One Year Without The People That Hurt Me In My Life

[tinybean]

Way to go - I know that road must have been tough for you. Good work! :)

 

[Eleanor]

Congratulations justmehere! Choosing freedom is a painful choice sometimes, and it is always the best thing to do. Better to accept the past on move on to the future you want for yourself and the future of your family!

 

[just me here]

thanks to everyone. Hope I can help someone else to repay the support I get here. best to all.

 

[Bimble]

I'm just coming round to the idea that I don't have to do something, as it's making me ill and continuing my PTSD symptoms, as well as introducing a few others bordering on obsessive and depressive!!

Since my accident last year, at work, I've been battling to get back to where I worked when the accident took place. I've had incidents of blackouts, trying to work through constant flashbacks, huge anxiety attacks, feelings of paranoia, mis-trust...the list goes on. This has been going on for so long, it seems like an eternity.

I have huge swings into depression from time to time - I have to carry a 'reason to live' piece of folded paper in my pocket so I can read it when I get this low. It has felt like I've been on an emotional roller coaster.

Management at work have not been supportive, I've felt let down and am constantly battling to trust them again, since notes about me were left on his desk - it seems people around me know about my diagnosis and every little detail since I've been seeing my therapist - I am fed up with it and, after my most recent run-in with them, ready to call it a day.

As part of my attempts to return to the location of my work, I am visiting the site - last week I did this but ventured into the offices for the first time in months. I was having massive heart palapatations - everything was telling me to get the hell out of there, but I stayed put. My hands were clammy, I was feeling choked with anxiety.

My Manager came in at 9.30 and asked me if I was here on my own - to which I replied yes. Then, for the next two hours, he said absolutely nothing to me. Nothing - I was sitting opposite him. This was the first time I had been into the office for so long and he didn't say a word - he went out, asked a colleague if he wanted a coffee, came back and sat down again. Now, I'm not asking for affection and a big hug from him, but I felt like a fart in a space suit - I felt like I really shouldn't have been there, despite me telling him two weeks before I was going to visit the site.

I left at midday, as things were getting too much, but came back the following day. Again, he came in at 9.30, didn't say a word. I checked a few emailed whilst I was there and then he asked if he could have a word - I went downstairs with him to a small office, where I was told I had breached numerous policies for coming in and logging in - effectively 'working' by checking emails and that this was not allowed. I was pretty taken aback, angry, upset - I got up and just left the office that day, headed back to my current location of work.

For that whole day and the weekend I was livid - so angry. I mean SO angry. It consumed me all weekend - it affected how I interacted with my kids, I was not there, my head was somewhere else completely.

It took until the following Tuesday to calm down and then something strange happened - I felt absolutely, completely relaxed, chilled, like a weight had been lifted off my chest. I suddenly realised I didn't have to put myself through this sort of treatment from a senior manager, I didn't need to visit the site anymore as I wasn't getting anywhere with it, in fact it was making me ill through constantly trying and affecting my personal life.

Enough is enough. I talked this through with my therapist and she felt I had made the decision to stop trying to do something which was hurting me so much and that this decision was almost made for me by the constant and recent actions of other people i.e. my managers actions and attitude towards me. After everything I've been through, putting up with having the accident in the first place and the total lack of support I received afterwards, to having the indignity of my personal health notes left on a desk for all to see, to people talking about my condition whom I do not even know! Enough is now enough.

I have struggled for so long to try and overcome this major obstacle in my life - it's almost turned into an obsession I must overcome. I guess I am determined and feel I needed to do this to move on. But, do you know what, after everything, it took someone else's actions to really underline and consciously tell me to stop trying, to move on, to forget about this place and just get on with my life.

I feel strangely at ease with it too - I feel like the decision has been made for me. Does this make any sense at all to anyone?? I feel like a weight has been lifted. I don't need to put myself through this anymore. It's like I've finally accepted things in my head. I am not going back to that dark place in my life - that is behind me. I now need to focus on the road ahead and not look back any more.