Write Canada 2014: An adventure on the road to recovery from Workplace Abuse

Write Canada 2014.

I cane.  I saw.  I stayed.

I pushed my limits ... and had a whale of a time.

I reconnected with people I'd met in 2013 ... and made new friends.

I took pictures ... and gave away home made gifts to those I had connected with last year and others I met this year.

I came with business cards listing my blog ... and handed them out unashamedly.

I told people unashamedly and boldly what my platform is:  workplace abuse.

I told my fellow writers and attendees about my blog.  I was not ashamed that I'm with all these people who have written books, published books and/or are editors and article writers.

I. Am. A. Blogger.  Maybe in the future I'll expand.  But for right now I. Am. A. Blogger. on the way to recovery.

I learned that I'm not exactly a Christian writer.  I'm a Christian who writes.  There's a difference.

I picked up some really good nuggets unexpectedly - including the one above.

I came away tired both mentally and physically.  OK, OK, let's make that exhausted as my bed and I have been best buds since I got home.  But hey! it's a good tired.  A good exhaustion.  Because it means that I did something challenging on the road to recovery.  Healing occurred.

I came away with hope.

Hope that I can build this blog into something more.

I came away with the realization that I not only have a story to tell but that it's everybody's story.

My story is the story of everyone who has gone through workplace abuse.  Yes, there are differences in the specifics, but there is a common thread between my story and your story.  Or the story of the loved one you are trying to navigate this journey with.

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We are all travellers on the same journey.  We just take different side trips and have different means of getting there.

Note:  This is not the blog I intended to write today.  That posting in its infancy ended up being cut and pasted onto a new blog.  I'm sure it will see the light of day sometime ... even probably sometime soon.  But for now, I wanted to reinforce the victory of this experience.  The positive.  Forget the prose.  Forget the background.  

Experience the present.

That is what I did this past weekend at Write Canada 2014.

See you tomorrow for more of the story.

Following Up: Victory on the Road to Recovery from Workplace AbuseThis si

The scene of the crime ... er ... I mean conference:  Guelph Bible Conference Centre.  A gem hidden away smack dab in the middle of Guelph, Ontario.  Bordered on one side by Waterloo Street and on the other three sides by houses.

A small oasis of peace in the busyness of the city of Guelph.

When you're there, you feel like you're sheltered.  Like the world doesn't exist.  Like the big, bad world is way, far away and cannot come in.

Or at least it felt like that to me.

A pilgrim on the road to recovery.

Funny, I should word it that way.  On the road to recovery.  Instead of "on the road to a writing career".  After all, that is what the conference is all about:  writing.  

Not recovery.

But for me, overcoming my fears, getting out in public, facing the big, bad, wide world alone.  That is the intention - at least for now.  That is the victory.

The writing will come, I believe.  Once the recovery comes.

The first thing I saw when I wandered around the book store set up in the gym of the facility, was this bowl.  Welcome Friends.  I felt a warm fuzzy seeing it.  I felt welcomed.  I felt like I was among friends.  Old friends.

In my last blog, I wrote about my first writers conference in 2013 where I went with my niece.

This year, I felt well enough to try it alone.  To go out into the big, bad world by myself.

Yes, I did have a plan A, B and C.

Plan A:  to go to all the workshops, continuing classes, meals, etc. and live life as a "normal" person.

Plan B:  to hide in my room and take a nap or naps if necessary.  (I even brought a small knitting project along just in case it became necessary to hide behind my right brain therapy.)

Plan C:  to call hubby and get the hell out of dodge if it just became too overwhelming and the affects such as stuttering, extreme fatigue, inability to speak, lack of balance, shortness of breath, etc. started to rear their ugly heads.

I am pleased to announce that I kept with Plan A.

Yes!

I made it to each and every workshop and continuing class.  I even spoke up a few times in class.  And I didn't have to resort to right brain therapy.  Not even once.

I felt safe.

This cornerstone on the building which houses the chapel at the GBCG, says it all.

I know this posting is short, but here is where I will end for today.

Why?

For one, my mind is still busy processing all the stimuli from three busy, packed days.

For two, I'm tired.  Victories are great, but even super women get tired ... sometimes ... and need to rest and refresh.

For three, I'm peopled and socialized out.  Time to regroup for a few short hours.

So tomorrow, I will (probably) continue with this amazing victory on the road to recovery.

Until then ....

Victory on the Journey: A Victory in the Making

The Picturesque Guelph (Ontario) Bible Conference Grounds where Write Canada! is held

Apparently this is a week that will go down in history as Victory Week in the life of Cassie Stratford.

The last two blogs have been about the amazing victory of last Saturday.  Venturing out in public, alone, unsupervised, unchaperoned, without my ever-present protector, encourager and supporter - my ever-lovin' and long-sufferin' hubby.  (He would have looked sort of out of place at a knitting thing attended by mostly women.  Especially as he doesn't knit.)

Today, I am venturing out again alone into the world that once contained so much fear.  This time for a three day writers conference in a nearby town.

The key word here is alone.

Except for very occasional short outings for counselling - which is a very safe place with a very safe person - and/or doing a few errands in the uptown core, I don't get out much.

When the damage hit its height around 2012 and into 2013, I felt safer and more comfortable at home holed up in the smallest room in the house - beside the bathroom that is.  Even I'm not so wacky as to want to hang out in the bathroom for extended periods.

This room which I later started calling my "safe" room has everything I need in it - except bathroom and cooking facilities - to maintain life as I live it:  my computer, phone, DVDs, yarn, patterns, needles, hooks, books, a space heater and a fan.

The only thing it lacked was people or rather socialization.  During that time period, most of my socialization needs were met either through my poor hubby, family members, or social media.  I even took a few writing classes via the net.

But healing has now progressed to the point where it's time to press the limits a bit.  To grow.  To change.  To expand.  To experience new things.  To start socializing.  With real people.

Always with a plan B and even a plan C which I hope I won't have to use.

So today, I go alone into the world.

I went to this conference last year - with a companion/caregiver who just happened to be a very special niece that I had bonded with along the journey.

Yes, I was scared.  Partially of the people.  But also of the affects I was continuing to have such as lack of balance which would come on suddenly, extreme fatigue, shortness of breath, difficulty communicating as in sometimes the words wouldn't come or if they did they would come out wrong or I would start stuttering badly.

It had been a dream of mine to attend this conference and I had already put it off one year (2012) thinking that I would be magically better by the time it rolled around again in 2013.  But I wasn't.  So I decided to bite the bullet and find a way to go.

I wrote them, described my difficulties and threw myself on their mercy.  These gracious people made a way for me to attend.  They allowed me to bring a caregiver.  As she was there to support me and not to attend the conference as such, they waived the registration fee for her and she was allowed to attend paying only for her meals and lodging.  Because of the cause and nature of my difficulties, she was allowed to attend my classes with me.  We were joined at the hip so to speak.

My "caregiver", my niece, my friend.
I cannot thank you enough.

I cannot thank them or my niece enough.  Because other attendees came with a friend or daughter or whoever, a niece/aunt combo wasn't considered abnormal.  To the casual observer, we appeared to be two family members with a common interest who were out to learn more about their craft, thus not raising any red flags.  And because of her, I was able to act more normal, to feel normal, to relax a bit and enjoy.  She was there constantly.  Poor girl.  As I indicated earlier, the two of us were more or less joined at the hip.  Where I went, she went - except to the bathroom of course.  Even I have my limits - and pride.

We both had a great time.  I came away last year with a sense of pride and accomplishment.  I had faced a major challenge - and succeeded.

I was tired, very tired, exhausted in fact - but very, very happy.

To me, going to this conference was like facing my personal Mount Everest.

The 12 months between last year's conference and this year's has been filled with ... well ... life.  Good and bad.  Up and down.  Forward and backward.

BUT....

The most amazing happening in these last twelve months is that my pre-workplace abuse personality has come back from wherever it went on its long vacation.

With its reappearance, a lot of the major affects either disappeared altogether or dwindled to much lower, more manageable levels.

I'm ready to embrace life again.

To meet challenges.

To see where it takes me.

Look out world!  Here I come!

Note:  This will be my last blog of this week as internet connections there are iffy at best with so many attendees trying to use their computers at once.

See you next week with hopefully another tale of victory on the journey!