I’m still in the early stages of recovery from the bullies and abusers at the British Red Cross who caused my 2017 mental breakdown. With no apology in sight from this so-called humanitarian charity, something that might have eased my pain, my wait on the waiting list to get on the NHS waiting list is at long last over. They’re sorting out an assessment for me.
Luckily, my breakdown last year and the accompanying depression and anxiety, along with a catastrophic loss of self-confidence and belief, didn’t send me over the edge. The fact that the managers and high-ups of my former employer have consistently refused to apologise or express any kind of regret for what they did to me really rankles. They must think, surely do think, I am a liar and I am making it all up. 39 years with one employer and I never encountered one serious managerial bully (although plenty from the hard left of politics, but that’s another story) and I walk into what was for a year my dream job and they very nearly drive me mad, quite literally.
I confess to looking at those who can afford to pay for private mental health treatment with envy. Yes, I am opposed in principle to private medicine but my life’s experience suggests that many who use it do so out of desperation. Millonaires like whichever one of Ant and Dec went into a private rehab facility did not do so for a laugh. I’d have willingly joined him there had I enjoyed his financial resources.
I know what will happen with my assessment. I know because I am at exactly the same point as I was in 2011 when I had my last major episode which, it has to be said, was triggered by something quite different and equally unexpected, which was the death of my father. The ongoing mental health mess, at anything between a low and medium level, I can cope with in my own way, usually involving various techniques of dubious effectiveness. Often, this means escaping from every other aspect of life other than doing the basic minimum. Christ knows the strains this puts on my partner and my family. In the darkest, quietest moments that’s the most difficult bit to bear.
So now I am beginning the next journey of trying to make my mental health better. Almost nothing has worked so far, and that includes CBT and mindfulness. In fact, I doubt that any treatment at all cures the black dog 100%.
In the end, it’s love that saves the day. Some people I have come across in the last year are the lowest of the low. They must have known what they were doing and done so in order to make me ill. Why else would they have done it? They saw me fall apart in front of their very eyes. It was what they wanted. I became so ill, I was unable to deal with it and I couldn’t function well enough to stand up against it.
Tomorrow, I am making a very big step on the way to recovery, or at the very least another step away from the abyss. I need to forget this Red Cross nightmare but without an admission that they stood aside whilst I was bullied and abused, it’s very hard. For them, sorry seems to be the hardest word. A year on from peak bullying and I am still sick and, to be honest, in relative shock. I have no hatred for the bullies and abusers, just pity. They have stopped me sleeping at night. I’ve just wondered how they can sleep easily themselves.
