3 years on...

[changedname2000]

And I woke up this morning having dreamed about this awful person, yet again.

Sometimes I can go a full week without thinking about them. It was a manager at my old workplace who bullied me.

Last year at this time I was having panic attacks. It was only that it started happening more frequently around the 2 yr point that I realised it was a panic attack and that I'd been having them for a while.

Now it's that time of year again and I can't seem to just get over it. I don't work there anymore. Have no contact with anyone from there, no FB friends etc. Nothing.

So why can't I get passed this?

So as not to drip feed, I was bullied until being suspended from work. Only then was an investigation done, in to my conduct. I was cleared completely but it highlighted the bullying and major failings from HR. I was paid handsomely to leave. But I didn't want that as the outcome. I wanted to stay and be moved away from this line manager. They wouldn't let me. I should feel vindicated, they don't give money to walk away if I was in the wrong. But equally, not allowing me to stay on, and pay me to go, is a massive rejection. Maybe this is why I can't move on?

I’ve been there, still am some days. Was about someone I went NC with...anxious and panic for years, constantly on my mind, rehashing the events over and over in my head. I should have been holding my head high, after all, I’d done nothing wrong. It was this other person who’d done an awful thing at an awful time.

I’ve been reading Sane New World by Ruby Wax lately and her explanation about it being the way our bodies have evolved makes sense to me. Our brains are on the look out for threats, ready to fight or flight. Except the threat in the modern world isn’t being eaten by a wild animal but instead things like financial troubles, climate change, work problems, family issues etc. It’s not stuff you can run away from so we remain in high alert, the adrenaline and the cortisol don’t dissipate.

Instead we keep scanning the horizon in high alert mode and, in this mode, our brains keep fresh in our mind past bad experiences so that we can identify them quickly and try to prevent them happening again. Which is impossible, you can’t control the actions of another so end up panicking instead. Least that’s the way it goes with me.

This combined with the fact we find negative information more noticeable and easier to believe also has us doubting ourselves. It’s easy to end up wondering if the other person may have been right all along, as if there was something about ourselves which meant we deserved the mistreatment. Of course, there’s not...but our brains may lead us down that path nonetheless.

My head’s now in a muddle about other things. Things that happened four months ago are giving me heart pounding, feeling sick worry. I’m finding exercise is helping as is mindfulness. I keep asking myself “what is happening now?” because it makes me focus on my present location and the facts rather than the thoughts and fears in my head. I also keep telling myself that the other people in these events must be in really bad places to have done the things they did. As a reminder that it’s not my fault, I did nothing wrong, but these are unhappy people who have a tendency to drag others into their misery in order to make themselves feel better.