Feeling violated

I’m feeling stressed and very unsafe.

I’m due to have a meeting at work soon.

Trying to convince them to keep my job open.

The GP has currently signed me off for 2 months. But I really want to be back sooner.

My GP has agreed to amend the sicknote if I can work from home for 3 days a week. A slow reintroduction to work. But work aren’t interested in allowing me to have that flexibility.

Work have requested copies of my medical notes. They’ve taken 4 weeks to be sent through to me, ahead of being sent to my employer and damn I feel violated.

I assumed it would be a record of my current mental health, but its my full medical history dating back to the year I was born.

There are hundreds of pages to read through.

90% irrelevant to my life today.

It includes my first overdose aged 2, when I opened up the packed suitcase hours before we left for holiday, found my daddy’s medication and took a handful.

The concussions I had as a child.

How can all this be relevant?

Does my HIV test after my sexual assault help you decide how well I answer a telephone?

Does my suspected miscarriage at 18 show if I am capable of doing my job?

And how about my prolapse following the birth of my son, is that why I have to use the same padded chair cushion that all other members of the team are using too?

Or how about how many stitches I received after the birth of my daughter, and how much blood was lost in the process? Does that affect my ability to support our customers with filing their online vat returns? Rather than counting on fingers, I’m counting on stitches?

I’m livid, to say the least. It feels like a complete violation.

Like Cersei being paraded naked down the streets of Kings Landing with Hannah Waddingham walking 3 steps behind ringing her bell, Shame, Shame, Shame.

The form I signed to release them said any of the records could be redacted if I requested it, I started reading through each page. It took me 2 hours. Where to even start? I didnt have the strength to cherry-pick which page of which document to keep and which to remove.

I’m not even sure them requesting all records was even legal.

According to ACAS they can only request notes that are relevant to my current condition. I also should have been told what the information was required for. I didn’t realise this at the time I signed the form.

At that point my head was all over the place.

I spoke to the GP secretary and apparently they can’t remove any of the notes.

They all have to be sent without amended.

They get to read it all.

But you know what? Let them have the lot! and may it give them eye strain as they read through every last humiliating character and punctuation.

I’m tempted to ask the Drs to change the font to one that’s harder to read. I wonder if they could do that?

That’s the level of petty anger I have reached as I fight to keep my position within this company.

A role I’m bloody good at, and one where the customers say I’m a pleasure to speak with.

I feel like I’m on edge 100% of the time and it’s playing mischief with the thoughts I’m trying to fight.

Like a hairpin trigger, I know I could turn at the slightest setback.

Each time my world has changed in the past, it’s either been planned, or I’ve had the drive, usually anger, to be motivated to change.

But this time I’m a hollow shell.

All my motivation bled out.

The urge to bleed again keeps tapping in my head, like the pipes of a house when the heating first turns on. But no warmth is coming and the tapping just won’t stop.

It’s like they’re trying to defeat me. Prove to me that I’m just not well enough to have what it takes.

And I don’t have the strength today to prove them wrong.