April 2016.

I have yet to find my groove.

Healing takes much longer than I realized.

There's healing from the trauma of being manipulated and the healing from the self-loathing of allowing all the abuse to take place and the healing of the actual physical ailments brought on by the enormous amounts of stress and the healing from the fear brought about by years and years of workplace abuse.  So much healing.

All of that has to heal up before you can see straight enough to move forward.  Getting to a place where I could trust again has been crazy hard.  Getting to a place where I don't have to feel IN CONTROL all the time or defensive constantly has been hard.

Over a period of 10 years I was sexually harassed, verbally abused, forced to work out of my pay grade, then told I was unprofessional in attitude & dress without ever having a single person mention to me that the dress code had changed or give me a single example of how I was unprofessional.  The dress code only changed for me though.  The rest of the staff was allowed to continue wearing khaki shorts and flip flops.  My reviews for 8 years were "exceeds expectations".

I was patted down from head to toe before I was allowed to leave by my male general manager.  I was the ONLY employee this happened to.  (This General Manager along with 4 or 5 employees was later arrested for stealing over 100,000 dollars in merchandise)

I was forced to work overnights for 9 months, 6 of those with just 2 male co-workers, and locked in from 10:00pm to 8:30 am and not allowed to claim any hours over 8 hours.

When I complained to my boss in 2008 that a male co-worker had stated that I had rape-fantasies I was told I should keep my mouth shut because that could damage HIS reputation.  I only told 2 people.  A supervisor and him.

My direct supervisor got all friendly & chatty, then sent another co-worker to get really friendly & chatty and they put the phone on speaker (unbeknownst to me) & gathered everyone in the store office while this "friend" asked me to tell him what I thought of everyone in the store.  "Be honest.", he said as the conversation was blaring out to everyone I worked with.  I was honest.  People don't like that. Trust me.

When I complained that a male co-worker called me stupid several times a day, I was told that he was "just that way" and I needed to deal with it but just blowing it off.

When my co-worker screamed at me for turning off my phone land line at my house & not giving her my cell number I was told that I would have to share that information or be fired despite letting them know that I was cutting it off because she was calling me at night to"chat" and saying inappropriate things like "If I wasn't married..." & other uncomfortable sexual things.

This same co-worker started buying me extremely expensive gifts and claiming she was my superior.  I had better not rock the boat.  If I refused her gifts she would tell everyone I was being MEAN to her.  Which I did & she did.  She started assassinating my character.

She would make me work overtime promising to give me those hours back through comp-time and then never do it.  I lost thousands of dollars over 5 or 6 years.  THOUSANDS.  All the while she was claiming comp-time and making time & a half while suddenly be allowed to "work from home".

A male head co-worker would walk by and throw folders at me and bark commands.  I'm not even exaggerating.  He threw file folders at me and they would often slide off the desk into the floor & I had to pick everything up.

My job description & duties were changed twice without consulting me & once when I was away on vacation.  I came back & ta-da!  You basically have a new job with more duties.

I was told I wasn't doing enough and more duties would be assigned to me DESPITE HR saying I was already over my workload and severely underpaid.

I was told all the duties I loved would be stripped away from me and I would be given only the duties that I struggled with that involved tons of math, despite having informed the place BEFORE I took the position I had Dyscalculi or number dyslexia, and being promised that in no way was math a part of the job I was applying for.  I was just the Receptionist.  Copies & phones.  I was later forced to do budget, purchasing & travel.

I was sent sexually harassing letters about how my co-worker needed a deeper relationship with me and that if I wasn't sharing every detail of my life with her, then I was hurting her and that we wouldn't be able to work together anymore and she just wasn't sure what that would mean for me.

I routinely had men bark at me for not making the coffee despite the fact that the coffee was paid for by donations and it was communal.  It just happened to be located in the front office.  Making coffee wasn't part of my job duties.

I was told I needed to smile more constantly.  I'd love to see anyone smile under these conditions.

There is so much more, but reliving that is enough to give me PTSD.

So, yeah, healing has been slow.

Trusting has been slow.

Not being completely paranoid at my new job has been something I've had to work really hard on.

I was angry with myself for a while about not painting.

Depressed that maybe they really had broken me.

But they didn't.

I just needed to heal.

After healing I needed to look around and NOT compare myself to me before.

This is new me.

I have to find new ways and be okay with not being right where I was when I left off.

I'm getting there...slowly.

I still have days where I just hide under the covers all day, but they are getting less & less.

I'm ready for friends again.

I'm happy again.

I finally feel again.

The painting will come.

I will do what I dream.