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I had a meeting with work today, to discuss coming back.
I should have been able to tell by the previous signs that things wouldn't go well. For starters, two people told me that I was coming back next week, before I'd even had the meeting with the site manager. I initially brushed it off as people making hopeful assumptions, but now, after that meeting, I see it for what it is. It's people at work being told what's going to happen to me before I get to find out.
Which might not be so galling if it wasn't for the fact that my workplace is treating me as though I'm an untreated paranoid schizophrenic. Issues of retraining aside, part of the agreement with me coming back to work is that people are keeping a close eye out for previously exhibited behaviours, and if I exhibit these behaviours, I can be sent home without pay. This includes having hallucinations, being dizzy and/or fainting, being nervous during calls, acting paranoid, and discussing symptoms with other employees.
I have not had hallucinations. I had delusions, yes, but these are different things. But if coworkers report me as being anxious that day, there's a chance I can be sent home?
They're afraid that I'm mentally unstable. In spite of the fact that two doctors have cleared me to come back to work, they're still worried that my very presence is going to make other people uncomfortable.
Other people shouldn't know. And this is where the issue of me discussing symptoms with coworkers comes in. They knew I was experiencing dizzy spells and some disorientation. They know that because I collapsed one day. But the only person who knew about the anxiety and the delusional state and whatnot is a supervisor, whom I foolishly confided in during an anxiety attack. If other people found out specifics about what was going on with me, they didn't hear it from my mouth.
And I told them this today. I also told them that I was disgusted with how this whole situation had been handled. First HR pushes me quite strongly to take time off. Then they say I need a doctor's note to come back. I give them a doctor's note, and then they say they need more medical forms. The delays between me giving them the doctor's note and now have lasted for two and a half months. I have been treated with a serious lack of respect.
And that's just part of the tale. I'd go into the rest, but I've already ranted to two other people today about this situation, and explaining it all over again will just stress me out.
But I told them all of the above. And all they could say was, "I"m sorry you feel that way." They didn't try to defend themselves. They used the words "we assumed" twice during the conversation. They've assumed a lot of things about me, and I'm not going to just sit back and allow it to go unchecked.
Part of what drove me to therapy in the first place was stress. In particular, the stress of feeling like I have to wear a mask every day, the pressure to be what I think everyone else wants me to be in order to keep the social status quo, without letting them see who I am underneath that mask because I've been told in the past that I'm too weird, too intimidating, too isolated for people to feel comfortable around. So I put on the mask, and over time, the pressure makes me feel like I'm starting to crack from within.
Now, knowing that people around me are even going to be watching out for signs of me just being slightly more anxious than usual, I feel that the only way to combat that and keep my job safe is to put the mask right back on again. To hide what I'm feeling and what I'm thinking, so that they don't know a thing. Which builds the pressure again. And could potentially undo the benefits I've gotten from therapy in the first place.
All because they're assuming that I have a condition that's more devastating -- and to them, more scary -- than I do, and because they're ignoring the notes of two doctors who say that things are fine.
I feel like I'm trapped between a rock and a hard place at the moment. I can rant, but ranting is a short-term release, and doesn't solve any underlying problems. I can fight back, which will make for an anxious situation, but I'm going to be anxious anyway, trying to portray that I'm happy and normal so that nobody even thinks otherwise for a second. Fighting back will also ensure that I never get a promotion there no matter how good my work, but in all honesty, I doubt that they'd give a promotion to somebody like the person they've judged me to be anyway.
Now, is that paranoia, or just deductive reasoning?
I should have been able to tell by the previous signs that things wouldn't go well. For starters, two people told me that I was coming back next week, before I'd even had the meeting with the site manager. I initially brushed it off as people making hopeful assumptions, but now, after that meeting, I see it for what it is. It's people at work being told what's going to happen to me before I get to find out.
Which might not be so galling if it wasn't for the fact that my workplace is treating me as though I'm an untreated paranoid schizophrenic. Issues of retraining aside, part of the agreement with me coming back to work is that people are keeping a close eye out for previously exhibited behaviours, and if I exhibit these behaviours, I can be sent home without pay. This includes having hallucinations, being dizzy and/or fainting, being nervous during calls, acting paranoid, and discussing symptoms with other employees.
I have not had hallucinations. I had delusions, yes, but these are different things. But if coworkers report me as being anxious that day, there's a chance I can be sent home?
They're afraid that I'm mentally unstable. In spite of the fact that two doctors have cleared me to come back to work, they're still worried that my very presence is going to make other people uncomfortable.
Other people shouldn't know. And this is where the issue of me discussing symptoms with coworkers comes in. They knew I was experiencing dizzy spells and some disorientation. They know that because I collapsed one day. But the only person who knew about the anxiety and the delusional state and whatnot is a supervisor, whom I foolishly confided in during an anxiety attack. If other people found out specifics about what was going on with me, they didn't hear it from my mouth.
And I told them this today. I also told them that I was disgusted with how this whole situation had been handled. First HR pushes me quite strongly to take time off. Then they say I need a doctor's note to come back. I give them a doctor's note, and then they say they need more medical forms. The delays between me giving them the doctor's note and now have lasted for two and a half months. I have been treated with a serious lack of respect.
And that's just part of the tale. I'd go into the rest, but I've already ranted to two other people today about this situation, and explaining it all over again will just stress me out.
But I told them all of the above. And all they could say was, "I"m sorry you feel that way." They didn't try to defend themselves. They used the words "we assumed" twice during the conversation. They've assumed a lot of things about me, and I'm not going to just sit back and allow it to go unchecked.
Part of what drove me to therapy in the first place was stress. In particular, the stress of feeling like I have to wear a mask every day, the pressure to be what I think everyone else wants me to be in order to keep the social status quo, without letting them see who I am underneath that mask because I've been told in the past that I'm too weird, too intimidating, too isolated for people to feel comfortable around. So I put on the mask, and over time, the pressure makes me feel like I'm starting to crack from within.
Now, knowing that people around me are even going to be watching out for signs of me just being slightly more anxious than usual, I feel that the only way to combat that and keep my job safe is to put the mask right back on again. To hide what I'm feeling and what I'm thinking, so that they don't know a thing. Which builds the pressure again. And could potentially undo the benefits I've gotten from therapy in the first place.
All because they're assuming that I have a condition that's more devastating -- and to them, more scary -- than I do, and because they're ignoring the notes of two doctors who say that things are fine.
I feel like I'm trapped between a rock and a hard place at the moment. I can rant, but ranting is a short-term release, and doesn't solve any underlying problems. I can fight back, which will make for an anxious situation, but I'm going to be anxious anyway, trying to portray that I'm happy and normal so that nobody even thinks otherwise for a second. Fighting back will also ensure that I never get a promotion there no matter how good my work, but in all honesty, I doubt that they'd give a promotion to somebody like the person they've judged me to be anyway.
Now, is that paranoia, or just deductive reasoning?
