"Footsteps"

A couple of years ago, I signed up for the Council's Stress Management course. This is a cunning ploy whereby the organisation devolves all responsibility for stress onto its employees, rather than itself ("we trained you to manage your own stress! So don't go looking to blame us for your nervous breakdown...")

The course reminded me of the time I watched an organisation's First Aid training session, following which all participants were deemed qualified to save lives in emergencies. This despite the fact that I watched with growing alarm as no-one was able to demonstrate the slightest understanding of resuscitation techniques or the Heimlich manoeuvre....

On this particular summer day, I sat with approximately 14 colleagues from other departments, my shining face turned expectantly towards our pleasant, maternal trainer. This was in the days before I became a bullying target, so at the time all I was having to cope with were the detrimental effects of trying to juggle my actual post with an Acting post; and regularly working a 50 - 60 hour week.

Each participant was encouraged to share about why they were on the course.

- The first was a single parent, juggling her job with looking after 2 children.
- The second was caring for her elderly mother, who had dementia.
- The third was coping with a serious illness.

And as I sat there, waiting for the questioning to reach me, I was gripped with a horrible sense of guilt, as if I shouldn't be there.

I experience a similar sensation this evening, when upon returning from coffee with a sponsee followed by a Support Group meeting, I switch on my laptop and start reading through @bulliedbyboss's blog about her experiences of workplace bullying.

What I read is so horrific and distressing, that my own experiences seem pale imitations. I realise that being employed in the public sector must surely have afforded me some protection, because there is no way that anyone in my workplace could ever behave with "Howard's" obvious brutality and get away with it.

But I also realise that my situation is far less easy to prove. The strictures of the public sector environment means that most of the bullying aimed at me has been covert - orchestrated malice, sarcasm, undermining, deliberate social exclusion, gossiping and isolation. Things for which it is extremely hard to deliver "evidence" unless other colleagues are prepared to make witness statements. And of course, in these straitened times, this is the kind of thing no-one wants to do. I only managed to take formal action when Line Manager and Spiteful Manager finally slipped up, and I had evidence and - for once - willing witnesses.

But I take heart from Eva James' blog. Partly from the realisation that my own response to being bullied has exactly mirrored hers - creating a blog with no expectation that anyone would ever read it, simply to provide a therapeutic and life-saving outlet for the feelings which were building up inside me. And like Eva, I too tried to stand up and challenge what was happening and the organisation's far-too-feeble response to bullying. And like Eva, I ended up badly damaged by the experience; but like Eva I started to find ways to recover.

It is not the first time I have benefitted from someone sharing their experience, strength and hope. It's how I finally managed, almost 19 years ago, to stop drinking. It's why I still go to Support Group meetings at least 3 times a week, and do my best to pass onto others what was once passed on to me. And so I should know by now that I don't need to compare myself with others, or feel guilty that my experience was not as bad as theirs. Because it was bad enough for me.

I am unable to stop reading Eva's riveting blog until I have reached the present day - a present day full of positivity and hope. And while Eva moves forward into the future with her new teaching career and her writing, I am going to move forward with my amateur acting and the community choir. And we are going to enjoy our lives and make the most of them.

It's so good to know someone has trodden that road before me, albeit a far harder one, and that they have survived.

Thank you Eva.
If you can do it, then I can.
We all can.