Working through it.

After I was diagnosed with workplace stress, directly related to bullying, I heard from many people they were wondering when it was going to happen. They didn’t know how I “put up with it”. I appreciated their empathy, but, it plagued me all through my treatment that so many knew, had feelings or thoughts about it but yet, no one came to my aid.

In the weeks and months that followed my leaving my place of employment under worker’s compensation for workplace stress, while seeing a psychologist to help me work through it, I often asked why no one ever said anything. After leaving that April day, through the “kindness” of friends I learned that it was quite the talk of the building on a near daily basis...how I was treated.

Really? This knowledge troubled me almost as greatly as the issue itself. My doctor said “Its simple really...if she’s bullying you, she’s leaving them alone. No one wants to be you.” Really? Is that who we are? What would it have taken for anyone to intervene? To say one thing? Would I have intervened if the shoe were on the other foot and I witnessed someone being demeaned and degraded? In conversations, I was referred to as any number of names...would I, say “Stop that.” Would you?

It is our workplace dirty laundry. We are all so grateful for jobs where we spend more time with people we don’t like than we spend with our own family. Where people can, in certain situations, rise to levels of authority and remain unchecked. My situation was a kind of “perfect storm” where too much was allowed to happen that would not be allowed somewhere else. My doctor, a specialist in workplace stress, was not experienced with government settings, which resulted in a little adjustment to his view of my workplace. We learned a lot from each other.