I am on the phone to my husband (currently in Scotland) and I tell him that the reason I have just arrived home late is that my rehearsal took up rather more of my Sunday afternoon than I had envisaged.
Husband thinks I sound very happy.
"Oh I AM" I tell him. "I just love every moment I spend down at the theatre".
"That's great," says Husband warmly. "I am so pleased you've found something you enjoy doing".
And I hear myself say "I am almost grateful for what happened to me last year. Because otherwise I would never have found the theatre group".
Two years ago, after 11 years in the same post, I had become desperate for some new challenges. So I accepted an additional role on top of my own job and ended up working 50 - 60 hours a week.
No changes to my job title or salary of course !
Hmm.
Call me naive...
When Line Manager and Remora took particular exception to what they mistakenly saw as my "advancement", and individually and jointly embarked on their bullying campaign, I believed my hard work, loyalty and dedication to the organisation would protect me and ensure I received support.
Call me naive. Again.
But now I have realised I was looking in the wrong place for challenges. There are thousands of other challenges out there - and they have bugger all to do with work !!!
At the start of the rehearsal period, I am chatting with another actor in the play who also happens to be a very talented musican. He thinks we should have some songs in the play. "I sing a bit," I say. "I'd be willing to have a go". "OK," he says, in the casual manner of one to whom 'singing' holds no fears whatseover. "Sing something for me now".
Wha......?
I experience a sudden moment of pure terror. I wriggle and evade. I ask if we can find a private space where I can sing - but no! There are no spaces to be found.
"Well, here will do, won't it?" he says.
We are standing in a stairwell.
A stairwell.
With people on the landing above us, the landing below us, and actually pushing past us on the way up and down the stairs. He strums a few chords on his guitar, and launches into a song I have insanely told him that I know...
And I open my mouth to sing the first verse, and I sound awful and under-confident and embarrassed and scratchy; and I can see him looking at me with a kind of benign politeness. And I suddenly realise that I simply have to go for it, without worrying about what anyone else thinks. I just have to be myself.
So I start really singing in the stairwell - not brilliantly, but perfectly adequately. And I can feel all the terror dissipating, and by the end of the song I have actually started to enjoy myself. And the upshot of all this is that I am now singing some songs in our play. And oh my God - I never, ever imagined such a thing to be possible.
Every now and then in rehearsals I think of my meeting with Occupational Health Doctor. The one when I told her that being in workplace situations triggered chronic and disabling anxiety, and her response was to do everything in her power to prove that my anxiety was a) longstanding b) generalised and c) had bugger all to do with Anonymous Council's treatment of me.
And if I wasn't so determined to completely compartmentalise my life, and keep my precious newfound Leisure Time as far distant from Work as I possibly can; I might actually be tempted to invite Occupational Health Doctor to see the play !
And I might be tempted to break off mid-song and lean out into the teeny weeny bijou auditorium, fix her with a confident gaze and say "See, Occupational Health Doctor? This is what I am like away from work. Nerves? Anxiety? Locking myself in the toilet because I am too scared to walk into a room? Unable to open my mouth because I am so paralysed with panic....? Not on your nelly.
Because that person you met in your office?
That person who had lost her sense of self-worth?
That person whose confidence had been shattered ?
That wasn't me.
This is me".
I love your blog because you describe so well and with such humour so many of the things I and so many others experience as targets of workplace abuse.That feeling that they had made me into a person who wasn't me and that I did not want to be was hard to believe and even harder to describe to others who hadn't experienced it.I used to lock myself in the toilet to recover my composure too. Something that helped me through the experience was using a skill I didn't know I had too.I bought a babysigning franchise and set up twice weekly classes.I had to sing,sign and entertain groups of between 0 and 25 parents/carers and their babies and toddlers -I had never sung in public before. I loved it.There were days when I was so affected by the abuse at work I felt too anxious to leave the house and my husband had to push me into running my class. However once I started singing the'welcome song'I relaxed and became me again. I owe a lot to all those families who kept on coming to my class,some with their 2nd,3rd and 4th babies.I tried hard,and sometimes succeeded,in holding on to that feeling every time I climbed the stairs to my office or felt I couldn'tcome out of hiding in the toilet.
ReplyDeleteDear Kathy, thank you so much for taking the trouble to comment on my blog post. I was very moved reading your account of setting up the baby signing classes, but also very inspired by it. Its such a great example of how our inner spirit continues to survive even after so many attempts have been made to systematically erode it. And how important it is to find something outside work which gives us a sense of identity and self-esteem. I hope things are better for you now? I know that becoming the target of bullies profoundly affects us for a very long time, so I hope that you now are healing. Take care x
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