The past comes back

(And bites me in the ass)

Well, that was a surprise.

Not long after I started writing on Substack, I wrote an article about the year my life changed. I re-stacked it a couple of days ago; it’s titled “Permanent Damage, Part 1.”

Briefly put, in the final year or so of my working life, my department director and my manager told me they were assigning me to a project that was likely to be the worst of my career. They promised their support, and since they’d been honest the about chances of success (or rather, lack of it), I believed I’d have it.

They didn’t lie about the project; it started poorly, worsened quickly, and stretched far past a year. The stress eventually caused me to have multiple bipolar episodes in a relatively short period of time. My psychiatrist alerted me to the dangers of these repeated episodes; each one was similar to a mild concussion, and the result, if they happened too quickly, was cumulative. They could result in permanent cognitive damage.

I asked repeatedly to be removed from the project, coming out of my “psychiatric closet” in order to reveal both my disorder and the danger I was in. I was eventually reassigned, but by then, the cognitive damage was done.

Our department was overloaded and, having been immersed in that side project, I could no longer keep up. My reputation, and my ability to manage my bipolar disorder, both tanked. I eventually walked off the job and into a classification of permanent disability.

That should catch you up.

Last year, several of my ex-coworkers decided to have a group lunch at a local Thai restaurant. I liked the people, so I accepted their invitation. The lunch was so enjoyable that it became a regular event, every couple of months.

Every time I went, though, I had misgivings, and considered making it my last. I looked forward to hearing about everyone’s current lives, but felt uncomfortable when talk turned to our old employer. My memories of the job were clearly different, and far more negative, than those of the others. But as there were only five or six of us, my absence would have been obvious. I kept attending.

One of these lunches was scheduled for last week. A few days before we were to meet, I received a text saying our old director would be joining us. I really hadn’t thought about this woman for a long time - so long that I had trouble remembering her name.

When I received the text, which said only “X will be joining us for lunch,” I immediately burst into tears - loud sobs, completely unexpected. Without warning, I was back in the office on the project from hell, the project that ramped up my bipolar disorder and resulted in my permanent disability classification.

I felt gut-punched. I panicked. I had no idea what to do. Clearly, I didn’t want to see the director, and equally clearly, I didn’t think it would be good for me.

But I was born and raised in “Midwestern Nice.” I couldn’t just cancel. The date had been changed once, because I had a conflict; I had already committed to the new date.

I texted my sister for her opinion. I dropped a note on Substack. And I kept rolling it around in my head.

Finally I decided to attend, with the excuse of a (nonexistent) medical appointment that allowed me an early out. After all, the Year from Hell was what, seven years ago? Surely I could handle a lunch.

I arrived at the restaurant a few minutes early. The director had arrived before any of the others, and I was seated directly across from her. We managed some uncomfortable small talk until the others arrived.

She had very recently retired, and over lunch she asked the other retired participants how long ago they had left work. She didn’t, of course, ask me, probably because I had not retired but disappeared into a disability claim. Other comments made it clear that she considered me to be in a different category from the others.

She commented that she wasn’t prepared for retirement; that she hadn’t realized how seriously the job had affected her mental and physical health. And while that was surely true, and perfectly reasonable, I had a ridiculous urge to break her kneecaps for the cognitive damage I had earned at that job, under her supervision. (Petulantly: “I’ll take your pinched neck, and raise you a permanent disability status.”)

That disability status was, for me, obvious. Plopped down in the middle of the table, unacknowledged, but impossible for me to unsee. I claimed my medical appointment excuse and left early - but not before someone explained that the director would be a permanent member of the group.

As I pulled onto the street I realized that I was tense from my neck to my feet. On the way home, I bought a quart of ice cream. Tears came again, and I wept all the way home. The past had just thoroughly kicked my ass.

Two of my rules for handling difficulties - no alcohol, no junk food - went out the window. I think it took about a pint of ice cream, followed by chips, salsa, and two gin and tonics (I stopped at two) before I calmed down.

Clearly I needed to bow out of all future lunches. But I really do like those people; I wanted to give them the clear, but gentle, explanation I felt they deserved - without reference to the director.

I wrote, and thought, and re-wrote. I’ve never spent so much time preparing a text. (That “Midwestern Nice” really got in my way.) It explained what I’ve said here - that I enjoyed their company in the present day, but since my memories of our employer were sometimes difficult, I felt it best for me to leave the group. Finally, I sent it off.

I think I’m okay with how it ended - not happy, but okay. I will miss my ex-coworkers, but I can contact them individually if I choose. I expect the director will see the timing of my departure as an insult to her, but that’s acceptable. I was polite. I did not reference her. Beyond that, I owe her nothing more.

What I kept coming back to was this: Talk of my old employer has never been pleasant for me. With the addition of the director to the group, those memories slid from “unpleasant” to “damaging.” I’ve spent a great deal of time and effort trying to overcome those years from hell, to put them firmly in the past. I won’t invite them back into the present under the guise of acceptable social mores. I’ve worked hard to reach a place of relative calm and balance, and I intend to keep it, to protect it.

But I find myself wondering. Have I really kept those memories in the past, if they could bubble up so quickly, so explosively? It’s been seven years, maybe a little more. Am I over-thinking these events, and my reaction, or am I hiding from them, suppressing my anger? Or was my reaction a completely reasonable one?

Maybe, as much as I hate the idea, I could use some therapy. But I have always resisted that avenue (see my article “Therapy.”)

Instead, I think I’ll commit to what I call “typewriter therapy” - the process of pouring my thoughts out onto paper, in the privacy of my own head, until I’ve sorted them into their appropriate place. It’s a good process for me; not as public as Substack, nor as expensive and annoying as “real”therapy.

I truly hate this. I hate the sudden, unexpected upset, and I hate my apparent failure to put that part of my past behind me. It was seven years ago.

Why did it so seriously kick my ass...and does that really matter in the long run?