If your close to me, I wonder if you’ve seen it too?
The pattern.
The self sabotage?
It’s something I’ve grown to recognise in my life. Just when things are going good, I do something to mess it all up.
Bring my world crashing down.
This time it’s my job.
Since closing my business I have struggled to feel comfortable and welcomed in the workplace. I have held down a couple of jobs, but I’ve never really been a proper fit.
But at last, in August last year, I thought I’d found my place.
The team was funny and made me feel at home almost straight away.
Our days were filled with fun and banter all whilst working hard.The customers were lovely. Helping elderly farmers navigate their computers to submit their tax returns was a pleasure. I was patient at their frustrations of this damn electric box that never did what you wanted it to and it was all too confusing. But with gentle help, guidance and the odd giggle we’d get the job done in the end and I could always hear the smile in their voices at the relief when the task was complete.
Even the cantankerous old buggars eventually got the job done with just a little bit of help and support.I was feeling right at home.
Then my depression overtook. It had been bubbling away long before I started the role. The laughter and fun at work had been helping keep it under control. But then one thing after another it took hold in me.
I slashed my wrist.
At first work were supportive. I took a couple of weeks away. But the guilt was so strong. I missed the team, the banter and the laughter. It was my therapy. I missed my customers. Who else was so patient with the ones who found it hard to learn.
As a team we all had different qualities, different skills. And mine was definitely supporting with the older clients and those with limited pc knowledge.
But recovering from a mental health breakdown isn’t linear.
I wanted to get back, and I regularly forced myself into work, but I wasn’t ready. Some days I could smile through it, hiding the hard thoughts and the urges to harm myself, other days I couldn’t.
It made me unreliable to the team.
At first I felt HR were supportive. I opened up, I shared my honesty and I kept trying to get back rather than give myself the time and grace to heal. I told them about my insecurities and my moments where I was self deprecating of my abilities and skills. I wanted their help to get me through this. But then the tone changed. My words were twisted, manipulated and thrown back into my face. My insecurities used to make me feel unwelcome and uncomfortable about trying to get back to the work place. And suggestions of what I felt could help my return were rejected.
I was told not to discuss things with my team. To change my language and pretend that I wasn’t suffering with my mental health. I was told to hide my scars. They were found to be potentially offensive to others. They made me feel shame, where previously I had just felt despair.
They made me feel inadequate, where the reality was they hadn’t delivered on the training they had promised. They made me feel incapable of tasks I had previously achieved.
A workplace that I had felt so welcoming is now a place that seeks to do harm. To exacerbate my mental health. To cripple my recovery.
And so I remain off sick. Fighting to recover. To ground myself and to then assess if I can return to the job I once felt so at home in.
I miss my customers. I miss my team. The team that used to feel almost family have all turned their backs and ghosted me.
It makes you realise you really are replaceable to a business. But you’re not in your home. At home you are unique and you are needed. And noone can ever be quite like you.
We remain in limbo. And that in itself continues to damage my recovery. Yet still I feel I owe them. Because that’s part of who I am. I will always be a team player even when the team has benched me.