My Key to Recovery post Workplace Abuse: Debunking the Myth ConcerningPerceptions and Assumptions

I cannot remember the first time I heard the phrase "perceptions and assumptions" from my supervisor's lips.  I only remember the impact.

The words were clearly enunciated.  The middle syllables on both words - cept on perceptions and sumpt on assumptions - were stressed with the p's and t's at the end of both syllables clearly enunciated.  To my psyche, the stressing and enunciating had the effect of a cell door clanging shut.

Which was probably the desired intent.

To demonstrate power and control.

To shut me down.

To render me powerless and defenceless.

If that was the intent, it worked.

Each encounter left me not only feeling bruised and battered emotionally and shut down, but also confused.

What was wrong with the thoughts I was expressing?  With the way my mind worked?

I was trying to present my case in a rational and logical way, and it was not working.

Why?

I clearly remember one occurrence.  (Remember this is only one incident out of a long series of related incidences.)  My supervisor had arranged a meeting with HR at the suggestion of her supervisor.  My "perception and assumption" of the meeting was that it was to see if we could move forward on the issue and bullying.

I spent hours writing a letter which I handed out to both my supervisor and the HR rep.

While we were engrossed in our meeting, the HR rep was listening.  My supervisor was busy reading.

What she read did not make her happy.

One incident I outlined in the letter was the behaviour of one of the major players in the situation.  My "perception and assumption" based on what I was witnessing in the workplace was that she was doing very little in the way of work - while I was busy working my head off.

This person would sit at her computer - when she sat at all - and go on the net, check out this and that, etc.  It became a cat and mouse game as I kept trying to see if she was actually doing any work.  With very little success, I might add.  If she was actually working, she kept it very well hidden.

I had brought up this lack of work activity to my supervisor many times as a major concern.  Her response?  Beside being that it was all about my "perceptions and assumptions" was that I was not to be noticing her at all - which according to my "perceptions and assumptions" is very difficult in a small office with no walls dividing work stations - and that we both had jobs to do and we were both doing them.  End of story.  End of conversation.

Really?  We're both doing our jobs to our supervisor's satisfaction?  When only one of us is doing any real work?

Now here is where a real assumption does come into play.

For my mind, it's not a hard jump to take what I've observed about my co-worker's work - or should I say non-work? - related activities, my supervisor's statement that we both had jobs to do and are doing them to the assumption:  If this is true, then her job is to do nothing work-related.  Followed closely by the thought:  "Where do I go to apply for such a position?"  I mean to show up, sit at the computer for eight hours and surf the net, text message my friends, talk to them on my ever present cell phone, plan my vacations and get paid for it? Hey! This sounds like a dream job (except I'd get bored too easy if I had nothing worthwhile to do).  I said as much in this written document.

My supervisor took issue to this and on her way out the door of the meeting room pronounced:  "Perceptions and Assumptions" before sashaying out.  She also said she wished that I had talked to her about this before I wrote it.  To which I responded:  "I have.  Many times."  There was no further response except to watch her backside swish as she went out the door.

The HR rep never followed up.  At least not to me.

The situation continued unresolved and unchanged for several more years.

Years in which the situation increasingly escalated.

I am working hard to keep this post focused on my key point (no pun intended) re: perceptions and assumptions, which it is not easy.

Workplace abuse aka bullying is very complicated.  For one, there are many different players involved from the bullies to the bystanders to those who should have known better i.e. HR, management and even the union.  It would be so easy to go off onto a tangent at any given point.  

In fact, writing this series is bringing up so many thoughts, memories, etc. that the only way I can focus on the this one key point is to write all the other intrusive thoughts down to give them their time, their opportunity to be heard later.

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Tomorrow, July 1st, is Canada Day.  For those of my readers who live in Canada, enjoy your National holiday to the fullest.

Thoughts on Forgiveness in the Journey

St Jacobs (Ontario) Millrace trail

Being the proud recipent of a "deranged mind", my thoughts can go anywhere and everywhere.  Sometimes going off on different tangets in completely opposite directions at the same time.  From TV shows and personality traits to ... well ... the issue I'm struggling with (again) today:  forgiveness.

Forgiveness keeps cropping up in my journey.  I can't seem to escape it - no matter how hard I try.  Every particle of my being screams for justice.  I want justice.  Like a two-year old pounding his fists on the table or feet on the floor repeating the same phrase over and over in a loud voice.  A voice that will not be denied.  I WANT JUSTICE.

BUT....

There's always a but, isn't there?  Besides the one we sit on, I mean.

As a faith-based woman, the teachings in the Bible are my rulebook.  They're simple; just not easy.

The concept of forgiveness is simple.  Forgive those who have hurt you.  Those who have despitefuly used you.

BUT ... it's not easy.

Forgiveness goes against everything we believe in.

Again, we want justice.  Sometimes we want revenge.  We want the person punished for the hurt they have given us.

Whether it was spreading gossip leading to slander leading to defamation of character or something else, we want the person confronted with their wrongdoing.

Over and over in my mind, the scenario inflicted on me plays out.  The scenario that caused two back-to-back stress breakdowns with subsequent psychiatric injury.  Workplace abuse.  Verbal abuse.  You name it, it probably happened.  Although I was told that this was all in  my imagination and that it never happened.  I was accused of having perceptions and assumptions.  Eventually, I was forced to resign.

Every step forward seems to entail two - or more - backwards.  Little ones forward.  Gigantic ones backward.  Or so it seems.

The current step forward - learning about and how to use Social Media effectively through an on-line course is a case in point.  Exploring what I'm learning, I find people from different parts of my journey on the net.  Accidentally.  And that brings everything back to the forefront of my mind once again.  It feels as though it just happened yesterday although several years have passed.  It feels like it will never go away.  That I will never be able to leave the past behind and go forward into the future - a future that does not contain any of the people involved.

This is where forgiveness comes in.  The only way I can ever hope to leave the past behind is to leave it on the altar of forgiveness.  To forgive each and every person involved for their part in what happened:  bully and bystander alike.

Sometimes it feels like a grocery list of people to forgive should be tacked up on my refrigerator.  Sometimes when I'm praying, I feel like I'm merely reciting a list.

 Sometimes it feels like an impossible task.  Sometimes it feels like an unfair task.  Why should I forgive these people?  They're the wrong doers!  Which is exactly why they need to be forgiven.  Because they did wrong.  We don't need to forgive the one who blesses us.  Who supports us and holds us up.  They don't need my forgiveness.  Gratitude, definitely.  It's the ones who hurt me who need to be forgiven by me.  Not because they deserve it.  They don't.   They need it because I need to let go of what happened, to let go of any control over the situation.  Not to see them free.  But to set me free.

For my well-being.  For my sanity. For my eventual recovery.

I like the way Belleruth Naparstek in her book Invisible Heroes:  Survivors of Trauma and How they Heal describes the benefits of forgiveness.  Coming from a purely practical, psychological framework, she writes:  "The point for the survivor is to forgive in order to free up the energy that has been bound up in anger and resentment, and has therefore been inaccessible.  The goal of forgiveness is to gain a fuller, more vibrant life.  It is a form of kindness to the self" (page 263).

She writes concisely in one and a half pages what has taken me years to internalize in my process.

Once again, I surrender my right for justice.  My (perceived) rights for revenge.  I surrender them to the One who has walked with me through every step, every incident, every gut-wrenching step of the way.

The One who knows me intimately - and loves me anyway.

Forgiveness is usually not a one-time deal.  Often, it is a process with the accompanying forward and backward movements inherent in the journey.

But I am convinced that one day it will come.

Until then, I continue to choose to follow the path of forgiveness.

The path of most resistance.

For my sake.

Same day - same path
Further along

I only look normal ...

 But then that statement begs the question:  What is normal?

Indeed.  What is normal?

Is normal just a setting on your dryer as author and speaker Patsy Claremont states?

Or is there really something called normal?

And, if so, two questions come to mind:  (1) who defines what is normal? and (2) how do I achieve normalcy?  I guess the answer to question #2 depends on the answer to Question #1.

After what, what is "normal" to a gangbanger is definitely not normal to a Yuppie - or a Boomer such as myself.

What is "normal" to a person raised in the GI Generation (1902-1926 - which included my mom and most of her generation - is definitely not normal to those born in Generation Y/Millennium (1981 and 2000).

Then there are personality types.  I'm an ESFJ.  Therefore, to me those I consider "normal" are those who exhibit my same personality traits.

I've been blessed - or challenged (whichever way you choose to look at it) - with a deranged mind.  A mind that thinks for itself.  A mind that doesn't follow the leader - unless it makes logical sense to this admittedly deranged mind.

Irreverence, spontaneity, wacky sense of humour - and more - all come as part of the package that is me.

Add creativity, caring, empathy and compassion.  Keep stirring.  Do not overheat or boil as the package that is me is tender, fragile.  Scarred by life's events, yet still vertical - more or less.

Then there's the emotional scarring caused by verbal abuse, bullying in the school system and later in different workplaces.  Complex PTSD.  Trauma and recovery from.  For me, going through all these things, my normal is totally different from what someone else would consider normal.

Sometimes my "normal", taken out of the context of the talents, strengths, weaknesses and scars that comprise who I am and how I look at and deal with situations, seems totally abnormal.

Some years ago, I was dealing with a lot of different challenges which all came to a head on one particular Sunday morning.  I'd previously had a hellish work situation which ended badly and had just discovered that I had PTSD.  I'd gone to a counsellor who I'd seen off and on for a number of years who became abusive and had just started therapy with a lot of fear and trepidation with another counsellor.  I was being bullied by one coworker at my new job situation on an ongoing basis which was causing a lot of distress.  To top it off, my three year old granddaughter's paternal grandmother had been taken to the hospital. with a pulmonary embolism and was not expected to live.  My granddaughter was there at the time and was transferred to our care as her parents were leaders on a youth retreat - somewhere.

In retrospect, this was a recipe for disaster.  In retrospect I should never have been in church that morning, let alone volunteering in the church library.  I was too fragile.  Too broken.  Too hurting.

I threw my Bible on the floor in the church library.  Someone was so appalled at my behaviour that she reported me to the pastor.

The next thing I knew, my pastor who was considered to be warm, compassion and fatherly was at my door.  Furious.  Wrath personified.  How could I do such a thing?  How could I?  He kept saying to me.  Forget the compassion.  Forget gentleness.  Forget - well forget everything except that he was totally appalled at my behaviour and came, not to help in a terrible situation or to offer compassion and help, but to condemn.  Which he did very well.

For years I struggled with that day and the pastor's visit and reaction. His anger.  His lack of compassion for a hurting person.

Then I picked up H. Norman Wright's book:  Helping the Hurting.  One chapter goes through trauma and how that affects people.  The most significant portion I read stated that for people like me who have been through trauma, the "barriers" in the brain that regulate our behaviour have been broken.  They're down.  Not operating.  In layman's terms that I could readily understand, Wright commented that the trauma victim is behaving in what they perceive as a normal manner in an abnormal situation (paraphrased).

My "normal" on that day, at that time, was viewed through the lenses of an abnormal situation.  With the barriers fully down.

So then, we go back to the original question:  what is normal?

My normal as a victim of complex PTSD, trauma, verbal abuse, etc. is as far different from the normal of someone who has never had to face these issues as is the normal for a paraplegic from a person who has never suffered a spinal cord injury and is confined to a wheelchair.  The difference is visibility.  One is visible; the other is not.

What then is normal?

I agree with Patsy Claremont:  normal is just a setting on your dryer.