The Truth and Nothing But The Truth

I am writing this at the exact time that a year ago my adventure with mental illness began.  I was in my office when I felt an overwhelming need to get away.  To close my mind to any external distractions and leave.  For nearly two years I had been ignored, undermined, belittled and humiliated and suddenly it didn't seem important any more.  I could no longer cope.

I had been delighted in March 2004 to be appointed to the most senior operational position in an organisation whose purpose was to deliver employee HR advice and support to a major Government Department.  I had an international role and a large staff based across the World.  I was given no support staff and expected to provide a 24/7 on call service which I shared with a colleague.  My days were largely spent traveling, meeting corporate clients, and helping staff resolve their client lists as well as managing the staff as well.

All went well, except we knew that we were to be taken over by a new organisation that was run in the main by ex-bankers who had little grasp of people dynamics and no idea at all about what it was that we did.  But that was OK, we were there to help them.  I met the new Chief Executive and his deputy.  The latter was fairly dismissive of our worth and it was clear that he felt that we were really a distraction to his main business which was creating a "People Centre".

He left us alone for a few months, but did invite me to the senior management strategy meetings, but never acted on any points that I raised, but he was at least polite.  The CEO even bought me lunch once and impressed on me how vital I was to the whole effort.  Then he brought in a former financier from a major UK bank as my new boss and that was where the fun really began.

Initially things went well.  He had a "Vision" for the future, he wanted us to offer a wider reaching service; things that I could live with quite happily.  He wanted to spread my role amongst a larger number of managers - my first alarm bell rang - but if it benefitted the organisation who was I to complain.  We had already had a "rationalisation" and a number of staff had left, but we were a sharper service as a result.  He also wanted to merge what we did with another HR activity.  I was less sanguine about that, but he was determined to carry on, and so long as there was no negative overlap I was happy for it to happen.  Then the new managers started to appear and he drifted away from me.  In fact he never contacted me again unless he wanted something.  I would try to contact him, but usually got his voicemail - we worked in different parts of the country and he very rarely called me back.

He devised and set up an strategic implementation team that consisted of all the newly appointed managers.  I wasn't invited and when I enquired of one of them why I never got invited to their meetings was told because they had been instructed not to.  To say that I felt upset by this was an understatement.  In fairness the other managers, hearing that I had made that enquiry, did invite me to subsequent meetings.  I then discovered that there was a whole host of things going on that I was not even aware of.  Conferences, recruitments, training of people that I didn't know had been recruited and who I was expected to, in part, manage.  I went to one meeting and my boss came up to me, he was just passing through, he rarely attended the meetings himself, slapped me on the back and said that he thought that I was on a steep learning curve.  Another understatement.

I returned to my own staff and explained to them what was going on and how I thought the new organisation would look.  The record of that meeting somehow found its way to my boss.  Who waited until we were at a conference in the Midlands, having lunch, to express his annoyance with me, in full view of others, including several that worked for me.  He also told me that he had decided that I should not longer have my senior welfare title and that he was passing that to someone else who at that time was working abroad!  Happy I was not.

From then on I could do not right.  He would barely speak to me, and glower at me like I was an itch he couldn't properly scratch.  He was never wholly impolite, but he let his thoughts show clearly enough to me.  Of course there was more than this, but my aim in writing this is not to give a blow by blow account.

That brings me to this day 12 months ago.  I was writing a report that he hadn't called for, but that I knew that he would.  Suddenly the message came on my e mail that he wanted it immediately.  He'd forgotten about it until reminded himself and was now panicking.  So I let him.  I closed down my office.  Had a privately tearful session and left.

The following day I went to the doctor who signed me off work for a fortnight.  But I resisted any drug treatment.  My wife rang my boss who spent most of the conversation telling her about his own breakdown a couple of years earlier!  Perhaps that explained some of his behaviour.  I don't know.  I didn't hear from him again for a total of 11 weeks.  When he wrote saying words to the effect "when are you coming back?"  In the meantime I was allocated a psychologist and signed of for many more weeks.  The psychologist challenged me in many different ways and for the first time in a long time I started to see that there was a life outside of work.

My staff were wonderful.  I received many letters and cards and felt hugely appreciated by them.  But my bosses didn't bother to contact me - ever - apart from when I wrote myself to the CEO, and my own boss's "hurry up" call at 11 weeks.  I attended weekend sessions at the local mental hospital - I was always surprised to see how many faces I recognised at those - and I began an internet therapy course that was also first class.  I cannot criticise the NHS.  They were wonderful.  Eventually I did start drug therapy and it helped hugely.  I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long.

Initially I suffered from enormous guilt about being ill.  I felt that I should pull myself together and get back to work; but I knew that could not.  I would spend hours lying on the bed, either sleeping or feeling very inadequate.  There was a concern that I might be suicidal - I never felt that way once in fact, but I understand why they might have had that worry.  I was not allowed to spend too much time alone.  I was terrified that I might meet someone that I knew so I literally hid myself away either at home or at my parents. Eventually the psychologist persuaded me to go to a local supermarket for an hour each day.  I would spend 15 minutes walking the aisles and then go to the coffee shop for the rest of the time.  But it forced me out and I gained some confidence.  But still I couldn't face work and I started to think that maybe I never would.  I also stopped missing it, so resolved to leave and take some time off.

My employer had agreed to give me full pay for six months - at the end of that time I resigned and found myself without work for the first time in 33 years.  As a final parting shot I was sent a valedictory letter.  It was written by somebody that I had never heard of but thanked me for my 31 years work.  That was good of them.  I expect my name came up on a database reminder somewhere.  Being without work is not scary, but that is maybe because we have a little money and can afford my "holiday".  I want to start doing something soon, but I don't know what.  I don't want to be a senior executive again.  Every day I receive an E mail from an HR recruiter - it's full of "exciting" opportunities doing things that I can do standing on my head.  But I should be bored before I'd completed the application form.  I have been there, done that and hated it. Why go back for more?  Something part-time appeals.  I'd love to drive a mobile library.

What is a little sad to me is that several of my friends haven't so much dropped me, as don't know what to say.  We are of a generation where we don't give up, we pull our socks up and battle on.  I didn't do that and possibly, in their eyes, have let the side down.  Many are the same though, but we don't see each other as much as we did before.  Such is life.

The really wonderful thing is that I discovered social networking.  I am not very good at it, but I have made so many wonderful friends.  They know who they are and how I feel about them.

Onwards and upwards.  It's the only way to go.