Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Showing Mental Illness / Dealing With the Work Environment

Those with depression hide behind a smile. I was raised to say please and thank you, to be polite to those I meet. This is a facade. This makes it appear as though there is nothing wrong with me, because my struggles are within my mind and no one can see that. I don't have a broken arm. My hair isn't falling out from chemo. My eyes aren't turning yellow due to jaundice.

But my head hurts. My body aches. The voices say I'm better off not being here. I'm a damned good liar. To myself and to others when it comes to how I'm feeling. If I told the truth, would you really want to hear it?

I overslept today. I just didn't want to get out of bed. The weather is warming up and I knew I couldn't keep the chickens in their coop any longer, it just isn't fair to them. My alarm went off at 9am. I got out of bed around 9:45am.

I still carry my cell phone around, waiting for a call that I don't know when will come. And I still fear answering it. I struggle with feeding myself. I struggle still with changing my clothes.

The heat is off. It's warm outside. I don't know if I should open a window or turn the heat back on. I'm always cold.

The plant that used to sit on my desk at work. 


I'm haunted by my evil manager that wanted to "discuss" with me how I dress for work. At the time I'd been there for almost 4 years, she had only been there for 6 months. I will never know what her problem was with how I dressed. In the 4 years I was there I was never called into HR about violating the company dress code. I was never pulled aside by my once supervisor to discuss if I was out of code/standards. I called my evil managers bluff and said I'd be more than happy to take this to HR, has I had been there often in the past view days and not once was it brought up (and believe me, it would have been brought up if it was a problem). Amazingly the "meeting to discuss me" abruptly ended and she would give no explanation to any of her issues with me. I hate that confrontation still haunting me. She was laid off a few days later. Laid off, not fired for her "crimes" against her employees. I am proud to say that I stood up for myself and for my fellow co-workers. I am proud to say that not once did I cry (which is what I typically do when I start discussing things I know to be true and honest). Not crying just indicates how far gone I had gotten with her and her bullying, her picking of favorites and her desire to get rid of those she did not like nor care for. This event was the straw that eventually broke my back. That sent me over the edge. I could no longer play the game and no longer would. Companies question why they can't keep their employees, why we jump from job to job to job. It's really quite simple. We, the employee, dedicate all that we have to ensure that the company stays in the green and in the end we don't even get a simple "Thank you.". We are treated like cattle.

I will not live my life in such a way that causes me to feel that death is the only answer to escape because the world has now been set up that each household much have two working adults in order to make ends meet.

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