I Quit

SpoonieLife

People who talk to me regularly will be aware that things at my job havn't been going so well, I have not felt supported from the first day I started.  Not to go into details but to explain the impact on myself and how the realisation hit me that it was going to work that was making me really poorly and had been doing for a few months.

I used to love my Monday's, always chirpie and smiling, that bright optimism I have for life shining through.  I'm rather quiet a work and even a little reserved. I like to keep myself to myself but none the less people always cmmented on my smile and how down to earth and pleasant I am.

Over time more and mre little things where happening and each tme I felt less n less looked after by the people I worked for.  A pattern began to emerge  I'd start to feel ill on a Sunday evening, mild costochondritis, niggling aches and pains n a general feeling of being down.

On the way to work I'd be sweating, have the chills, be falling asleep in the car. Get a headache and have general all over body pain - once with my clients most feelings subsided, although as soon as I had to deal with the people I work for I'd soon end up feeling icky again.

Then I started to be really poorly on a Tuesday  to the point I couldn't get off the bed due to severe pain in my back, legs, knees, akles and feet. The headaches where getting more often (almost daily) still I didn't put 2 n 2 together.


That is until something happened which for me was the last straw, I rang my supervisor to talk through things and try to sort out what was ging on in my head - during the course of the supervision session I became aware that it was the stress of being in a job that I didn't feel safe in that was causing my fibro and dercums to pull rank - it cmes back to what iv said in a previous blog (emotions ad physical pain).

Such ahuge realisation for me, my job was what was making me ill, as I worked Thursday's also but did not feel ill on a Wednesday, Thursday or Friday - although I work for the same company on a Thursday its an outreach  group, so there is no contact with anyone from the main office.

So now I understood what was wrong, but what could I do about it ? kinda think the universe was looking out for me now as yet again another cock up happened and this tme I wasn't going to take it lying down. I was told a meeting would be held at work between myself and my line manager, also the boss who runs the whole operation.

Twice the meeting was cancelled but instead of getting anoyed I used that time to put together my own paperwork about the things I felt shouldn't of appened. I knew they thought it was just going to be a conversation about the last incident haha no chance I'd been let down so many times never been given answers or apologies to why and how these things had happened,  that I was going to make sure I got heard once and for all.

And so the day approached I been getting headaches for a few days leading up to the meeting, the meeting happened its contents is not of importance other than to say I was heard and I quit Mondays. Things ended amicably with all of us leaving with stuff to think about.

The relief I felt was immense although I was exhausted so got my had down for a few hours, unfortunately I woke feeling worse than I had initially felt.  By Monday evening my head had begun to split.  I clambered into bed took migraine meds and fell asleep till I woke for a wee n realised my head had now gone boom and I had a full blown migraine.

I'v slept most of today away, le hubby waking me at med times so that I didn't go into withdrawl also to make sure I didn't dehydrate.  So yet again lack of understanding left met feeling stressed out, usupported and emotionally strung out (at work) so I did what I felt was right for me I QUIT because I am ill enough without the actions and words of others causing m stress and me feeling more ill.

I'd like to know how the ESA are going to find me and the many other severly effected fibro, me, cfs patients etc work ? I am a counsellor my job is t sit in a big comfy chair for an hour helping people to understand themselves a job I trained for when I first got sick as it involves me sitting, not moving - a job I felt capable of doing and one I am good at, what I hadn't bargained on was not being understood by the people that employed me.

So even doing a job I am good at still made me ill because of the peope I worked with - I can only imagine what the DWP have got planned for me and all the other people suffering. As I was ill for 3days because of the stress I felt and although I was only working 2 days a week the stress at times made me feel so ill I didn't even make it to work.

Yet apparently Ill be well enough to make a return to fll time work in Feb 2013 in an office as a secretary ? Go figure because that job is way more stressful than the one I just quit. I can't use a keyboard, hold a phone for more than 10mins without getting severe cramp my hands. I can't write more than 5 sentences for the same reason. I wll be expected t be up and down on my feet all day, filing, writing, typing and taking calls.

I can say with all honesty that if the DWP do this to me they will put me in an early grave and I wll probably do so through choice as I cannot imagine living every day feeling like crap, being in intense amounts of pain - for starters I will be most unreliable and would probably get the sack before a month is over.

Then the DWP will withhold my benefits for getting the sack and say I did it on purpose !

For those of you that are religious "God help us all"

For those of us that are not "May the universe watch over us"

All the best till next time Georgie xx