Betrayal

I walked up to the door that separated me from my manager and my managers’ manager. I could hear them. Their every word resounding in the room. I had taken the hint to leave after the meeting. My manager was a mentor for the past two years. A great one at that. Someone I trusted. Someone I looked at like Mr. Rogers. 

Hate. I heard the word pierce the air. Hate. He said he hated the way I was, the way I did certain things. He was laughing at me. The other man was laughing too. They were both laughing at me. Loudly. 

Listening still, as if the words never happened, I closed my eyes. My other mentor vanished. Literally vanished. I needed him the most right now. A CEO, he often mentored me on how to act on my boards and how to act around businesses. But he vanished. 

I know what he did. I have a feeling of what he did. I think he blocked me on Facebook. Refuses to respond to my texts. He abandoned me. He had been a great friend. But no- he abandoned me. No reason given. Nothing. Just left. 

And now… Another betrayal. 

The betrayal begins with my mother. My father. They abandoned me when I was two. I was an orphan from then on. 

Then the abandonment and betrayal of my friends. My maid of honor. My friends in high school, college, my professional life, my mentors. My last abandonment of my mentor I never saw coming. I would have never imagined him doing this. But no… I am a monster. And now… I cannot even trust my own manager. Oh well. I don’t care what people think anymore. I can’t. It would drive someone insane. 

Still. As I walk from my workplace, the betrayal weighs heavily on me. I am so heavy with betrayal, I must sit down. I sit in a chair right next to the door, staring at the darkness of the evening outside. It is late- too late for me to still be here. I am lonely. Sad. Betrayed. 

I said I don’t care what they say… But I am still so heavy with betrayal. So heavy. The lines mark my face, weigh my shoulders down. My eyes are sad, the light dimmed. I’m no longer myself, the passion is gone. 

Betrayal, my old friend. I suppose we will have a chat once again. 

Arrested Development

I’m staring at the blank computer screen. My coworkers are chattering around me. Friendly to each other- human. Everyone recognizing something common inside of each other, recognizing each other’s purpose. 

I have no purpose. 

I just spent 4 hours on a task that seems complicated and heroic, but at the end of the day, my negative self talk seems more true everyday. No one stops to talk to me. And my work seems a joke. I have no reputation. Or what exists is marred by mistakes, despite my best efforts and 18-hr work days, trying to be the best I can. 

I left behind a place where I was loved, where I had friends. I wanted this technical path though. I wanted to change the world. And now I’m a joke. I went from soaring to being less than dirt. I went from being the expert to being the resident bumbling idiot. And the tasks I perform are nothing. They take hours, days even, but a part of me has a sneaking suspicion that no one trusts my work enough to use it. 

So the screen stares back at me, blankly. I wish my mind could be as blank as the screen. The older generation has written me off before I even had a chance to develop. I’m marked a failure. I’ve screwed myself on this one. Let the negative self talk and shame begin. 

Mentors Always Fail You, But I Can’t Stop Reaching Out

For whatever reason, I chose to reach out to a brutally honest expert for a mentoring lunch. I  shutter internally as I count down the minutes to our lunch. What. The. Fuck. 

Benlysta courses through my veins. The energy rush is addictive. The fog lifts and I’m renewed for three weeks. New ideas and inventions fill my mind. I am obsessively pursuing my work once again. My art. 

A colleague hushes me furtively at a meeting. I see patterns where they don’t seem to see them and I don’t know how to make them see them. My head swims in thoughts. 

I’ve had 6 failed mentors. Whether I push them away or they discover the monstrosity that is me, who knows. The inner workings that reveal themselves over time are gradual, but the cumulative damage is done. 

I expect nothing different from this one. The stories will be told in future posts, but for the time being I am left dreading and hating my blips of hope when I reach out to others. 

There’s Always the Apology That’s Too Late

“You did this wrong. I’m so much more experienced than you, you said this and didn’t do it. How dare you not be perfect! You clearly are defective to the core. Perhaps I should do this. Oh oops. I already do. I forgot to mention that too.”

I’m shaking as I read the searing email on my phone. How could I go so wrong? 

This about sums up the overall experience of someone being unhappy with me because of x, y, and z… None of which I promised or said I would do. 

What he doesn’t know is that I’ve already unfairly been bitched out today twice, and I’m sitting in a hospital chair with an IV, getting Benlysta and trying to answer five emails at once. 

I confront his twisted reality. Tread lightly. The nurse is having problems with the needle and I keep feeling pain as she stabs me over and over. The needle feels like it’s a mile wide. 

Five minutes later, I receive the short apology after he realizes how he misread everything I wrote, and he is wrong. But too late. I already made another commitment, in fear I made some promise in my lupus fog and just forgot and he was right. 

Negative charisma strikes again. Same story repeated again and again. But I’m always assumed villain just by showing up. 

Shame at My Dream Job

I walk into my dream job, fully working there for 3 years now. It’s 10 am. What. The. Fuck. 

I’m the woman that used to rise at 4 am, work a 12 hr shift, and go to the gym. 

Now I walk into the cube farm, my cheeks burning with the distinct emotion that clouds every corner of my life these days: Shame. Shame at my limitations. Shame at my lifestyle that I still cannot help but see as laziness and slothfulness. Shame at the inflammation attacking every cell in my body that makes me tired beyond any realm of “tired” I can even try to describe, hence why I’m walking into the office at 10 am. And walking with a distinct limp at 31.

An hour later a man snarls something at me because the floor is wet from being freshly mopped. I’m having a shitty day. I smirk back something witty and he walks away breathlessly, his back to me as if we never spoke. 

The janitor, a lovely lady who is working hard, giggles at this. I smile and compliment her work. Figures he can’t take what he dishes out. 

A half hour later I feel bad. This is probably why I don’t have many friends. I’m a bitch. 

Everyone left when I became sick. I couldn’t go out anymore. I was too tired. Chemo wiped me out. And no one wants to hang out next to you in a bed when you’re 25. Now at 31, I’m still alone, even in a worse way in that I’ve made friends and have had them tell me not to contact them, or they go AWOL. 

Again… Shame. Shame at who I am. I might be a monster. People don’t want me. At least the people I’m around, it seems. Shame.