Credit: Title Mr.Know it all. Kelly Clarkson
I'm not often triggered and as a support worker, I pride myself on keeping level headed in many situations, but every now and again something slips through the building blocks i've created to get here. Several months ago, due to a train wreck of events I found myself feeling broken . If you read some of my older posts you'll understand. People i called my friends walked away, some I had known for a lifetime others, i had met within the year.
Unfortunately it didn't end at simply walking away. They began to spread rumours about me, they told people lies that admittedly they may have thought to be the truth. But not one of them or the people they subsequently spoke to, came to me. Not even one asked me if the words that were spread about me were true. In fact when i wrote these people asking them...no begging them to explain to me what i had done wrong, i received nothing in return. They decided to play the game we as womyn are socialized to play. The gossip game. I was never told directly, they told people namely my family, several other friends, who then told me. I spent days crying...sobbing, feeling so alone I didn't know what to do with myself. People have left me before, friends have vanished, people who have promised to be around for life have turned their backs on me. But this mass exodus was more than i could take.
Just when i thought it couldn't get worse, one of the womyn, attacked a piece of me i had held so sacred I had always assumed nothing could touch it. She told me and the organization i volunteer for that i was an inadequate support worker, that I had broken confidentiality, that i was not fit to continue support work. She went through all my connections and did her absolute best to destroy my image as well as that of the Collective I'm a part of. Weeks went by and couldn't bring myself to get back on that Support Line, or attend any of the workshops i had organized. I was supposed to facilitate a workshop on how to support a friend but was asked by members of the collective if someone else could facilitate because there was a possibility this person might attend. In short she made my life as close to a reflection of hell as she could. Eventually she moved out of the city and I was glad to see her go.
I guess what hurt me the most was her attack my skills as a support worker. She said that I was awful at this that, she didn't feel supported at all when I was with her, that I was not fit to continue this work. My goal in life is and always has been to help people. To help them find their way through tough times and even through happy times. I've always thought myself to have good shoulders to lean on when someone needed support. All my life I've known that I want to be a person that others could reply on when life became rough, when roads got rocky, and when battling things they may not feel they can conquer alone. When that person said, in so many words, that I wasn't at all who i thought i was. Somehow it very quickly cut through me, it's taken me a few months to re-build that confidence, but here i am today feeling better about life than i have in a long time.
It recently came to my attention that she would be interviewed for a position with yet another organization I work for. Here i was thinking i'd never have to hear her name again, but of course life has this funny way of keeping me on my toes. A friend of mine told me he was recommending her for the same postion I currently hold, that will be ending in December. The problem is, that I will still be very involved with the this organization and would more than likely run into her on a regular basis.
As soon as i heard her name my breath caught in my throat, my heart began to pound so quickly and so hard it hurt. My hands began to shake uncontrollably, i felt like something was sitting on my chest keeping my lungs from expanding. My body completely stiffened up. I wasn't very nice to the person who told me. Someone who's actually a pretty good friend of mine. I was curt and angry and just not myself. I told him that i thought she was gone, I was under the impression that she had moved months ago. He explained that she needed a placement...blah blah blah, i really didn't care. All I wanted to know what would she get in my way. I later apologized for my tone, being a support worker himself he understood.
But this incredible reaction, all at the simple thought of her being in the same city as me, working at the same place I do, being around all the places i regularly attend. The last thing i want is to feel what i did months ago. To go back to being no more than a reflection of who i am now. My friend Scott once told me I have this funny way of growing where i tend to remain stagnant for periods of time and then very rapidly grow over short increments, (think of a staircase) and I think I've recently been through one of those growths. God has recently granted me the ability to gain clarity over everything that happened to me. I've been able to move on peacefully, and look back at that situation with rational thought rather than raw emotion but every now and again these feelings just creep up and surprise me.
Is it awful that I hate her? Not even hate because the feeling of hate is surrounded by sadness. While the pain has certainly dulled, I'm not ready to face her. To see her even once in a while, would be painful, and just something i'm not willing to face. She's part of a world I used to be in, has a group of friends that used to be mine. They all bonded over hating me, as of course females do. I know I don't wish for things to back to the way they were. I quite enjoy the amazing friends I now have in my life, but at the very least could we be friendly with one another? Is that too much to ask? I hate feeling negatively towards another person, emotions like that just rot in your system till the all those adverse events gather and spread through your soul like a cancerous tumour. i've seen people carry pain with them, i've seen the haunted look that never leave their face. The smiles that never reach their eyes. I don't want that to happen to me and yet, when the thought of this person crosses my mind.
This post has gotten very long....I tend to babble when i'm feeling a lot. I guess in conclusion, It's been about a week since her name was uttered, since the threat of her presence surfaced. She's being interviewed for that position, she's quite qualified for it. I guess it's all a waiting game now. My friend who told me she was applying promised me that he would ensure my safe space wasn't violated. I'm trusting in that and can only hope to deal with this maturely and rationally.
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