“It’s okay not to be okay.” – Michael Clifford
What happened in my life over a year that made me decide I needed to take some time off work and participate in a Intense Out-Patient Program (IOP) Therapy Program.
One of the things I needed to deal within therapy was learn how to grieve the death of my dad. I have not been able to just cry. Not only to mourn him but since he passed away it was hard for me to cry about anything. I think I put a huge wall around me and I physically was not able to cry. I still, even after therapy, have not been able to fully grieve the loss. I think it will be something I work on with an ongoing therapist.
The series of recent events that started the downward spiral:
It started back in June 2024. I had been having pains in my abdomen. They felt like a large gas bubble or severe constipation. I started taking all sorts of suggested items from people to help. They ranged from Metamucil to Magnesium Citrate. I went to two instacare facilities and two emergency room visits.
Each instacare visit said they could hear that my body was going through the digestive process and didn’t hear or feel anything that seemed off. It was the second instacare visit that suggested I go to the emergency room because they have more equipment that the instacare facilities have. The first emergency room visit did a CT Scan and said it looked like whatever I had been taking to help “move things along” was working and everything looked liquefied and I should start to feel better.
About a week later I started having he pain again. This time it was more severe and a few days of throwing up green bile. So after a lot of hesitation, mainly due to feeling stupid after my last ER visit, I went back to the emergency room.
They again did a CT scan. This time the doctor comes in and said they found an obstruction in my lower bowel, they were going to keep me over night for observation, and that the surgeon would come in and talk to me. The doctor said they don’t usually do surgery with this kind of obstruction they usually would just put a tube in and clear the obstruction.
Not long after the doctor leaves the surgeon comes in and said they were prepping me for surgery and I would be in surgery within the hour. In the time span of an hour I went from staying over night for observation and possible tube assistance to emergency surgery within the hour. The surgeon explained that the Lap-Band (I had this put in in 2005) had come loose and wrapped around my lower bowel. They were going to do surgery to get it unraveled and put back into place. I begged the surgery team to remove the Lap-Band all together because I had other issues with it and was going t try and have it removed anyway. The issues were not related to the obstruction just other issues of having pain in my chest and sometimes not being able to keep food down, depending on what I was eating.
While this was all going on at work my boss had given her two weeks notice. I had no idea the effect, trauma and situation this was about to create. I was out of work for a week recuperating from surgery. My first day back my boss pulled me aside and told me she had given her two weeks notice.
The first week of July we were introduced to our new boss. She seemed friendly enough and so instead of my normal panic at change I decided to stick it out and see how it went. If I knew then what I know now I probably would have found another job.
Prior to June 2024 I was having conflict with a co-worker that I will refer to as “Jo”. There was ongoing harassment emails and instant messages. This person seemed to have an issue with any time I would need to correct them if they said I was doing part of my job incorrectly. I had been doing the job almost 2 years longer than they had and would send them information explaining the correct answer. It was a constant arguing with me back and forth. I had to engage in this back and forth because this person was in charge of allowing me to continue on with my workflow.
The new boss we will refer to them as “Heidi”. This new boss has no knowledge of what our department did or how our workflow process worked. She came in with the idea of making this team run just like other teams, with the back up of her management team as well. This idea may have worked if only they first learned what we did, how we did it, and why we did it that way before trying to change all the processes. This management never sat with any of us to learn the process or systems. It was super frustrating to all of us.
To top it all off “Heidi” was not addressing the ongoing hostile work environment that I, as well as other team members, were experiencing with “Jo”. At one point “Jo” physically stood up in the office and started screaming at me. I took this to higher management and all they did was “talk to him” about this incident.
After the screaming incident the harassing emails and instant messages ramped up with a vengeance. “Heidi” was on all emails & instant messages but ignored it. Until one day she was not in the office and I had to escalate it up for her boss. Once again I was given excuses that we are all under a lot of stress and pressure and it was likely to calm down after new processes were learned, etc.
This went on for months with nothing being done. So I finally went to our anonymous HR reporting company and submitted a complaint. This is a 3rd party company that helped work through issues. My situations was really unique to me and what my job entailed so I didn’t remain anonymous when I reported it. There was no way I could have reported it with enough information and still not let anyone know it was me.
Finally our internal human resource team because involved as well and “Jo” was given 2 written warnings. During the last write up I had become overwhelmed with the stress of nothing being done for months and confronted this person. My statement to them was something to the effect of I have to work with you so unless you contacting me is only related to the job to refrain from contacting me. My words were twisted and I was written up as refusing to work with this person. Which is not what I said, but I let it go. I mean what else could I do at this point. It became clear that my boss, HR, and upper management for some reason were only listening to his side of the story and decided that some how I was the problem.
During all this time I went on a mini vacation with a friend of mine to Cancun. This vacation was supposed to help me relax and recharge my batteries. It was the opposite. I knew my friends drinking was out of control but until that vacation I was not aware of how bad it had become. The vacation made me feel like I was in an emotionally abusive relationship where I had to wait and see how this other person was feeling that day before I knew what kind of day I was going to have. Don’t get me wrong the beach and atmosphere was great. I met a few people and ongoing conversations with some of them. I was able to fulfill a lifelong dream and got to physically swim with dolphins. I got to hold onto them as the swam me around, they did a little foot push where they put their noses on the arch of your feet and push you up out of the water where you are basically water skiing, then without warning they let you go. I inhaled a lot of ocean water at that moment but it was the best time I had. I would do it again in a heart beat.
The constant arguing because my friend forgot a conversation we had. They would get mad at me if I wanted to talk a small nap so I could stay up later in the evening or if I wanted to go to bed early the night before we went on an excursion. At one point I told them I was going to book a flight the next day and go home early. I wrote more about the things I did on the vacation on prior posts, I will not go on anymore about that.
September 2024 my doctor had received insurance approval to get my Lap-Band removed because the odd that I would have the same issue as back in June again were pretty high. September I had another surgery to have it removed. I was again off for work for about a week.
I am not sure of the timeline but at some point it was announced that we were getting a new manager. This new manager was know to us all because she was the manager over the other team that was a part of our group. We will call her “Anna”. Anna’s agreement of her taking on this new role was that “Jo” was no longer a part of our team and was to be moved out as soon as possible.
From day 1 “Anna” has been so supportive and treated me with respect and empathy for the things I had been going through. I wrote about my husband’s diagnosis in prior posts and how I hit a breaking point. Which is why I was in therapy for 9 weeks. There are more things that led up to this but these were the highlights that pushed me into a decision I needed to make a long time ago.
Behind The Brown Door 