Cypress
Confident
In spite of having chronic PTSD I have always been able to work at a high level. Work has often been my only connection to the outside world and the scaffolding that I hung my life on. Last year I made a bad decision to go work in a war zone to pay for my impending divorce and came back last summer so symptomatic I could barely function. I took a boring administrative position within my organization thinking that would allow me to adjust and recover but I was quickly pulled into COVID response efforts ( I do medical stuff) and made to work rotating shifts, mostly evenings. This was hell on my my already bad sleep cycle and I had panic attacks every night walking to my car in an urban neighborhood. I was a mess, got into a car accident (no injuries but my fault) and decided to take a medical leave when my planned vacation time was cancelled at that last minute.
I talked to my doctor and we requested a reasonable accommodation for scheduling: strictly 9-5 with option for telework and flexible start time for "bad" days. My supervisor retaliated against me for this request and now I have an EEO complaint to go with the reasonable accommodation. My organization also denied the reasonable accommodation stating that I have 24/7 availability as an essential function. I am still on an extended medical leave trying to decide what to do next. I'm talking to lawyers and filing grievances but this will all take time.
I feel like I am not being treated like a human being but a piece of faulty equipment.
I feel completely lost without work to hold me together which my therapist says is not a bad thing. I need to figure out who I am as full-fledged person not a narrow-bandwidth, dissociative, workaholic PTSD'er. But some days I just cannot cope and all the propranolol and trazodone in the world will not fix that. I
'm also wondering if I just need to do something else completely but the fact remains that I need the health insurance, retirement benefit and I could never make the income I currently do if I quit. I am not young.
I'm not sure what I am asking here. Has anyone else gone through something like this in the workplace? Did it turn out well? Has anyone wound up suing their employer?
I talked to my doctor and we requested a reasonable accommodation for scheduling: strictly 9-5 with option for telework and flexible start time for "bad" days. My supervisor retaliated against me for this request and now I have an EEO complaint to go with the reasonable accommodation. My organization also denied the reasonable accommodation stating that I have 24/7 availability as an essential function. I am still on an extended medical leave trying to decide what to do next. I'm talking to lawyers and filing grievances but this will all take time.
I feel like I am not being treated like a human being but a piece of faulty equipment.
I feel completely lost without work to hold me together which my therapist says is not a bad thing. I need to figure out who I am as full-fledged person not a narrow-bandwidth, dissociative, workaholic PTSD'er. But some days I just cannot cope and all the propranolol and trazodone in the world will not fix that. I
'm also wondering if I just need to do something else completely but the fact remains that I need the health insurance, retirement benefit and I could never make the income I currently do if I quit. I am not young.
I'm not sure what I am asking here. Has anyone else gone through something like this in the workplace? Did it turn out well? Has anyone wound up suing their employer?