Date: 3rd July
Well how the mighty have fallen. And by mighty, I mean me and my wonderful tendency to see the best in people and dream of a life where I am happy, content and thriving with a job that, 8 months ago, sounded like a dream but has quickly turned into a nightmare I cannot escape.
Honestly, I'm heart broken and so deeply hurt and upset it pains me to my soul. I feel like I have the world stacked against me and even my delicious optimism can't seem to help me out. I guess I've officially made that lovely spot between a rock and a hard place my home for the foreseeable. Karen and I have always had a bit of a rocky relationship since I started. She was flaky but would always show back up when I was beginning to doubt whether she was invested in this project. But then the comments and snarky remarks started. And while I excused a few and tried to assume best intent, having your mistakes and misunderstandings called out in front of the entire office (repeatedly) in the first 2 months of your existence at a new job doesn't make for a particularly relaxing or safe feeling environment. Add to that, her telling me to get drunk to deal with my anxiety or that I needed to not be "so dramatic" when I was panicking over a formal meeting with people I'd barely met or in some cases, never met before, and well, I reached a point where I was unable to engage with her without going mute, shutting down or having panic attacks before or after meeting her. I tried to solve things myself, deal with things myself but realised I couldn't without putting the project (and more importantly), my own health at risk. So I went to Matthew (Karen's boss and the leader of the charity in question) and spilled my heart and soul out to him and then to Chloe in the hopes something would change.
But nothing did. It actually got worse. Karen got informed of what I'd said to Matthew (which I knew would happen) and lashed out. We had a meeting to try and work things out but the result of that was that I essentially needed to fix things. And after said meeting, Karen quite literally ignored me and my existence for AN ENTIRE MONTH. Wouldn't make eye contact, wouldn't respond to emails or messages, would not for the life of her stay in the same room as me, talk to me or acknowledge I was even alive. I lost count of the amount of tears, panic attacks, panicked episodes, sleepless nights and more that I had that month. I saw the project failing, was spending hours after work trying to find work arounds, solutions to issues she'd caused and frantically trying to work out what the fuck I had done to cause this. I quite literally took my work home with me in an attempt to fix this mess. And the cherry on top was that Karen never once apologised to me for anything and blamed me for everything going wrong. She's still not apologised for anything to this day and we're nearly 3 months down the line from the original meeting to "fix" things between us.
Long story short, Chloe got (willingly) dragged into this shit show to try and help Karen and I patch things back up. And after 6 weeks of waiting, fretting and debating my own existence and choices, Karen finally decided to vaguely re-engage with the project, having nearly broken my sanity in the process. We met weekly as we were meant to but she never had much to say and was about as warm as sticking an ice cube up your ass while swimming in the arctic waters. And boy, fuck me did I nearly quit about 7 different times over those initial 6-8 weeks of us (AKA me running around like a blue arsed fly while she did fuck all) "fixing" things. During this time, I'd also gotten minutes back from our quarterly Local Management Committee (LMC) meetings - basically big fancy meeting where everyone involved in the project I am running, come together, I present what we've been up to over the last 4 months and so do Karen and Chloe and voila! Meeting done. These minutes had the team painting me as an anxious mess and stating I was quiet, which hurt because while yes, I am anxious, that's not all there is to me. And I have no idea who the fuck thought I was quiet, because HULLO? No filter autistic human, gets anxious and 75% of the time, word vomits. Not quiet!
Anyway, I realised what they all thought of me and was determined to not play into that. I came to meetings prepped, engaged, asking questions, you name it. But there was now this niggling voice in my head wondering if I was enough as I am. I kept trying to engage with Karen but shit just kept failing apart faster than I could put it back together. I reached a point a couple weeks back, where I was so ill at work, having hardly slept and had ambulances called on me due to an ongoing heart issue (not life threatening), I nearly passed out. I'd gone in because I was so concerned if I missed a meeting with Karen, our relationship would fall apart again. And that week she had minimal engagement once again, causing me to feel worse, spike my anxiety up and feel like cack. But I stayed in the office, again for fear of repercussions. I was meant to do a formal work event post 5pm that night but despite getting dressed up and ready in time, I was so ill I couldn't actually stand or move without the world spinning and me feeling like I was about to pass out, vomit or a combo of both. I got driven home by an incredible lady - someone who was a member of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) at the charity. She'd spent the entire hour sat in the staff room with me, talking to me, listening to everything that had gone on and thus far, had been the only member of the SLT to not only listen to my concerns, but take them seriously and validate my experiences. But she told me to run while I still can, before the project failed and I got dragged down with it and blamed. And I very nearly did. And to be honest, I don't know what stopped me. That was about 2 weeks ago and I'm stuck on an endless emotional rollercoaster.
Todays panic attack and breakdown was caused by Karen joking in a 1-2-1 that I was "talking too much". Like hullo? WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO? SIT THERE IN SILENCE? If I had, she'd have moaned I wasn't engaging enough with her. And her and Chloe pulled apart my Wellness Action Plan, which I'd essentially only created because I thought it would be useful for them. I'd detailed it out with info on things I can struggle with at work, ways to deal with them, things I do to deal with my issues etc but got told it was both too detailed but not detailed enough. At which point my brain just shut down and internally cried. Chloe sprung a convo around how Karen and I were getting on with working together on me and my brain just lost its ability to cope. I've never been so thankful to have my phone ring before in my life as it got me out that room and once the phone had been hung up, panic 101. I've not had a really intense, typical panic attack in a good long while. But sitting on the floor alone in a stairwell at work, sobbing, hyperventilating and shaking so much I couldn't stand was about as awful as it sounds. I felt so broken in that moment and so alone. So SO alone. Stuck in an area I don't know, with no energy to go out and make new friends and my work friends are... well just that.
I wanted nothing other than to hide. And the phrase "you talk too much" has been banding about in my head all afternoon and evening. I don't care that it was a joke, it was fucking hurtful. And not a smart thing to say to someone who is being open, vulnerable and trying to engage with you even though you know she is very much struggling to trust you. I've been in tears on and off and just want to hide in bed and pretend like both myself and my job do not exist.
How the mighty have fallen. And I have 18 months more of this to go before I am free. Just why? Why do I get the ableist managers/tutors who are about as fun to be around as an angry bear covered in cacti. Chloe is fun 'n' all but she's ironically the one that would have less impact if she disengaged from the project as she's from the uni, not the charity. The ONE SINGULAR HUMAN I need to engage and support me makes unkind jokes, calls me out in front of the entire office, shuts me down, picks on me, puts me down and refuses to engage in the barest of bare minimums.
Once again, Elizabeth Woolley is branded as "too much" for merely existing in the world. I fucking give up.
Comments