in the lead.  I felt protected.  I also felt accepted.

I even heard a comment behind me when I was in the lead about hills being easier when you go slower.  Wow!  That blew my mind.  And made me feel appreciated.

Allan, a grandfather from the first ride in Fergus, Ontario with his grandson
(group ride #1)

It's also been neat meeting those people I've read about on GCCCanada posts or on threads.  One man on a thread said he was riding his grandfather's 40 year old bike.  He and his bike were there on group ride #2.  Last week on group ride #1, I met a man who wrote a jingle for the GCCCanada last year and had been featured on one of their posts last year - which just happened to pop up on my Facebook feed this past week.

And so I leave you dear reader at this point to enjoy these photos, to savor the victory.

Victory "high five" with another rider
- the man riding his grandfather's bike

The long and short of it
- or "short and sassy" meets "lean and mean"

I came, I met, I cycled

I am woman.  Hear me roar.

The Day I Turned The Corner

Ironically, the day I turned the corner on my journey towards recovery from workplace abuse was the day I got fired from my volunteer position at the Humane Society where I'd been petting kitties for more than a year and a half.  I got bitten.  A serious no-no.

While being fired is definitely not fun and definitely not positive, for some reason it propelled me forward rather than stalling me, propelling me backward or putting me in a spin.

One major reason is that it was not personal.

Workplace bullying is definitely personal.  They find your weaknesses and exaggerate them.  They gossip.  They go on your Facebook and take what they see there to management.  They craft petitions disguised as complaints and sign them.  People believe them.

Cats don't do that.  For which I am very very thankful.

Neither do the people caring for the cats.

However, the management type people feel that it is not in the cat's best interest if a volunteer gets bitten.

Before you get too confused or irate, let me explain what happens when a cat in their custody bites a human being.  Immediately, if it's reported and it is law that it be reported, it has to be reported to the Board of Health.  Then the cat has to be put into quarantine for ten days during which time, only the staff can interact with it.  It cannot be adopted.  It cannot be socialized by volunteers.  Etc.  It's stalled, sidelined for ten days.  And it still has to be fed and cared for.

I get that.  To a degree.

I had been in fear of getting bitten again.  Yes, again.  This was bite number three.  However, in my defence, bite number two was one day less a year from before bite number three.  That, however,  was not taken into consideration.

Policies had changed while I was volunteering at the shelter due to a contagion which went through most of the population both feline and canine at the shelter.  New policies restricted the volunteers' interaction with the animals meaning, in effect, if the new policies were obeyed, the animals received far less social time with volunteers than previously.  These new policies also meant that if I was in an area with less social cats, that I could not move into another area as I might cause cross contamination among the cat population.

Volunteering had become more stressful and less fun.  Yet I continued.

Yes, I tried to talk with what I call the volunteer volunteer (a volunteer herself who managed volunteers) but she was not inclined to listen.

So when I got bitten that fateful day in December just before Christmas, I was afraid of the worst happening.  Being fired.  But me being me, I still had hope that reason/logic would prevail.  Or maybe that that prince in shining armour I read so much about when I was a child - and still seem to believe in - would come upon the scene.

Logic/reason didn't prevail and Prince Charming was noticeably absent.  Rebuffs, blame statements and Human Resources along with the volunteer volunteer were present.

The dismissal could have been done better as it turned out to be two against one.  Not good odds in my book.  Especially when I'm the one.

I cried.

I was hurt.

I also stood up for myself, even though I wasn't heard.

Yet, there was something in me that said that this could be a good thing.  There could be something better coming up.

I also realized how much healing had happened in my journey towards recovery in the nineteen months I had been alone, on my own petting cats.

I had gone from being very fearful of human beings to being able to casually converse with staff and sometimes the public.

Why?  Because as I said before it was not personal.  Everything was based on the cats and their welfare.  For me, it was good and I began to enjoy positive interactions with human beings and at the same time becoming less fearful of people.

It had been a safe place.  One where recovery could occur.

Immediately after the dismissal when I was still hurting, with all my being I wanted to find out what other shelters' policies were "after the bite".  Did they dismiss volunteers for being bitten or where they more reasonable?  But I didn't.

I wanted to look up other volunteer opportunities with animals.  But I didn't.

I wanted to write a letter to the newspaper or at least to the Board of Directors of the shelter or file a written complaint against the volunteer volunteer and the Human Resources director.  But I didn't.

Why?

Because I decided that the first thing I needed to do was to allow myself time to grieve my loss which I hadn't done during the two back to back workplace abuse situations.

Then there was Christmas less than a week away.  I felt that getting through Christmas before acting on anything would be the best thing for me.

As I allowed myself time and space, I began to realize that it was almost laughable.  Almost.  Like who gets fired because they get bitten?  Besides me, that is.

I also realized that there had been significant healing in my life and perhaps I was due for a change.

Also, people reached out to me and said come and pet my fur baby.

So I did.

A new door has started to open.  A door which includes fur babies to be sure and also people.  People who also have needs.  People who enjoy my presence and having an adult to talk to while the kids are in school and the dog is being petted.  Yes, you heard me right.  Dog.  I'm a cat person, but not my world has also expanded to include not only people but dogs.

As I continue on in this period of my recovery post workplace abuse, I see two things.  One that somehow, somewhat I turned a corner at the end of last year.  Two that this phase of my journey of recovery is about living life as it happens.

Do I dare say enjoying life?

Things have been happening recently on my journey of recovery that I never thought seven years ago when things were at their worst with the workplace would ever happen.

Living Life as It Happens: the Day I Got a Big Surprise

On June 1st the #GCCCanada started.  Again as last year my goals are the same: 100 km and $500. 

As many of you already know #GCCCanada has become a large part on my personal journey towards recovery from workplace abuse.  It gave me the motivation to get on my adapted bike, now named Freedom Hope, and start challenging myself to ride.

In my younger days, I used to ride a 5 speed Schwinn which was built like a Sherman tank and just about as heavy, somewhere in the vicinity of 5-10 miles a day.  I wanted to do that again.  However, ongoing challenges with balance issues - and other brain related things - prevented that.

UNTIL I decided to change the way I was attempting to ride.  I went to a local bike store, talked with one of the young men there and together we came up with this: 

Heading back from where we turned around on the group ride.
Wearing my colours proudly.

A regular 7 speed bike with adult training wheels for the balance problems.

It works.

However, after relearning how to ride in a local parking lot - going round and round and round again in both directions, I stopped riding again.

I wanted to actually be able to go places, to ride to a coffee shop, to ride out of town, even to ride to do errands.

However, the terrain wasn't allowing that to happen.

Completing my first group ride ever - the Cataract trail
(again something I never though I could do).

What I call my "hood" is triangle shaped and composed of dead end streets inside the area.  Bounding my "hood" are major arteries, some in town, some now, one river and hills.  In any direction I go, there are hills.  Some more challenging then others.  But hills nonetheless.

I got discouraged.  When I get discouraged I get frustrated.  When I get frustrated, everything stops.

One day, a few years back, I saw the Great Cycle Challenge Canada, a ride to raise funds for research for pediatric cancer at Sick Kids hospital in Toronto, on Facebook.  What was different about this fundraiser from others is that rather than meeting at a certain time, on a certain day, and riding a set route, the participant sets their own goals, both distance and kilometres.  The rider has the entire month of June to achieve her goals and can change them at any time.

This sounded like a possible to me.  So I signed up in 2016 for the first time.

My goals were: 50 km and $50.

I had no idea if I could meet those goals.

I not only met my goals but way exceeded them.

I rode 225 km in that challenge and raised $244.40.  I learned that I could do things I never knew I could do.

I found places in my "hood" that I never knew existed.  I even rode in traffic and on hills.  As my borders and boundaries expanded, I began to come alive as never before.

Pumped up, I signed up in 2017 for a second go round.

This time my goals were 100 km and $500 (gulp).

I definitely didn't know if I could meet either goal - especially the $500 one.  I self funded myself at the very beginning so that other, potential donors, would know that I was willing to put my money where my goal was.

The Great Cycle Challenge features different riders at times, almost all of them on 2-wheeled bikes, proudly sporting their jerseys, with details such as how much they're raised and how many km they've ridden.  I wanted so very much to have that kind of recognition and acknowledgement.  I wanted to belong.

I did meet my challenge of 100 km.  I did meet the  $500 goal a little past the middle of the month of June BUT when I ordered the much coveted jersey, it didn't come and didn't come.  Shipping labels were created but the jersey did not arrive at Canada Poste.  For more than a week, I waited checking the tracking information frequently.  Finally I e-mailed the Great Cycle Challenge - and got no response.  Then I started phoning them - and got the easy answers: it would be taken to Canada Poste for the next shipping which would be soon.  I asked them to follow up and get back to me.

They didn't.

I got frustrated.  I got discouraged.  I stopped all cycling.

Eventually, I did get the coveted jersey, the last day of June.  My anticipation of wearing the jersey proudly for the rest of the challenge, ended. 

So it was with a lot of conflicted feelings that I signed up for my third consecutive year with the Great Cycle Chgallenge Canada.

With the same goals: 100 km/ $500 donations.

Only I decided that I wasn't going to bust my butt to get the $500.  Or if I did, if I really wanted the jersey, I would see how far I could go on the donations before the challenge started on June 1st and I would self fund so that it would arrive in time for me to wear it while riding.

Note:    In this challenge, we set our own goals, we ride any time we want, wherever we want during the month of June.  For that reason, most of us never meet each other and we ride alone.  That is why I coveted the jersey.  That is why I got so discouraged when it didn't arrive.  I wanted to belong.

Freedom Hope and myself getting ready to ride.  A word of explanation: a lot of cyclists raise their bikes above their heads in a victory pose.   With Freedom being clumsy and heavy, this is my adaptation of the victory pose.

Last week, someone from the #GCCCanada called me, as they always do before the challenge begins, to check up. At the end of the conversation, the lady asked me if I had any thing to comment. For once, I said: "Yes". I went on to tell her that their marketing strategy was geared to what I call the "lean and mean", meaning the tall, fit, mostly younger ones with long legs and lighter weight two-wheeled bikes who can cycle rings around me and who can raise more than $1000 in donations BEFORE the challenge starts. 

 I told her how the #GCCCanada has been a vital force in my ongoing road to recovery and told her about the "brain injury" from stress in the workplace that had prevented me from being able to ride again and how a local cycle shop (#KingStreetCycle) had adapted a regular bike for me. I told her some of my victories. She listened! 

I told the listener about last year and the jersey. I told her that since workplace abuse was about isolation and exclusion and also about lack of appreciation, I got discouraged and quit riding. I told all this and more to the listener on the other end of the phone. Then Tuesday, I got a notice from the #GCCCanada that they were gifting me the jersey for this year because they are impressed with my story of recovery! 

A selfie taken on my first ride for the challenge this year in the parking lot where I relearned to ride.

The coveted jersey arrived two days later, on June 1st in time for me to wear it during the challenge.

My new "biking" shoes.  A find at a garage sale I was passing.

But things haven't ended there.  That simple act of acknowledgement spurred me on to do things I didn't believe I could do.

Like raise the entire $500 without resorting to self funding.

Like encouraging me to get on Freedom Hope proudly and ride.

What can I say? I never lost my sense of humour and here it is in full.
Posing with Freedom Hope in my jersey and helmet with bling stilettos.
It doesn't get much better than this.

I know I'm not the meanest or the leanest.

I realize that in reality I'm short and sassy.

Or maybe I should say, strong and courageous.

I'll never be the top of the back.  Rather I'm more the cow's tail. Moooooove.

But I'm OK with that.

I'm learning to be OK with being me.

The Day I Felt Included

As I've mentioned before, the form bullying in the workplace took in my case was mostly that of isolation and exclusion.

Those I worked with on the afternoon shift, an off shift, in the small office frequently had a meal together on Fridays.  I was not included.  In fact, these people became so sneaky that they would go into a larger office area and use a phone there to order their meals.  Everything was hush hush.

If one co-worker went out for a coffee to bring back to the others, I was not included.  For a coffee aficionado like me smiling the brew in the small office was akin to torture.

I was not included in conversations even those that were business related.

It was like I didn't exist. 

It was hard, very hard.

For that reason in order to understand me as an individual working through workplace abuse, PTSD and trauma, one needs to recognize the veil, the filter, I process events through: the veil of isolation and exclusion.

This is why I want to share the below experience in this blog.

****

I came home actually fairly refreshed, at least mentally if not physically, from our visit to Montreal to discover that while I was away friends were going through hard times.

One friend (oh! how I love to say that word) called me to let me know that her mother had died.

This friend is part of the prayer shawl knitting group at a local Lutheran church which I joined about a year ago.  

As I continue on with the group, I've found that the ladies of the group, mostly older than myself are very gracious and accepting.  They don't care where you've been or even if you go to their church or belong to their denomination.  They care only about the knitting.  If you can knit, you're in.  No questions asked.

So I went to my second church service in less than a week for my friend's mother's funeral.

And I had a really neat experience yesterday at the reception after a funeral which I'd like to share.

At the lunch, I went to sit with my buddies from the prayer shawl group and discovered that there were purses on each chair.  I was starting to turn away plate in hand when one of the prayer shawl ladies said quite robustly "You're going to sit with us" and proceeded to grab a chair from another table and tell the rest of the ladies at the table to make room.  

It was such a neat feeling to be wanted and included.

An unexpected blessing on the road to recovery.

Living Life as it Happens

You may have wondered why you haven't heard from me lately.  Especially as I've been working hard to ensure that you hear from me on a regular basis.

Life is what has been happening.

Not in a bad sense though.

In a good sense.

I've been living life as it happens.  One day, one experience at a time. Enjoying it to the fullest.

Sunset at Lake of Two Mountains, Quebec

I feel like I've turned a corner from recovery as I formerly knew it - more passive than active; to a more active, more people oriented phase.

It's not one thing but a whole host of happenings which have led me to this point of more active recovery: joining a writer's meet up, volunteering at the humane society petting kitties, cycling in the Great Cycle Challenge Canada, walking, being invited to join a prayer shawl knitting group ... and making friends.

We took a road trip to Montreal, Quebec to visit our daughter's in-laws to be and work on some wedding preparation.

I was worried about the trip because of my on-going fatigue which comes and goes at will.  I had no idea if I would be up to the activities that were in place for that weekend: attending my daughter's fitting for her wedding gown, visiting the wedding venue and tasting the menu, etc.  All involving travel and energy.

Sunset at Lake of Two Mountains

But first I discovered to my delight that the place where we were staying was very close to the St. Lawrence river.  Asking my hosts about it and expressing my desire to see it, they took us to their favourite place for viewing.

Family

A place called Ste. Anne.

We roamed around, took pictures, talked and got to know one another better.

And when we got back to our hosts home, I went to bed and slept.

The next morning I was up and able to keep on with the plans.

As the form workplace bullying took for me was isolation and exclusion, I felt honoured that the bride to be included me in her plans for that special day by inviting me to come for the dress fitting and also for menu tasting at the venue.

It made me feel ... wanted and valued.

Again, once we got back to our hosts, I went straight to bed for a nap.  Woke up a few hours later, had supper with our hosts and then went back to bed for the night.

But hey! It worked.

And that was good.

Very good.

Peoples Church, Montreal, QC

As it meant that I was able to embark on another adventure the following day.

Hang on, folks.

I went to church.  I actually went into a strange fear with no anxiety, no fear.

I felt safe ... and enjoyed the service which was another huge victory on the road to recovery.

Street scene, Old Montreal, QC

That adventure was followed by a drive and a walk in Old Montreal camera in hand.

That adventure alone with worth the fatigue and the nap when we got back to our hosts home.

The wedding venue

Because it meant that I was still able to join in the adventure the last day of our visit, a visit to the wedding venue.

More wedding venue - where the ceremony will take place

The main building of the wedding venue - where the reception will take place

And lastly, before we headed back to our hosts for our last night of the visit, a brief visit to the tulip festival with all it's gorgeous tulips and not so gorgeous crowds.

Tulip Festival, Dow's Lake, Ottawa, Ontario

The neatest part of this corner I somehow turned in the last few months was that although fatigue is still something to be reckoned with, for the most part the anxiety and hypervigilence is gone.

Statue at Dow's Lake, Ontario, Ottawa

Even when it's not completely gone, it is now controllable. 

*****

Living life as it happens is turning out to be a truly enjoyable phase of recovery at this time.

It is fast paced, lively and ever changing.

I know that things will not always be positive, but I have these memories, these pictures to remind me of the good times, the good people, and the recovery that is ongoing.

I hope you will stay with me on my journey towards recovery from workplace abuse.