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Friday, October 14, 2011
Healing Wounds
I’ve been advised by a friend who I deeply
respect to let go of the past and move into the future. I think he is perplexed as to my returning often in my writing to
my experience of workplace bullying. I want him to know I am stuck--though not on the past--but on his recommendation.
For you see I do not see myself as stuck in recollections of that place of abuse.
I
want my dear friend to understand how writing about that surreal environment; talking about it; just processing every nuance
of it, is healing for me; that I find relief in words on paper.
Mine
is, I think, a unique experience of a tiresome issue-bullying. Even as I became an unwitting adult victim
of bullying, I was working hard at keeping children safe from the same.
I want my friend also to know that I hold no bitterness—quite the
opposite; I have relief, joy and exuberance now that I am gone from there. I feel sorrow for those who
remain.
Still though, he may be right. Maybe
for once and for all I need to get this out, on paper and be done with it.
So, I have decided to tell my story to
you. I will tell it as I experienced it. I will tell you now that what I write may seem
trivial. It may seem that I was just way too sensitive. I was not. Even
when my husband would ask, “How was your day?” and I could respond, “Good. He left me
alone,” I felt dread about the next day and the one after that.
I
will give to you also the words of my bully and his followers. I will give them to you from their own testimonies
during an investigation of ethics violations. The violations were deemed unfounded and all have remained
in their positions. I am no longer working there.
There
was, from the time I first opened that school's doors and entered, an under current of suspicion and mistrust.
I balanced there, not knowing exactly why I felt uncertain. I just knew that I needed extra vigilance
to remain steady. Over time it proved impossible.
Workplace bullying leaves
scars. Staying in places of workplace violence and bullying leaves gaping wounds. The dynamics of bullying, whether for children
or for adults, are much the same. Yet even though I was an Olweus Bullying Prevention Program trainer,
I did not yet understand how the different roles of the Bullying Circle applied to my being a target. I
knew I was targeted by a school leader. He routinely (and it appeared to me with some gusto) would pass
me and say things like this: “We must talk. There have been complaints; I may
have to write you up; That’s miscommunication number two.”
I knew he and
his followers had lied--or at least twisted truth-- on official documents about me; what I had seen,
done and said--twice. He knew I had not supported the testimony. He knew I had told
the truth.
Next--and until I am ready to stop--I will continue my story. It is my story. It
most definitely is not unfounded.
Kim
11:04 pm edt
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Click here for my district's bullying and harassment policy. You will see I have made comments....
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