A Very Unfunny Thing Happened At Work Today…

[Yzeal]

I’ve got a bit of a problem and am wondering if I have a case…

I went back to work for the first time on Thursday. I’d been on ‘leave’ since my diagnosis and was glad to come back. I had two good days, and then today, I went to work and—quite on accident, two of my co-workers triggered me. It took a while for me to recover. After eating breakfast and taking all of my medicine for the morning I got half-way through my shift and began to feel…off. So I took my break early. I figured twenty minutes in a dark room sitting still to wait for the anxiety and vertigo attacks to wear off would help.

Long story short, every time my time went up my supervisor gave me the “go sit back down, you look terrible” line—even when I was feeling better. By the third time in I was having another one.

After a while I hear a knock on the door of the room I’ve appropriated; by this time it’s been almost an hour since the initial attacks. She says that she’s sending me home and she’ll let me know IF I can work tomorrow. Reasoning:

• She says that if this happened today, it’ll happen every day (even though the last two days were fine).

• She claims I’ll hurt a guest in my ‘condition.’

• Then she says that the main accommodations I’ve asked for—having coworkers to please approach me slowly and asking them not to reach for me palm-visible—were unreasonable.

• She demonstrates this point by demonstrating the latter, and using my understandably freaked-out reaction as proof that she’s right.

• She then blames me for not taking my medicines (sertraline HCL and Vistaril) earlier than I did, and says this is my own fault.

• She triggered me on purpose and then said it was my fault. I’m pretty sure that’s illegal. And if it’s not it’s at least VILE.

Any thoughts on how I should deal with this?

 

[Deleted member 12723]

oh brother I don't have a clue of what to do. I am so very sad that this happened to you. I would go home and stay there and get better before I tried it again if i was in your shoes.

This is vile. Mabe illegal but you do not have any proof. What a sickening situation. I grieve with you. Take gentle care of yourself. Mabe someone will be around soon who can be of use and assistance to you.

 

[Yzeal]

That's the thing—part of my doctor's orders were to get me back out there so it doesn't get worse than it already has. The more time I spend isolated like this (I can't get out much due to a leg injury) the harder it is to get myself to even get out of the apartment. If it turns out that she's told the whole darn story to her immediate supervisor (my manager) though, and I have to get that in writing for my rent to be adjusted, there's that.

I've started looking into it. This isn't the first time this has happened. I'm still trying to fix my leg and definitely DON'T need people at work intentionally trying to break my brain further.

 

[Lucycat]

I sympathise!

I have been back at work for 5 days after being off sick for 3 months. It is 2 years since I was diagnosed with CPTSD, when I was off for 4 months, but since then I have been back at work and doing just fine until January.

On my first 3 days back at work last week - when I did short days as advised by my GP and Occupational Health - I had 3 meetings with managers, who said it was to ensure I was supported. It had the complete opposite effect and made me feel that they do not trust me.

The next 2 days were far better. Tomorrow is my first full day, but I am only doing Monday, Wednesday, Friday this week. Next week it will be 'back to normal' - and they have scheduled another meeting - this time with 2 managers together. I have been in my job for over 10 years and never experienced anything like this before.

definitely DON'T need people at work intentionally trying to break my brain further.

I can so relate to this. It is precisely how I feel. I want time to settle back in, catch up and get on with doing my job. A job that I believe I do well. After a settling in period it would THEN be better to meet with managers to see how its going. I came close to giving up and going off sick again on day 3.

I hope things improve for you. As T said to me, the fact that you were deemed fit to return to work - albeit with accommodations- proves that you are stronger than you were before, and stronger than you believe you are. This is a tough time, but it will pass.

Best Wishes
Lucy x

 

[PTSD sufferer]

Well the first thing you can do is to refuse to leave the job, regardless of what your supervisor says she is not a psychologist. There has not been anything particularly illegal in what you have said happened, however, if she has been asked not to approach you in a particular way and then does so to prove a point, she may be liable for emotional harm when she had knowledge of what it would do to you. And, legally, you have a human right to a safe and secure work environment. So, if she is approaching you in a way with knowledge of the harm it will cause you, then she is in the wrong here - but legally hard to prove that it happened.

It depends on your country and the company you work for. However, if there is a union available to you, you should register as a member with them (in some countries there are union bodies that support 'all' companies in the area). Legal action is not the first point of call though, as you need proof of causation, which is NOT easy to achieve.

If she requests a further meeting with you, you may like to request a union rep or trusted colleague to attend the meeting with you. Then if she does something like this again, the person attending with you can write a statement about what happened and that is an opportunity for a paper trail.

With your direct manager, if you want to get up and he tells you not to, you could tell him calmly, that telling you when and when not to get up is impeding you from doing your job and if you are unable to do something you will tell him at that time.

When you have a team meeting and your manager asks if there are any other questions or comments, you might like to disclose your condition and let every one know that PTSD is an anxiety disorder and that you would appreciate is everyone could be aware of how they approach you (if your manager has not done this already). You don't need to tell them the details of the trauma (and I don't recommend you tell them this).

If they ask more questions, let them know you are a survivor of a serious threat to life. Providing examples from the press of situations where survivors have PTSD, such as survivors of war, survivors of the 9/11 attacks etc could help framing understanding without disclosing your trauma. The aim is gaining understanding and support of your co-workers, and it takes courage to talk to them like this, but if they can support you by trying to not approach you in that way, then management should not have a problem.

The only thing I can suggest, is that you start creating a paper trail. So, that requires sending an email to that lady re-stating that as you had prior discussed, it is inappropriate to approach yourself in that way. That you have requested that management notify your co-workers to avoid these approaches to help facilitate your return to work. Have someone else check over this email to remove any emotion from the email - as an emotional email will not help you.

You mentioned that she was concerned about 'guests', probably would like to know more about what type of engagement you have with guests, as it may not be possible for clients to be told not to approach you in a particular way depending on the environment?

However, if you can move yourself and position yourself in a way that you feel safe when in contact with guests, then it may help to cope with exposure to this stuff (have a chat with your T about possible ways to minimise the impact of clients on you). Any worries beyond this from management are a little off base, as being jumpy is not a threat to others.

The union may be able to talk to you about opportunities to establish an agreement with your manager that you might accept 6 months unpaid stress leave, if the company can guarantee that you will have a job to return to after this period (or work part-time, or something else that you may be willing to agree to). They can offer you a redundancy (which is a payout to leave) though and that may be an option if you can get the union involved. It is the unions job to negotiate such things for you. However, always get this in writing before leaving a job.

The company cannot fire you unless you breach the contract you have with them, and if they dismiss you based on a mental illness (where you are of no harm to yourself or others) then it is unfair dismissal, but you really will need a paper trail to do anything about this if it occurs.

It is best that you are always pleasant, so please don't use this general information and ideas to demand proof from management or accuse them of anything as it will not help to do so.

From the legal side of things, in a court of law, they call it, 'prima facie' of harm. That means you need documented proof (emails, letters etc) to prove two things: 1) harm caused to you 2) that when management caused you harm they did so with knowledge (causation) that it would cause you harm. This is not easy to achieve.

I am not a lawyer by the way, so best to speak to the union for proper advise. But, you may like to use some of the above ideas to help facilitate a conversation with a union rep.

I'm not sure if this helps at all, but at the end of the day, if a job is making you unwell, then maybe you need to take time out to work on recovering more as it may be too soon to return to work. It is up to you to determine what you want and what you can do.