Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Running Scared

Rage - Blue Rodeo

When will you rage again, is it enough 
Just getting out of your head night after night
Are you running scared or you just don't care
Or are you waiting for that one high and holy sign
To shine a light on you and pull you through to the silent true

A lot of things have happened lately that have me swimming in quicksand trying not to drown. And I'm so tired that I really want to stop flailing about and just let the mud invade my lungs and pull me down. The mud is warm and comforting and the pressure against the skin is providing the first sense of security I have not felt in a long time. 

But every time I think..."It's time" my eyes well up with tears. There is a conflict that compresses my chest like an elephant sitting upon it. I'm tired. My heart hurts. My brain is pushing against my skull trying to break free. A desire to let go and give in but a stubborn streak that doesn't want them to win. I'm not sure that God is going to let them see the light of day so I have to prove them wrong. 

Forgiveness is not an option. When you knowingly and willful set out to hurt someone you may try and seek solace in another realm but in my world you can go fuck yourself. The drunk who gets behind the wheel and kills - that wasn't an accident. The truck driver who follows to close and uses his bulk to intimidate, who alters his driving log unmindful of the innocent people on the road who aren't sleep deprived - no pity here. Anyone who has mistreated another human or animal in anyway - may you rot in hell. And the people of the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board who systematically and willfully whittled away at everything that was good about me. I can't imagine a punishment I could inflict that would bring me any peace. 

And to all the professionals who have taken a microscope to my life since my character was pulverized by the Catholic Educators and Administrators, I only have one thing to say that I hope you will take into consideration. We all have a past and some of us had a difficult childhood with imperfect parents, we somehow managed to survive. I happened to have had an especially traumatic childhood and was forced to cope with a lot of diversity. My past happened. It affected me. But it was the 1970's. Three decades ago! So today you can label me social phobic and try to change my pattern of avoidance for dealing with issues. You can blame that on the pain of my childhood and try to fix me. But I want to ask just one thing "Would you even be aware of my existence today if it were not for the work issues I was forced to endure at the hands of my crucifix-touting supervisors?" I was being nailed to the cross and slowly tortured until I finally broke. Wouldn't you? Doesn't everyone have a breaking point? What the hell do these actions have to do with an accident I survived 36 years previous?? 

Was I a misfit cruising under the radar of society? Waiting to be hauled off to the rubber room because I was depressed, anxious and social phobic? Or did I learn to cope and survive despite the rocks that were pelleted at me trying to knock me down. I think the latter, despite being far from perfect I managed to not only fit into societal expectations but did it on my own - Thank you very much. A single parent who raised two kids on her own without the benefit of spousal support (financial or otherwise), no familial support, no handouts from the government. When we lacked, I volunteered my time in lieu of paying for extra-curriculars. As the kids became a little more independent, I took on a second job to try and make our life easier. I didn't ask for help because that's not what I do - well I used to but having to go to distant relatives instead of immediate family meant I was flatly turned down. Who should I have asked for help from?

I was doing fine. I was happy. I was satisfied with my life (although always looking for ways to improve). My children had both graduated high school and gone off to post-secondary education. Now tell me how children of single parents don't succeed cousin! Regardless while I was busy minding my own business I was successful not only in my chosen career but every part time job I engaged in. I allowed the Catholic School Board to systematically assassinate my character and I never stood up to them. That behaviour and lack of willingness to fight for myself you can put down to learned behaviour as an emotionally abused teenager. But if someone chastises you simply because you refuse to say hello when you pass them in the crowded halls of the high school - how do you fight that? When you are told lies and they say that they have people who swear to hearing you make a racial slur - how do you refute that? When there are 6-8 of them staring down at you and listing off infractions and flaws in your character and personality while you look at the ground and clench your jaw to stop from screaming..."Look at ME when I speak to you!" they command me. I cry and hide further within myself. The one person that was there to protect me and my rights (my union rep) sat beside me, scribbling furiously on her note bad and saying nothing. How was I, a simple peon in the mighty cog of one of the largest employers in the county is not the country, how was I supposed to fight for my rights?        

They finally broke me! After nearly 10 years of suffering abuse at their hands I finally broke. I could hear them laughing at me in my warped consciousness. I strived to change myself - so that I could be what they said I should be. I failed and began to hate everything about me. Councillors, psychiatrists, doctors, therapists, group sessions. I did it all. I heeded the recommendations. Get out of the house, volunteer. Exercise, it elevates the anti-depressant hormones. Write, be productive. Each one of the activities I engaged myself in was used against me as proof that I was okay. They threw my childhood trauma in my face as a reason for the problems with the School Board. Hell, even the Board in official documentation to Workers Safety Insurance Board said that my behaviour in the work place was due to trauma suffered as a child. HOW THE HELL DID THEY EVEN KNOW ABOUT IT? I'll tell you how, I bore the scars like a badge all over my body. If someone asked what happened, I shared. I didn't shrink away and pretend it never happened. But tell me this - if I had no scars would anyone have ever known what I went through? The answer is NO! So to avoid an allegation of bullying the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board chose to lie. 

And much to the displeasure of the School Board, I have the proof. 10 years of documentation, of wrong-doing, of mistreatment of students, of bullying students and staff. The Good The Bad and The Ugly. I have it. Long before I left work, I made accusations of being bullied by superiors and instead of action being taken, it was dismissed. I was dismissed. The law was broken to save the ass of employees who had a stronger union than I. Oh dear! 

As Blue Rodeo (in the above song) says so eloquently in their lyrics "Fuck off and die, I feel like the lucky one"

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Everybody Loves You When You're Dead - Wild Strawberries

Anybody can get so tired of the fight that they don't want to do it anymore. The fight is survival. Instead of feeling stronger for the effort the strength is sapped out of you and you feel yourself wilting like a dead flower in the middle of the winter - never to feel the warmth of spring. I am that tired and sometimes I really don't want to take another breath. I want the pain to stop. 

It just seems to be a constant struggle to try and make people understand...to believe. As I said previously, a lot of labels of mental deficiency have been heaped upon me of late. None which I specifically dispute - what I dispute is that they are being lumped together with childhood trauma as if I was still a child - that child. Nobody asks about the 36 years in between - how I coped for those years. 

That is what I want people to understand. I survived the trauma because my mind and resolve was stronger than the people who tried to break me. I knew that the unpleasantness couldn't and wouldn't last forever. There was light at the end of the tunnel. I was an optimist. I could see good in everything. I saw good in my scars - it could have been worse. I saw good in the death of my family - at least I still had my brother. When he left I was grateful for the time we had together - I was glad he was going to a better place even if it meant leaving me. I wasn't selfish. 

I now know that most of my life's outlook was based on what psychiatry deems as Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT), and it should be noted that I did it without benefit of any counselling. SFBT is essentially is goal-orientated concentrating on where you want to be and how to get there. There is no point focusing on the past. We know how and why we are what we are, but it's the future that is important and how we are going to get there. I was an angry, frightened and intelligent person who was dealt a shit hand of cards. I can analyze the who, why, how to death but it won't change the past. I had to move on and decide how I wanted to live my life. I chose the high road and walked away from the pain. The ironic thing is that I never had an psychiatric counselling besides during the brief initial stay in the hospital after the accident. I became the person I was because that's who I wanted to be. I succeeded and I was confident. I was left alone and learned to live my life that way. Alone and self-sufficient. I learned to protect myself from anyone who I thought was trying to hurt me. I shut down, I avoided, I hid behind the wall.


New Normal Philosophy
Eventually your life will have a new "normal" without him but you can never expect to forget or hurt sometimes. The new existence comes with a certain amount of pain that will always rear its ugly head, usually when you least expect it but there is some predictability as well. Loss is almost always harder when it is sudden and unexpected because we have to process the loss and are expected to cope in the blink of an eye. 
by Gigi

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