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.
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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.
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| Now during the pandemic |
