After a Writing Hiatus on the Road to Recovery

Hello!

Again ...

After a long - very long - absence.

Where have I been?

Nowhere really.

Home.  In my little safe place for one.

Knitting.  Crocheting.  Reading.  Watching DVDs.  Playing WebSudoku.  Lots and lots of websudoku.

Sleeping.  Lots of naps due to increased fatigue.

Out and about.  Here and there.

Roaming the nieghbourhood as I'm able.

Taking rides here and there with hubby.

Taking pictures - lots of pictures.  (Is the pope Catholic?)


Sometimes camera in hand.  Sometimes not.

Living life events:  birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, festivals ....

Living life.  The life that's left to me.

Or should I say the new life I'm in the process of creating for myself.

I've been doing everything, it seems, except writing.

Writing is work.  It takes energy.  Which ebbs and flows - seemingly at will.  Unpredictable at best.  Debilitating at worst.

Processing.  Processing.  Processing.

Which takes up energy as well.  Which is in short supply.

Yet there comes a time, to shake off the lethargy and the sadness and tap finger to keyboard to see what, if anything, comes out.

So today, I take the plunge once again.

This may not be the blog posting you've come here to read.  Or come to expect.  But how does one take up the keyboard after months of not only absence, but months of hard work and processing?  After months of intervening experiences - some good; some bad - and life.

I look at life similar to the way I look at a river - continually ebbing and flowing, always the same in some ways, always changing and different in other ways.  Depending on the weather conditions, time of day, lighting, etc. 

Life on the road to recovery is similar to that river.  Always there.  But always ebbing and flowing depending on what is going on at any given time.  Constant; yet constantly changing.

So here I am again.

More on the road to recovery in later posts....

Post Workplace Abuse: Glimpses of Recovery in the Journey

Life post workplace bullying tends to resemble a large-scale construction project like the one currently nearing completion in our neighbour.   Unlike this construction project, our "reconstruction" project has no beginning, middle or end.  At least, not one we can see with our eyes.  Yet, the signs of recovery are there.  We just have to look harder for them.

********

As I was pondering what to write about today, one theme kept recurring to me.  Life post workplace bullying.

What does life post workplace bullying look like?  Really look like?  Is it all dark and gloomy?  It's definitely not all fun.  There seem to be periods of both intertwined in the journey.  Sometimes in the same day.

There are flare ups, to be sure, such as what I've been experiencing with our mail situation, yet even in the middle of those flare ups, there were still positive signs of recovery.  Such as two days ago when we needed some groceries and hubby was too worn out from working.  Since he now has three jobs to try to pay the bills, it's hard to schedule a day off and he gets tired working seven days a week.  We needed groceries - and I felt alert and alive enough to go out alone and get them.

For most people, this is not noteworthy.  In my past life this was never a problem.  In my present life, I rarely go places alone.   But two days ago, I went out alone without a backward glance - or a qualm.  For once, I felt strong.  Even after a week fraught with strong feelings of anger, rage, etc.  Fraught with flashbacks of the past and a resurgence of physical affects, I felt emotionally stronger than normal.  I'm not sure why.

I chose to go to a different store than normal, one smaller.  One unfamiliar to me.  One where you have to bag your own items.  No one does it for you.  Other than the fact that the stress from the episode of workplace bullying has caused eye problems and while I can see the "big" pictures i.e. large things like people, carts, etc., the small details are a problem.  Especially in a different store.  I needed honey.  Where was the honey?  It was hard for me to see individual items and read the signs.  So I slowed down and took it easy.  I decided it would be an adventure.  And it was.  Eventually I found everything on my list - and a few things that were not - and headed to the cashier.  As luck would have it, one cashier was just finishing up with a customer.  And she had a smile to die for!  In addition, she was kind and had a radiant personality.

One of my daughters called while I was out and was shocked to hear that I was grocery shopping alone.  Unaided.  Unprotected.

I was proud of myself too.  I went out, alone, unprotected and survived!  Hubby?  He'd been worried and was just glad I made it home in one piece - rather than in pieces.

It's incidents like that that give me hope for full recovery.  That show me in concrete ways that though I felt I was relapsing with all the "yucky" emotions and symptoms reappearing, that in the midst of all the bad, yucky stuff, there are concrete, irrefutable signs of recovery.  Those are what I need to look for.  And focus on.  Not the other, transitory stuff like emotions.

Emotions come and go.  There is really nothing bad about them per se, I've learned.  It's what the person chooses to do with them.

*******

I think I'll stop here today and simply bask in that one moment of concrete recovery.  Something that I've not been able to do before.  Something, that even though I'd had an emotionally - and physically - bad week shows that recovery is still slowly happening.

There are more stories about seemingly small things.  Things like going into what I felt was the whale's belly (referring to Jonah in the Bible) when my daughter accompanied me to Canada Post's distribution centre yesterday to pick up our accrued mail.  

Life ... is what happens when we have other plans.

Life has thrown me several curve balls - and continues to throw them regularly just to see what I'll do with them.

Until tomorrow....

Post Workplace Abuse: Life in the Trenches Dodging .... More of the Story

Some days you're the statue, some days you're the bird.  I felt like I was the statue during this time.

Going away for a few days didn't change my situation, my reality at all.  I was still in the early throes of a stress breakdown.  I stuttered.  My cognitive skills were impaired.  Yet, at the same time, it gave me what I needed to muddle on and through.  It gave me just enough of a break to pull back from my new reality so that I was no longer actively in crisis.  Maybe not too far away from it, but a bit removed from it.  Able to cope.  Maybe barely.  Maybe not too well.  But still able to cope.

Coming home, it took me a few days to be strong enough to access my emails and discover what the phone calls a few days previously had been about.  Something about a posting I'd made on my Facebook, that it was an ethics violation and demands that it be removed immediately.  These emails were sent over the weekend while I was away so, of course, since I didn't get them immediately, I didn't delete the "offending" Facebook comments in the demanded time frame.  I sensed anger in the emails because my supervisor specifically mentioned frustration that I was not answering my phone and, thus, she could not talk to me voice to voice and was forced to resort to writing.  Maybe because she didn't want a written record which would be copied and kept?

On my part, I was under the assumption that once I was signed off on sick leave by a doctor that the workplace was not to contact me except for matters dealing specifically with the sick leave i.e. short-term disability forms, when I would return, etc., the mechanics of how long I would be gone and when I would return, that sort of thing.  But nothing personal.  Nothing dealing with discipline.  I was under the assumption that that sort of thing would have to wait until I was well again and back in the workforce.  I was wrong.  Or rather, if I was correct in my assumptions, HR and my supervisor never got that "memo" as my story reveals.  I kept responding to their emails that I was off sick and needed time to heal and asking them to respect that.  They didn't.  They just kept finding new, innovative ways to come into my home via phone calls or email.

Reading my supervisor's emails, I was thoroughly confused.  I had nothing on my conscience, so I asked my supervisor for clarification.

It came in the way of screen shots. Of my Facebook page.  Not just the current one that they found offensive, that the bullies identified with and saw themselves in, but ones made more than a more previously at the time of my first breakdown talking about going into ER and what it was like.  My supervisor was monitoring my Facebook.  Not only that, I felt she (and they) were like peeping Toms peeping in on my most private thoughts and feelings via the computer rather than a window.

I felt violated.

I know that my profile was public until that incident so that it was not invasion of privacy in reality.  Because Facebook is public.  Anyone can access it until you set your privacy settings so they can't.

But still, I felt violated.

I lost more of my innocence that day.  More of my belief that people, in general, were good and kind and respectful.

I lost more trust - especially in those I worked with and for.  I realized that I was caught up in something that was way beyond my control.

I felt like a very little boat in a very big sea caught in a storm with huge waves washing over me and threatening to capsize my little boat.

It was tough.  Very tough.

I am so glad that I didn't experience this a few days earlier as was intended by my supervisor or I would probably have been overwhelmed completely.

In that moment, FEAR came in - and stayed for years as an unwelcome guest in my soul.

I no longer trusted people - and over time that extended to people in general.

Basically, I had these strong reactions because, in effect, I'd been successfully bushwhacked by my opposition.

If I could draw, I would express my feelings by drawing a picture of the outside, brick wall of a building with no windows, resembling the production part of the compound I worked in with pairs of arms reaching out of it.  Workplace bullying reaching outside of the workplace.

 I no longer felt safe even in my own home because I had no idea what these people were capable of doing.  If I'd had fear of retaliation in the workplace before, I was now terrified of what retaliation outside the workplace could look like.

I have no idea why someone(s) unidentified decided it was appropriate to look up my Facebook file. I have no idea why management and HR felt it was appropriate and didn't ask appropriate questions and discipline people.  I only know that doing things correctly, i.e. seeing a doctor, getting booked off work, not communicating to anyone i.e. co-workers in the workplace except those I needed to keep informed that I was off and for how long, didn't work.  I felt like all my efforts to protect myself were futile.

I believe now and believed then that I was cyberstalked by these people.  I mentioned that in a follow-up email to my supervisor.  To no avail.  By that time, I feel I had been so thoroughly devalued in the workplace, my character so thoroughly assassinated, that no matter what I said, no matter how much truth it might hold, it was automatically disregarded.

The possibility of being cyberstalked, the probability of inappropriate office behaviour and misuse of company time and equipment was blown off as not being a significant issue.  My behaviour and only my behaviour was the issue.  Even when sick.  Even when in the throes of a stress breakdown and trauma when the victim is acting in what they think is a normal manner in an abnormal situation.

What I was experiencing, my friends, was not a normal situation.

This was when the fear not only descended but blanketed me so completely that I no longer felt free and happy and alive in my body.  I felt constricted.  Emotionally paralyzed.  I was afraid to venture outside the house even to a near by shopping mall as I was afraid one of these people might see me and perceive that I was stalking them perhaps?  My therapist and I have talked about this fear many times over the intervening years.  She felt my fears were irrational.  But in light of what happened after the fact, after I was in effect no longer in the workplace, I could not shake these fears.  They became a constant part of my emotional make up, my new reality.

Spontaneity left.

This was when I entered into what I now call the "shadowland" with all traces of who I really am removed from my Facebook and from my personal day-to-day life as well.  My Facebook made private.  Status updates changed.  I no longer shared anything even remotely public via Facebook.  

It's taken more than three years of working consistently through all the effects and affects of the entire trauma before I realized that I do have a story to tell - and I have a right to tell my story.  To work through the pervasive fear and begin to live life more fully again.

I have no idea what my former colleagues might think if they do chance upon this page.

We're all gone from that workplace now.  All of us.  The building we once worked in is closed.  Everyone has had to leave either in retirement or finding new employment.  Scattered to the four winds (hopefully).

After years have intervened, the question still remains that if these former colleagues did access this blog, read it, and see themselves in it, would they be willing to jeopardize what they have now in order to further victimize me?  I don't know.  I hope not.

Only time will tell.

Until Monday.  Have a good weekend.

Post Workplace Abuse: Life Goes On ... and on and on and on

As I've pointed out before in this blog, life doesn't stop because you're going through trauma.  Life goes on.  Hour by hour, day by day, week by week, month by month and year by year.  Deaths, birthdays, life changes, illnesses, etc.

Saturday, I experienced a significant milestone on my journey:  my 65th birthday.  I am officially a senior citizen now.

Significant events cause me to look back over the past year and realize what the most significant events in my life were.  What means the most to me now as opposed to a year ago, two years ago, etc.?

What means the most to me now is family ... and friends.  Those people who have walked with me closely in this journey.  Those people who have never given up on me.  Like my husband, my daughter, her husband, my grands.

Today's blog will be about my birthday in 2013 ... just because ....

The trailer their gear was stowed in

The children's song goes "the wheels of the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round.  The wheels on the bus go round and round all day long."

So did the wheels on the bicycles of a group of people of all ages and from all walks of life who rode from Sea to Sea last year raising funds for poverty and awareness of poverty.  They lived out of baskets (two each, I think) on this trailer for the summer.  They slept in tents and on floors mostly.  And they rode their bicycles six days a week through every kind of weather imaginable - except for snow.

They started in California last year, rode through deserts and very, very hot weather, so hot that the tour had to be suspended for a few days and the riders and their bikes driven to another point around the very hot weather.  On August 9th, 2013 (my birthday) they drove through our area stopping for the night within a few miles of our house.

I had wanted to drive my bike with adult training wheels to meet them ... but was not able to do that.  My body simply had not recovered enough strength to do that.  I had wanted to have someone drive me to the nearest interesection so I could wave at them as they rode by and possibly hand out goodies.  That didn't happen either.

What did happen, though, was that my daughter and grands came by and we went to their stopping place for the night and gave them a variety of chocolate bars.  We even got to meet some of the riders (the early birds, the go-getters).

A rider picking out his candy bar.

Ok, Cassie so what does this have to do with you and your birthday?  Nothing really.  Yet it had to do with my journey of recovery.  I loved to bike, but last year it became evident that I

Early birds got the responsiblity of throwing all the gear i.e. tents, sleeping bags, etc. out of the trailer.

This was significant to me because although I was, and am still, totally incapable of doing such an arduous undertaking, my heart was with these guys and I was following their adventures from the beginning of the ride to the end via their blogs.

An early bird setting up his tent.  As I recall this was quite a victory in this man's life as he had had to leave the tour earlier due to heart problems and had recovered significantly enough to rejoin the tour.  Cool, eh?

And this was just the start of my celebration last year.

We then went to a local fast food Mexican place in our area and bought take out Mexican food to enjoy at home.  While there, my daughter and grands explored the back yard.  Just prior to my birthday, we'd had several bad windstorms and the privacy fence between our yard and our neighbour's up close to the house had been blown down resulting in a pile of boards to be inspected by curious grands and daughter.

Also to be written on by one very mischievous daughter - with help from her daughter.

And then there was my garden.  The Rose of Sharon was in bloom (it's not this year as we had such a late spring).

Smiling at me in all their glory as if to say "Happy Birthday".  We're glad you've survived another year.

The black-eyed Susans which, in and of themselves almost make an outdoor, living bouquet blooming in profusion where they're planted.

But that wasn't the end of the day.  We decided on the spur of the moment to have a laid back, low key birthday party in the park bringing in food from a favourite take-off which specializes in Southern barbecue at its best.  Because frankly I wasn't up to anything else, so my family determined to make my day a celebration even with my various limitations.

It turns out that my birthday was a special day for other people as well.  Me and my camera.  I could not resist taking a picture of this bride and groom as they were having their wedding pictures taken in the park.

And, of course, there were the gardens in the park in full bloom.  Beautifully landscaped.  It seemed to me that day that they were there for my pleasure.  To soothe my battered soul.

Whatever....  I did enjoy them though.

And then the family started to show up.

Hubby, daughter, the grands, son-in-love,  and his parents.  All there just because they value me.  Just because they wanted to celebrate this special day with me.  Just because ....

I felt loved....

Bonus!  They even bought and brought an ice cream cake to the park to make the perfect ending of a good day.  How they kept it from melting is a well-kept secret.

Unfortunately, the party ended very early as the fatigue was in full force that summer and I became too tired to sit up.  I guess that when the birthday girl has to leave, the party's over.

But it was good while it lasted.

Very good.

*******

I chose to remember last year's birthday in this blog rather than the most recent one two days ago, because it was another milestone on my road to recovery.  The realization that life - and enjoyment of life - is not over just because a person is still in the process of recovery.  Life can still be good.  Full of challenges, yet still good.  Different - yet still good.

As I look back on this year a year ago, I realize what is most important to me at this stage in my recovery. 

My family.

Because they're the ones who are in it for the long haul.

May God bless them richly.

Until tomorrow ... where we'll see where the deranged mind rambles next.

Post Workplace Abuse: Reminiscing my 63th birthday in 2012

Today, I am reminiscing and reposting my blog from a year ago today.  It just seems appropriate to me.

Tomorrow, Saturday, a day on which I take a rest from blogging, is my birthday.  One of those significant ones.  Not with a "0" as in 30, 40, 50 or 60, but with a "5" attached - as in tomorrow I will be 65 and officially a senior citizen.

So today, I want to give you last year's thoughts on my birthday and how we celebrated it in 2012, the year prior. 

A lot of what I wrote in this posting a year ago is as true today, a year later, as it was when I posted it last year fresh off my fingertips.

*******

Today is my birthday.  I am 64 today, although I pride myself on not looking my age.  

Yet every year takes its toll on me whether good or bad.

As you know from reading this blog, the last few years have been lalapaloozas.  Yet, at the end of the day - or is it year? - I'm still here.  Still trucking - or is it toddling - on?

Having good days - and bad days.

Yet, the good days, the good times are what I try to focus on.

Take last year for example.

Over a thousand miles (if I wasn't, it sure felt like it) away from home on the Eastern Seaboard of the US in Salem, Massachusetts for the much anticipated wedding of my nephew.  Most well known for its (now infamous) witch trials of 1692.

A piece of U.S. history.  A thriving tourist town.

Usually we celebrate birthdays with a family barbecue in our backyard.  In the last several years, family has become more and more important to me.

But last year, family was in various stages of transit from home to Massachusetts for the wedding.  Those who were already in Salem were the principals in the wedding, focussing solely on the next say's event.  The wedding took precedence over everything - as well it should.

The Friendship, a replica of a War of 1812 frigate, permanently moored and open for tours

Yet, during the last few years if I've learned anything I've learned that life, largely, is what you make of it.  I've leaned that while I cannot change anyone else, I can change myself.

I couldn't stop the adversaries from targeting me, from excluding me, from gossiping, slandering, defaming my character to anyone who would listen and ultimately to libel.  

I couldn't stop them.  I can't change them.  

But I can choose to recover.  I can work lifestyle changes which lead to a healthier, happier mind frame.

I can change myself.

And so, on this day which was probably not important in the scheme of things to anybody but myself and a small circle of friends, we chose to celebrate where we were and with what was at hand.  With my long sufferin' hubby who promised more than three decades ago to love, honour and be my travelling companion through the journey of life.

First up, explore Salem, find a restaurant for a birthday lunch, explore Salem some more, take pictures, walk around, take more pictures.

Doing one of my favorite things:  exploring.  Okay two of my favorite things:  taking pictures.

There was so much to see.  So much history.  Especially in the area we were in.

To celebrate, we took a cruise aboard a replicate of a War of 1812 frigate around the harbour area.  A sailing schooner.  

Something I've never done before and will probably never have the opportunity to do again.

An old rope shed at the mouth of the harbour

Enjoying the scenery.  Being with my best friend and hubby.

An interesting tidbit:  there are various versions floating around about who won the War of 1812 - depending on which side of the U.S./Canadian border you live on.  The Americans say they won.  Us Canadians know that we won.  The most interesting take on who won was by the captain of our sailing vessel:  the Indians won.

Take your pick.....

Historic buildings are everywhere, especially in the harbour district.  I loved this eagle atop this building.

Words cannot adequately describe the voyage, so I will let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

Aboard the Fame, a replica of a War of 1812 Frigate, for a tour around the harbour

Give me a lighthouse and I'm a happy camper

Ahhhh, the peace and tranquility of living in the moment.  Since it was a sailing schooner, no noise.  Heaven.

Getting a decent picture of this lighthouse became my personal challenge for the day.

The scene on the river heading back to where The Fame is moored

The cruise ended all too soon and we de-boarded.  Walking back to the hotel - and real life.  Our interlude ended.

Yet more adventures await us.  Some good.  Some not so good.  The wedding the next day.  Family.  Travelling home again....

The death of my mother two weeks later.  But that's another story for another time.

Life ...

... is largely what you make it.

Trite ... but true.

Today, I choose to make this the best birthday ever.  

Why?  

Cause I'm alive to celebrate it.

Surviving Workplace Abuse: The Nuts and Bolts of Trauma

This post is titled "The Nuts and Bolts of Trauma".  It is probably more the bolts, the bigger pieces, than the fiddly nuts - the ins and outs, the peculiarities.

Overviews start with the big pieces, the farther views and then start cranking in nearer and nearer - just like I do with my lenses when taking pictures.  Often I start with the farthest view and then crank in closer and closer until I get as close to the object, photographically speaking, as I possibly can - and then I back out again.

Each view, each angle changes the perspective a wee bit, yet, at the same time, making it more recognizable.

Perhaps something catches my eye as the gold spires located in the middle of this picture taken from Hamilton mountain did.  I was playing with my new camera and zoom lenses.

The thing with far views is that it enables us to recognize the object from a closer-up view.

Continuing on with more of an overview of trauma, Julie Woodley in Surviving the Storms of Life: Finding Hope and Healing When Life Goes Wrong lists 14 themes which she has observed occur in most accounts of traumatic events.

These are:

1. Trauma can strike anyone.
2. Trauma is often unpredictable.
3. Trauma leaves us feeling unsafe.
4. Trauma involves a loss.
5. Trauma makes us feel overwhelmed
6. Trauma is often unspeakable.
7. Trauma can isolate us from others.
8. Different people may interpret trauma in different ways
9. Trauma can change or challenge our view of God.
10. Trauma produces "hyper-arousal," "hyper-alertness," and "hyper-sensitivity."
11. Traumatized people often re-experience the trauma
12. Trauma leads to feelings of helplessness.
13. Trauma doesn't make sense.
14. Trauma is not incurable; recovery is possible. (chapter 2; pgs 27-39)

This list is just for starters.  The tip of the iceberg of understanding what trauma is and what it has done to you or your spouse, relative, friend, neighbour, etc..  Looking at this list, I've experienced all of them at one point or another during and because of the two workplace abuse situations.  Some of these I still experience such as feeling overwhelmed easily, feeling isolated from others, trying to make sense out of something that does not and cannot make sense (#13) and, of course, working on recovery.  Believing that recovery is possible.  With help.

After each of these themes, Ms. Woodley goes on to say more about each one.  To get a bit more into the nuts of each theme.  To clarify.  To focus the lens closer up.

For now, though, just look at the list of themes and see if there are any surprises there.  Things that you either never thought about or thought differently about.

To me, one of the biggest misunderstandings about trauma is that those people who are "healthy" i.e. have not experienced disruption in their lives due to trauma, think that there is something intrinsically wrong with the person who is suffering from it - or working through it.

I think one of the biggest hindrances is that "healthy" people think that I'm just weak.  Or, perhaps, just faking it.  Or maybe I'm not working hard enough to "get over it".  Maybe they think I just need to "move one".

They just don't get it. They don't realize that it can happen to them.  That no one is immune from trauma, no matter how "healthy" they are.

In fact, most, if not all, of us who have gone through workplace abuse thought that it could never happen to us.  The guy who had a reputation for bullying would not attack us because we were known for being able to get along with difficult people.

Difficult people.  A person can be difficult but not a bully. There's a difference.

We're not talking about something the survivor can just walk away from or move on from.  We're talking about something that has totally changed not only how the survivor experiences or perceives life but also, if severe enough, may have altered the dynamics of the brain function.

Walking through my own journey, I have encountered these affects.  I've experience the nuts and bolts of trauma.

*******

This shot, which was taken with my most powerful zoom lens cranked out to its fullest, shows the church building with the golden dome and spires more closely.

Last week, hubby and I were driving through this area of Hamilton, Ontario on our way to a scenic point on the Niagara Escarpment.  We were driving slowly along congested streets when suddenly I saw a church with golden spires.  St Anne's Basilica the sign read.  I knew immediately that I'd seen it before.  When?  Where?  And then I remembered.  When I got back home that day I looked into my files on my computer and Voila! there were the two pictures I'd taken more than a year ago.  Same building, different perspective.

Because I had seen what I now know to be this basilica from farther away and had been interested in it, I was able to recognize it when I saw it up close and personal from street view.

Trauma can be that way.  If we learn what it is from a farther view, when we see it more up close and personal in a relative or friend close to us, we will be able to recognize it.

Just like I recognized this building from the outside, I still have no way of knowing from these pictures, from the overview, what the inside of the building is like.  The layout.  The services.  The congregation.  Etc.  Therefore, it stands to reason that we may still need more training, more education, more learning of what trauma entails once we learn to recognize it.  We will need to learn more - eventually - what trauma looks like internally to more fully understand what is happening within us or the person we love.

Until tomorrow ....

Post Workplace Abuse: Friends - The Importance of Healthy Relationships

Where are we now in our journey through surviving and recovering from workplace abuse?  I almost feel like we're back at the Head of Trails pictured here at Cypress Lake National Park, Tobermory, Ontario.  The main, most popular, trail leads to the Grotto where there are steep cliffs and good swimming.  However, there are many side trails available to walk - some longer than others, some which reconnect to the main trail and some which don't.

I've noticed that on the road to recovery, I might be following many paths all at the same time.  The main one being the on-going focus on recovery.  However, as I've mentioned before, workplace abuse and, therefore, its many affects is complicated.  It affects many areas of our lives concurrently, and I end up working on all of these areas in give or take the same time frame, although not all with the same intensity.

Currently, in my daily journey towards recovery I am actively working on debunking the lies of "perceptions and assumptions" while at the same time working on socialization i.e. relationships.

So today, we're taking a "side trip" into a path that has cropped up lately in my journey and which is causing me to do a lot of analyzing and thinking.

The path of friends and relationships.  Healthy relationships.  What do they look like?  Is everyone a candidate?

So today, we take a side trip into another part of the story.

*******

Lately my thoughts have been turning to friends. Not specific people though.  But what that kind of relationship looks like.  What it's all about.  Especially among adults.  I mean we're no longer children here.  In my 60s I'm not going to have the same kinds of relationships I had in my early childhood years.  Nor will it resemble those I had - or rather didn't have - in my adolescent or even university years.  "Mature" people need mature relationships.

In my journey through my two experiences with workplace abuse, I abruptly lost two sets of relationships which, at that time, were very important to me:  first, when my contract ended at the first bullying situation and I was escorted out the door; second,when I threw my Bible on the floor of the church library and incurred the wrath of our senior pastor.  Because of his anger, I didn't feel I could return.  In neither situation, did anyone feel that they could contact me.  So at two times when I needed relationships the most, they simply weren't there (except of course for my family - and that's a whole other side trip).

Wait a minute, you might say.  What about three sets of important relationships?  What about your most recent experience with workplace abuse? Didn't you lose contact abruptly with those people too?

The answer is yes, I did lose contact with those people in that now former workplace.  But the answer is also, no, because I held myself aloof from those people after my first workplace abuse experience ended so abruptly and badly.  I did not allow myself to get close to these people.

Why?

Because I didn't want to be hurt again.  Because I think part of me realized that these people might well be another "transient" population in my life journey.  And also, because like the situation before, this one was not permanent - at least originally.  I was on a maternity leave contract.

In the first situation, I wanted desperately a full-time, permanent position, and my employers kept holding out the proverbial carrot attached to a stick which kept being just out of my reach.  Unfortunately, hubby and I realized after the fact that the stick with the carrot had been attached to my tail so to speak, so it would always be the same elusive length head of me and it would never be possible for me to catch it.

I realized that way too late.

So, this time I went into a temporary situation with a completely different mindset.  I would do my best to keep this position operating efficiently so that this person, on her return, would have a well-running desk to return to.  I didn't allow myself to even think of this position becoming permanent UNTIL the woman whose position I was filling took on a different job within the company.  At which time, the maternity leave vacancy became null and void and I was either going to be out of a job immediately or hired to fill the vacancy.

I got the vacancy and being a permanent member of the team.

BUT, the damage, the hurt, the sense of violation from the first experience was still very raw.  Still completely unhealed.  I was walking through a desert experience.  A dry and thirsty land where there was no water, no understanding of what I'd been through and, therefore, no understanding of why I wasn't able to "let go" of the experience, why it was still with me every minute, every hour, every day of my waking life from the very first moment I opened my eyes in the morning until the last moment at night when sleep finally - with great difficulty - claimed me.

Because none of us really realized that that experience constituted workplace bullying aka workplace abuse, none of us realized the impact of trauma and PTSD.  The damage.  The injury.  Not even the therapist I was seeing at that time.  Especially not her as she became abusive.  She not only had no understanding of what PTSD was, which meant that she also had no background in trauma, she felt that even if I did have PTSD it would not change the dynamics of her therapy model.

Thus, she not only didn't help me, couldn't help me, but she damaged me further.

This is not to say that I didn't have people around me, but I built such a wall around my emotions, that all my interactions were kept at arm's length.  I may have had quite a few acquaintances, but I had no real friends.

It was not until I discovered my new therapist, that the on-going journey of recovery began.

*******

It looks like the deranged mind has rambled, hopefully temporarily, onto a side path that will at some point reconnect to the main path of trauma and how ignorance of trauma hinders those who are attempting to walk with the survivor (or victim) of workplace abuse.  

Until the below collection of physical trails in a Canadian national park which are neatly laid out, those trails the survivor of workplace abuse follows are not neatly laid out and whereas physically, it is only possible to access one trail at a time, emotionally us survivors may be working on any numbers of "trails" at any given time concurrently.

Looking closer in relationships has been a huge part of my journey in the last few months which is why I'm turning aside on this blog for a short time, to look at it a bit more closer.

I have a feeling we'll be jumping back and forth between relationships, perceptions and assumptions i.e. lies and trauma quite a bit in the posts to come.

Until tomorrow ....

Post Workplace Abuse: Working through and processing events

My safe room.  It may not look like much, but it's a place where I feel comfortable, where I have all the "comforts of life" (more or less), where creativity happens and, mostly importantly, where healing happens.

Needless to say I was not only in a world of hurt when this staff member from my church left my home that day, but also badly in need of processing what had just transpired in my safe room.

Processing for me is where recovery begins.  I've been accused of being over-analytical and analyzing things to death, but at the same time this ability to analyze and process things has been one of the major strengths my therapist has discerned in her walk - and work - with me.  I analyze and process things so that I can pull back and look at the event(s) from a distance.  To distance myself.  To get a better grip on it.  To diffuse the incredible hurt and emotion involved.

*******

Processing doesn't always occur in any order.  It just is.  So here are some of the thoughts I've processed since that visit:

One of the most important things I've learned throughout the post-recovery from workplace abuse and post-aftermath of loss of a loved one journey(s) combined, is that people don't always stay in one category i.e. "safe" or "unsafe".  They can change categories at any given time based on their own circumstances.  A person who was once safe and supportive cannot be expected to stay at that level when they themselves are going through their own traumas, their own issues i.e. a sibling who is also going through the loss of the same loved one, etc. 

People have their own assumptions and perceptions which they are most likely totally unaware of.  Because assumptions and perceptions simply are.  They're part of us.  Most people have not had their assumptions and perceptions thrust at them as something bad so that they haven't had to really look at what assumptions and perceptions are in order to break free from lies.  In short, most people are not me and are not working through all the lies, the hurts, the misperceptions, etc. that I am. 

People are not mind readers. I thought that because my thoughts were so loud, almost screaming inside my mind, that they were so loud others could "hear" them, i.e. pick up on them.  I have had to learn that that is not so and that I have to use my words even with those closest to me like hubby.

Most importantly, I analyzed that day that the staff member who came into my home had no knowledge of trauma.  What it is.  How it affects others.  She was looking at me and my behaviour from what she and others who have not been wounded by trauma would assume and perceive.

I internalized that day that although this person had badly wounded me, she had done so through ignorance of a major issue in my life.  She was not a "bad" person.  She probably didn't intend to do as much damage as she did.   In fact, to this day, she still may not understand the incredible hurt and damage she did.  She simply didn't understand the basics.  In short, she was the wrong person to come into my home that day.  She didn't have the tools she needed to build a foundation with me.

I also realized that she had no idea of what my background in the church had been.  That when I had started attending six years prior, I was totally a basket case due to what had happened in the church prior.

How I started out trying to be a shadow.  I didn't want to draw any attention to myself.  I didn't want people to notice me or talk to me.

I had done all the "right" things in my former church.  Attending faithfully.  Volunteering.  Going to small groups.  Praying.  Giving. At the time, the lead pastor came to our door furious with me, I was even almost single-handedly feeding a family of five.

In the end, none of that mattered.  The only thing that mattered was that I had thrown my Bible on the floor in the church library in front of someone whose classification still remains a mystery.  The lead pastor originally classified her as a visitor but since she was in the library to "job shadow" me that day in order to volunteer, I would wonder about that.  When I voiced my concerns about that classification to the lead pastor, he quickly amended it to being new, very new. Whatever.  *shrugs shoulders*

I had worked hard for six years regarding trauma, PTSD, etc.  I had had significant recovery in those six years by working hard with my new therapist, by being consistent, by researching, reading.  It cost me time and money.  Money for gas.  Money for continued therapy.  None of which was covered under any existing health or benefit plans.  I did it because it was important to me.  Because I didn't want to stay stuck.

You name it, I probably did it.  As regarding this particular issue with my former church, eventually I forgave all those involved which was a long process.  As regarding the issue of feeling comfortable in a different church, I had eventually liased with the then interin pastor who has since go on to the mission field and is still in contact with me to this day.  He and his wife were invaluable in the process of being able to call our new church a church "home".  When he left for the mission field, another staff member took over.  We both saw his role as giving me the Biblical perspective.  He was not there as my therapist.  His role in my life was also invaluable.  He attended a session with my therapist and myself about trauma and we could both see how he was trying to wrap his mind around concepts that were foreign to him.  He too left the church after a few short months.  His replacement was supposed to take over that support role.  A role he never embraced which led us to this meeting in my home with a staff member who had no clue.

In the aftermath of that meeting in my home, my safe room, that day, I realized that all that knowledge was gone.  None of it had been passed on.

In the six years I had been in that church up to that time, I had joined a small group.  I came in afraid of my own shadow and slowly began to feel safe and build up relationships.  The group ended.  I guess I assumed that when the former leaders of the group found another small group, they would invite us in.  That didn't happen.  I discovered inadvertently one day that there was another small group which met on weekends and had included the former leaders of our small group in their small group.  Maybe I had at long last found another small group home.  I verbalized as much - and I saw the mask come down over the eyes.  It turns out that this group was by invitation only.  They had to know you.  They didn't know us.  Discussion closed.

These were all things this staff member who came into my home with her own judgements, perceptions and assumptions had no way of knowing.  She had no way of knowing where we had started off from.  She had no way of knowing that we had indeed been affiliated with a small group which had stopped and had never been reconnected to another one.  She had no way of knowing that I had regularly attended the women's meetings nor the seniors' luncheons.  She had no way of knowing about trauma.  She had no way of knowing anything that transpired after the one minister left.

She had no way of knowing.

*******

And this is where I end for today.  I am emotionally and physically exhausted with the effort of writing this post.  Every part of me has been screaming to leave it.  To stop typing.  To stop thinking.  To lie down.  To do something else, like watch a DVD, pick up some knitting.  Whatever.

Yet, I know that if I do that I may not start again tomorrow, or the next day, or the next.

At the writer's conference in June, one nugget I learned was to be consistent in my blog.  Since I've started writing five days a week to continue that way.  Also, to be consistent in the time I publish my blog - which since I write it after waking up in the morning and have been sleeping in lately has not been consistent.

I ask you to bear with me as I both walk the path and write about the journey at the same time.

Here is a pictorial view of what my path looks like at the moment.

Grab your hiking boots and come with me.

Until tomorrow ....

Road construction in my "hood"

Recovery from Workplace Abuse: Perceptions, Assumptions, Injuries, Coping Strategies

"Downtown" Stratford

Yesterday was my Stratford day.  My counselling day.  The day when I go in and touch base with the woman who has walked with me through this entire episode of my life.  A woman who has told me that she has learned a lot about trauma just by walking with me through this.  Which says a lot as the reason I chose her in the first place was that she was already familiar with trauma.

Trauma.  Both the core and the bane of the problem.

The core, because as with a physical illness that's what this injury is all about.  A bane because so many people don't recognize it for the debilitating illness it really is and/or don't have a clue how to deal with it.  So they usually either ignore it or walk away.

Adding to the complications of both walking through it and attempting to recover from it is that often the person finds that for emotional and/or physical reasons they feel more comfortable inside their own home, their own physical surroundings where they can create a safe space.

Out of sight.  Out of mind.

*******

That was my scenario, my situation, in a nutshell during that period of time.  And prior to that period of time as I'd had to severely draw back and limit all outside activities when the chronic, physically debilitating phase reared its head in the fall of 2011.

Out of sight, out of mind.

I adapted to my situation as best I could.

I learned there were all sorts of pre-made foods in the stores.  Unfortunately, most of them which made complete meals in themselves were in the form of pasta such as lasagne.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I love lasagne.  I love pasta.  But when that's all the options there are for meals that can be simply popped into the oven from the freezer, it gets boring.  Monotonous.  What I would have given at that time for a meal of roast beef and potatoes!

I did discover that there were frozen options for mashed potatoes.  Ditto other options such as bagged salads.

We ate those bagged salads a lot.  We ate lasagne and other meals in a bag, box, whatever often.

I coped as best I could ...

UNTIL ...

I fell out of the bathtub one morning and broke my wrist.

All bets were off at that point.

If I thought I was in a world of hurt before, I REALLY was in a world of hurt physically now.

My ability to take care of myself before the broken wrist had been limited to physical fatigue, feeling overwhelmed much of the time, depleted cognitive skills which made it difficult to impossible to read and follow instructions i.e. recipes.

I still had all of that.

But now I had added on extreme pain plus a cast that limited my ability to do common things like drive a car.  Did you know that it's illegal to drive a car with your arm in a cast?  It is.  It's also pretty well impossible as it's impossible for a casted wrist to grip anything.  Which is probably why it's illegal.

That cast prevented me from gripping anything with that hand - which happened to be my dominant hand.  I couldn't grip a knife to cut anything.  I couldn't grip a manual can opener to open cans to fix lunch.  I can't manage to grasp a spoon to dig into the coffee bag to get out coffee grinds to make coffee.  Try fixing even a simple lunch under those conditions where opening things is impossible.  I dare you.

I've been accused many times of being resilient.  Of having good coping skills.  Of learning new ones as needed.  I plead guilty to that and throw myself on the mercy of the court.

If I knew I needed a can opened, I would have to plan in advance and have hubby do it before he went to work.  The dear person who drove me to and front counselling would often step inside and do things like slice cheese for me.  Often that would be my lunch for the day.  I learned to open the cat's canned food by leveraging a knife under the tab and exerting pressure.  I would be breathing heavy at the end of the process, but I would have done it!  And the cat would eat another meal.  I learned to find a shallow tray, lay my measuring spoon on it and pour the coffee grinds into and over it using my left hand to measure the coffee into the basket.  I couldn't handle pouring water into the coffee maker using the bin provided (I don't have a coffee maker with a carafe which would have been easier), so I learned to take a common plastic drinking glass, fill it up and pour it into the reservoir as many times as was needed to make a pot.  I learned to use my left hand for as many things as possible.  I learned to communicate via the computer using the old-fashioned, one finger approach - using only the left hand. People learned to decipher my typos.  Any one of these things would leave me completely exhausted.  All of them together was more than I could handle.  I became more and more physically depleted necessitating more and more bed time.

My therapist said that I needed to rest in order to heal.  Both physically and emotionally.  But how?

Given my circumstances ... how? ... was the cry of my heart.

My counsellor asked me if I'd let my church know that I'd broken my wrist.  I snorted and said no.  I was already bitter about being left alone to my own devices during a time when I needed support more than I'd ever needed it in my life.  I asked my counsellor, why should I let them know?  If they weren't inclined to step up to the plate and support me with the grief issues, then why would they choose to support me now?  She said that physical was different.  They would understand that.  Try them.  Give them a chance to come alongside you and support you.

So I did.

I was I hadn't.

Yes, I got a meal delivery. One.

The person who brought over the meal was the same one who had brought the first delivery over.  In hindsight, I believe (as in perceive and assume) that that original delivery was done under duress.  They didn't understand the situation and were doing it only because I had made noise.

This person came into my home, looked at me with my bright blue wrist and blurted out:  "So you really did break your wrist!"

Many thoughts went through my mind.  One of which was:  "So I need to provide a doctor's note in order to get help?"  Another one was:  "Why did you doubt me?  Did you think I would make something like this up?"

I didn't say any of those things.  

I did get her to put the food items in my fridge.  

This, though, may have led to another misperception and assumption in the line up as my fridge was bulging with food.  Food which I had no way of preparing.  As someone verbalized much later on in that phase of the journey while the cast was still on, I had food.  I just didn't have hands.  She never came back.  No one from the church office or the caring committee ever called me to see how I was doing or if I could use another delivery.

I had food, but I needed hands to convert that food in the fridge, the raw materials, into a bona fide meal.  Just as the yarn in my stash isn't going to magically become a scarf, etc. until needles are applied.  Needles with hands attached to them.

Which leads me to another huge problem in the recovery process.  Knitting and crocheting are my right brain therapies.  Those I use to help keep me stable.  With my wrist in a cast, it was impossible to knit or crochet.  I had lost, at least for a time, the ability to do something which I needed to do in order to heal emotionally.  Those who are knitters themselves will understand fully.  Those who are not, will not understand.

I had a husband. But husbands, especially those who are working a physically demanding job, can only do so much.  They come home tired and hungry after a long day's work.  They want to come into the door, smell a good meal on the stove and say:  "Smells like someone loves me."

Instead, the poor guy came home day after day to a house where it was obvious that nothing was on the stove for supper and had to start preparing a meal for both him and his wife.

In the original stages, the poor guy had to dress me.  I figured out how to bathe myself (remember what I said about being resilient and coping skills?).  The one thing though that I needed help with that I couldn't figure out on my own and he refused to do was wash my hair.  We found a hair cutting place which was willing to wash my hair for just a few dollars as opposed to the approximately $40 fee most places charged.  We found ways to cope.  But each way took a toll a me.  A physical toll on an already depleted body.  Plus, an emotional toll on a person who was already feeling worth less than others.

As my counsellor said, I needed to rest in order to heal.  However, without more in the way of practical support, that was not possible.

As I've mentioned from the book which became my Bible, my handbook, during the earliest phases of recovery Helping Those Who Hurt:  Compassion and Practical Ways to Offer Comfort, a needy person can easily suck those who walk with them dry causing them to burn out.

I came to realize that those who walk with me need to take care of themselves.  They need to be sure that whatever they choose to do will not burn them out.  I realized that not only did these people who were already walking with me before the death of my mom, before the broken wrist, could only do so much.  It would be unfair of me to expect them to take on more.  I chose to value them for what they were already doing.  I chose to thank them for each thing they did for me.

I needed more people to come alongside me at that time to do a designated task.  What ever they felt they could do without burning out.

For example, I would have loved for someone to call me every week or two just to see how I was doing.  It would have made my day to have a handwritten note or card in my mailbox, especially if it was regularly.  Anything to let me know that people cared.

It didn't happen.  Was it because people didn't care?  Or because they didn't know?

I prefer to think the latter.  I prefer to believe (i.e. perceive and assume) that there are caring people who would have stepped up to the plate if they had known, if someone from the church office had communicated the need and asked.

I prefer ....

*******

As I wrote this segment today, I realized how hurtful this could sound to those who did walk with me.  The lady who drove me to Stratford and doctor's appointments.  The friend who had lunch with me and even came by to help me plant spring bulbs in my garden in honour of my mom.  The friend who herself was walking through a horrible time with a dread disease and wanted to be there for me, but couldn't.  The neighbours who put sympathy cards in my mailbox when I first came back after my mom died.

Believe me, I appreciate you.  Thank you for being in my life.

Until tomorrow....