Recovery Post Workplace Abuse: This Blog

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Why do I write this blog?  Especially when it brings me back to a bad time and place?  A place I am still recovering from.  

My blog, which mirrors my recovery, is all over the map.  Not only is it irregular in topic, jumping from one topic to another, then back again, before going on to something else entirely different. Or stopping suddenly, just when it's getting interesting, and not going back? It is also irregular in posting.  For a period of time, the posts will come regularly, like clockwork, around 9 a.m. Monday to Friday.  And then suddenly miss a day - or two - or three.  Or even stop?

This is not the way to build up a regular readership.  I know that.

Yet, this blog is about recovery from workplace bullying.

Specifically, it is about my recovery from workplace bullying.

While I'm currently very much in the process of recovery.

Which is the reason it tends to be irregular at times - in both content and posting.

For me, recovery is a long-term process.  Like my counselling has been.  Especially if you realize that  for me recovery and counselling are very much intertwined.  I can't have one without the other.

My counselling allows me a chance to "debrief" what I've processed on the road to recovery.  For years, it was every two weeks.  Then earlier this year, we transitioned to every four weeks and now to every two weeks.

That in itself is a significant step on the road to recovery.  It means that I'm more and more able to handle whatever is happening in my life and need less "debriefing".  Yet, it also means that I'm processing more life incidents in between debriefings or sessions.

Which seems to mean I get tired easily.  I either take long naps in the afternoon ... or I end up going to bed early, very early, like at a time when the evening is just getting started for most people..

The processing in and of itself seems to bog me down periodically.  Lethargy ensues for periods of time.  Listlessness.

I know I'm in trouble when I don't feel like creating.

Speaking of creating, though, writing is another form of creating.  Just like the knitting and crocheting.  Except my materials are the computer, words, this blog.  

My motivation when I first started this blog was to have samples of my writing style to show prospective editors.  Which is why it's called Ramblings of a Deranged Mind.  I simply wanted something catching.  In fact, I'd had the idea of starting a blog years before I ever put one finger to keyboard.  I'd even gotten it set up on Blogger, but had never posted anything.  This was before I realized that recovery, for me, is very much a long-term work.  It seems to always be a work in progress.

As time went on, and I took a blogging course, I realized that I did indeed have a platform - and that platform, that main focus, is twofold:  workplace bullying and recovery from workplace bullying.  My blog, therefore, became more focussed.

I also realized that many people have been - and are still being - bullied in the workplace.  I'm not the only one.

I may be one of the few who is willing to be open and transparent about what happened, but I'm not the only one.

As I open myself up, others have opened themselves up to me about their various experiences of bullying:  at work, on the school bus, in the neighbourhood, at church.  Bullying knows no boundaries.  It crosses all lines.

The biggest sameness about the stories is the damage, frustration and confusion it causes those who became entrapped in its grips along with the silence.  Those stories, those hurts stay hidden in the subconscious.  Untreated they don't go away, they just lie buried like the dust bunnies under the bed.

Having said all that, the reason this blog has its irregularities is because it mirrors life:  my life specifically.

My progress on the road to recovery.  A path that is not charted.  I have no workbooks, no guidelines.  It's all a "do it yourself" kind of thing - with help, of course, from my therapist, my doctor, and a few long-suffering friends and family members.

It's a trial and error kind of thing.  Back and forth.

So when I find that a topic is becoming too much for me, i.e. the recent one on serial bullying where my research is so uncannily similar to what I experienced that it would be easier to copy and paste the entire article and redact out the pieces that don't fit, then to write about what does fit - which is most of the article.

I had to stop that theme, probably temporarily, so I can process those things - come to terms with them - and eventually let them go.  

So the times you don't hear from me are the times I'm down for the count.  Lethargic.  Listless.  The processing times.  The times when I feel like I am slogging through a very muddy field which is sucking my boots down at each step requiring more energy than I have to make it through that field to the other, dryer end.  The times that come before the victory.

Yet I am convinced that recovery, complete recovery, is coming.  It may not look like what I envisioned at the start.  But it will come.  My body may never soar gliding the currents in the wind like the above picture of a seagull, but I firmly believe that my soul will glide again.

Until tomorrow....

Surviving Workplace Abuse: The place of creativity in recovery

The picture above is of the back wall of my "safe room" which has also been dubbed "the office" as my computer is there, "the entertainment centre" as my DVDs are also housed in this room where I watch them on the computer rather than on a TV, and also as "the creation centre" as this is where I make things - the place where I allow my imagination to run wild with words, with thoughts, with colours, with whatever.

In previous times aka times before workplace abuse, I could only do things according to a pattern or a recipe as in cooking.  I was completely limited to the exact quantities and components as given in patterns or recipes.  My mind could not comprehend making substitutions or changing the script in any way, shape or form.

And then came trauma ....

I've read (somewhere, I can't remember where now) that trauma unlocks creativity in the victim.  I'm not sure why - and I can't remember now the rest of the article.  Only that those words hit a cord in me because I could see it happening in my own life.  In my own journey during the worst of the trauma and especially during recovery.

We tend to think of creativity as involving the arts - especially painting.  Yet it is so much more than that which is why I've copied a definition of creativity from Wikipedia below.

Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new is created (such as an idea, a joke, an artistic or literary work, a painting or musical composition, a solution, an invention etc.). The ideas and concepts so conceived can then manifest themselves in any number of ways, but most often, they become something we can see, hear, smell, touch, or taste. The range of scholarly interest in creativity includes a multitude of definitions and approaches involving several disciplines; psychology, cognitive science, education, philosophy (particularly philosophy of science),technology, theology, sociology, linguistics, business studies, songwriting and economics, taking in the relationship between creativity and general intelligence, mental and neurological processes associated with creativity, the relationships between personality type and creative ability and between creativity and mental health, the potential for fostering creativity through education and training, especially as augmented by technology, and the application of creative resources to improve the effectiveness of learning and teaching processes.

For me, the most dominant form of creativity has been manifested in the works both knit and crochet that I do with my hands.  Yet it also comes into play in my kitchen as well as other areas of my life.

This afghan, which I call the "Juliet afghan" after the first recipient of one, was an act of pure imagination for me.  I had met this young lady during our "memory lane" trip back to where hubby and I had met 30 years prior.  Hubby and I accidentally reconnected with her parents whom I had worked with on the mission field all those years ago.  Within 2 1/2 years of our meeting, both of her parents died of different causes leaving Juliet as what we call an "adult orphan".  My heart went out to this young lady whom I had only met once or twice and I wanted to do something special for her.  Something that might help her through her journey of grief.  So I decided to make her what I call a prayerghan.  An afghan sprinkled with prayer in its creation.

On the right is a picture of another afghan, one I was making for my mom when she passed away.  This was the format I intended to use for Juliet's afghan.  Yet, as I searched out possible yarns in my stash, my imagination got carried away with itself.  It became (to me at least) a piece of knit art combining all sorts of different yarns, colours, yarn weights, fibres.  It cannot be duplicated.  The concept can - and has - been duplicated once.  But each Juliet afghan is so very different because of the combination of yarns used.  No two are alike.

Above and below are two different shots of Juliet's afghan.

A shot of a second Juliet afghan, now completed and rehomed, is below.

As I knit there seems to be a magical connection between my brain and my fingers - completely bypassing my mind.

As I watch things grow beneath my fingers, as I feel the texture of the yarn(s), I seem to come alive with newness, with purpose.

I call knitting my right brain therapy.

And so it is.

Yesterday, I wrote about a typical day in the life.  Of course, in reality there is no "typical" day in anyone's life as each one is different and unique in its own way.

Yet, a "typical" day for me includes hours spent doing my favourite right brain "therapy": knitting.  Creating something special.  Something which will eventually be given - or sold - to someone.  A therapy which not only allows my left brain, the analytical part, the part which is constantly trying to make sense of a situation (the bullying) which makes no sense, to rest and to heal.  It gives me a break from the constant torment of remembering what happened.  It provides a purpose in my life.

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I have an inactive blog called The Naked Knitter.  I started this blog to chronicle my activities in the knitting realm so I haven''t blogged much about knitting in this blog, my ramblings.  Yet, I find it impossible to separate the two.  This blog is about recovery from workplace bullying, from trauma.  For me, knitting has been and continues to be a huge part of my (admittedly slow) journey towards recovery and I think it appropriate to start including pieces of that part of my journey here in this blog.

Each person who is recovering from trauma - whatever their trauma may be - needs something they enjoy doing as part of their recovery process.  Something that brings them pleasure and fulfillment.  For each of us, that will be different.  For me, I think in the arts such as photography, knitting, crocheting, writing.  For others, it will be something different.  Perhaps building something, woodwork, dancing, sculpting (oops! that's arts again but very, very hands on), skating, etc.  A place where the person can simply enjoy what they're doing and even if for only a brief period of time, let their right brain take over so their left brain can rest.

Until tomorrow....

Post Workplace Bullying: Chronic lingerings from the abuse

A random picture from my trip to Belize last winter

Yesterday, I wrote about "If I could do anything post workplace abuse, what would I do?" in which I wrote that I would travel, take pictures and write.  In that order; however, all rolled into one ball.  One package.

What is holding me back from realizing that dream?  From making this a reality.  I have the vision.  I have the skills.  I have the equipment i.e. the camera and the laptop.   I'm pretty far along on the road to recovery.  Or at least, I like to think that I am.

So what is holding me back from making my dream a reality?

In short:  the lingering affects of the workplace abuse.

Let's face it, I'm not the same person I was before this all happened.  Or even during.

I used to be a high energy person.  Extroverted, even.  I used to be highly articulate.  Not any more.

The two back-to-back stress breakdowns I experienced while still employed left me initially in an acute state of disrepair.

Some months later, the acute became chronic.  I still, three years and counting, work with the chronic, lingering affects of the bullying, the brutal stress on a daily basis.  Each time I feel like I'm getting stronger and should be able to start reaching for my dreams, something comes along to knock me down - again.  Recently, it's been the on-going, unresolvable situation with the mail which knocked me for a loop because it triggered.

Another place (the jetties at South Padre Island, Texas), another time.  Before.

I'm not the same person I was.  Physically.  Emotionally.  Spiritually.  Financially.

The two aspects that have been impacted positively are emotionally and spiritually.

The two that have been impacted negatively are physically and financially.  Both of which play crucial parts in my plans - or should I say attempts - to rebuild my life.  I no longer have the physical or financial resources to do the things I want to do.  I don't have the money to buy a plane ticket and fly to wherever.  Physically, once I get there, I would probably have to lie low and rest.

You've probably heard the saying:  the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

Well, there you have it in a nutshell.  My spirit is willing.  Very willing.  It can think of all sorts of ideas and feel strong enough to carry them out.

But the flesh, unfortunately, has other ideas.  It isn't able to carry out what the spirit dreams up.  It keeps going on "strike" at inopportune times.  It demands naps.  It gets shaky.  The mind still has affects that crop up regularly.  Confusion, poor cognitive skills - meaning sometimes I can't think straight or get a complete sentence out of my mouth.

With all these things going on in my mind and body at will - their will, not mine - how can I even think of committing myself to being some place at a specific time and date to take pictures.  Especially, how can I even think of going on a trip with a group of people where I'm not there as a participant but in an official capacity as their blogger and photographer?  Would I be able to fulfill their expectations satisfactorily?  Would I be able to fulfil my own expectations?

*******

The other day, hubby took me on a day trip to a place we've been before:  Hamilton mountain - which is not really a mountain per se but is part of the Niagara escarpment.  There's a park up there overlooking the industrial area of Hamilton (Ontario) and Lake Ontario.  It's a great spot for picture taking.

We had a great time, but had to cut our outing short as I was getting tired.  By the time, we got back home I was more than ready for a nap.  In fact, functioning was out of the question until I got that nap.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever get "well" - meaning well enough to maintain a normal routine which involves going outside my house, my safe place, interacting with others?  Even earning money?  Or am I doomed to stay on this iffy, on again-off again road?

I get frustrated regularly as I walk this road I never asked to go on.  The grain of sand in my shoe wears me out.

Yet every so often, I see glimmers of hope shining through.  Those glimmers of hope are what I cling to when I have a relapse and things go dark again.  They keep me going.

Until tomorrow....