JANE'S MENTAL HEALTH SOURCE PAGE

Note: I have disguised the situations and parties involved to protect the victims! This is based on a true story.

A journalism professional has a monster boss. Actually, this boss is an equal-opportunity monster boss, because he is mean to many people, not just the journalist.

The boss would give the journalist the crappiest assignments with a lot of research work, so that the journalist could never have enough time or energy to pursue more cutting edge stories that would help his career. Whenever the journalist gets really good networking contacts at media events, the boss would start micromanaging him, or questioning the quality of his work, and use these as pretext from preventing the journalist going to any more of these events.

Every other week the boss would remind the journalist how lucky he was that he has his job, the journalist being a single working dad. It is as if the boss wanted the journalist to know that he didn’t need to give working dads the chance, given that jobs are scarce and he could have given it to other journalists without annoying baggage – like kids.

One day the boss told the journalist that he is being let go because the journalist was not doing enough cutting edge stories. Then the boss became really nice to the journalist, as if to make up for all the horrible things that the the boss has put the journalist through. The journalist was not sure what to make of this sudden show of friendliness, or how to behave.

At first the journalist tried to make peace with the boss, and became friendly to him. The boss said to the journalist that maybe he would help the journalist keep his job after all. This made the journalist happy. Then a short time (within weeks) later, the boss said that the journalist’s contract would not be renewed.

The journalist felt as if he was being played in a cruel and unusual game.

I told this journalist that he needs to keep watching his back, and that the cruel and unusual game the boss is playing is called emotional abuse.

People like this have very low self esteem, and they have learned one way of bolstering an illusion of self esteem by taking power AWAY from other people. In the workplace, this usually happens between people who are bosses and those who are subordinates, where the boss will emotionally abuse the subordinates because they are less likely to be in a position to challenge the abuser.

Emotional abuse in the workplace can also happen openly – or covertly.

If the abuser has power over a group of people, then the abuser will openly emotionally abuse several employees, because not many will challenge this behavior. But this will not prevent the emotional abuser from seeking out an easy target to secretly abuse that person. An easy target does not need to be a “weak” person – simply someone who has more at stake and therefore unable to act on impulse (like telling the abuser to “take this job and shove it”).

Emotional abuse in the workplace different from workplace aggression – but it is just as sinister if not more poisonous – because someone can be smiling at you while figuratively sinking a knife into your chest (some of these people do not even bother going for your back)! It is sinister because it seems hidden. Can you imagine trying to file an HR related complaint for emotional abuse? You would be told to “suck it up” or “grow a thicker skin”!

Image by Miguel

Dear Child:

I see you in the corner there
cowering crouching crying
your head resting on the
arms that wrap around
your knees.

I feel you in the cage where
a shame and fear prison
suffocates breath and
silences laughter
from you.

I call to your soul and wake
that light eternal, one
invincible to cruelty
and untouchable
by darkness.

Your soul then rises from the
depths of abyss and fills
each pore of
loneliness
with love.

Rise, Child of Light.

(c) 2010 by Jane Chin.

Note: One of the most popular entries on this site is a personal story on emotional abuse. Even though these wounded children have grown up to become adults and many appear to lead very successful lives, they still live with the pain of their wounds from long ago.

The above was what I wish I could say to each of those wounded children.

“Child of Light” is also a term used by a poem that my husband had written for me in 1997, which I pay homage to in this prose.

Image by Asif Akbar.

I think one of the ways that we can save our own lives is when we decide to believe that we DESERVE to live a good life, and that we CAN create a passionate life for ourselves.

When I experienced clinical depression many years ago, it was this belief that motivated me to ask for help, and to persevere through the different “trial periods” of medication and/or counseling.

It has been more than 12 years since I first sought help for clinical depression, and about 4 years since I experienced – and recovered from – a relapse.

For a very long time, this website has been my salvation, allowing self-expression while feeling less alone in the world as a person who had first-hand experience of the abyss that many of you reading this know about. I had long wanted to share more with you – not only about the darkness I had lived through – but also the light within that showed me the way.

In 2002, shortly after I had recovered from the depression relapse, I drafted an outline from which I wanted to write a book. In a moment of inspiration, I wrote out 3 pages of outline in what seemed like minutes.

The impulse for that outline was a feeling of, “NEVER AGAIN!” I had once gotten complacent; I thought clinical depression would never return to my life. When I was proven wrong, I knew that I could not slip into complacency again, and that “self care” should be my #1 priority.

Then, as if that inspirational creativity had served its purpose, it got up and left. I didn’t do anything more with this outline. The outline disappeared into multiple stacks of paper on the desk, until one day, I completely forgot that this outline ever existed…

Until 2009.

I was cleaning out boxes of paper and found the outline. It had been so long, I felt as if I was looking at someone else’s outline; I almost don’t remember drafting it!

But I knew that my desire to share the “gift of depression” remains. That flicker may have waned, but it never died.

And I know that this year, 2010, is the time when I am ready to do something about it.

Image by Miamiamia (India)

Below is a video of a speech competition I participated in based on my original writings. In the speech video, I improvised with references to contestants who’d gone before me.

I published this poem I wrote on another blog, but feel compelled to share it here.

when you are on the right track,
the ground underneath you is solid and secure,
even as the sounds of the thunderstorms approaching
threaten you with a fearful row.
you already know what to do,
and you’ve been doing it most of your life:
you put one foot in front of another,
and move forward on the path
that you have paved with
all your acts of courage.

by jane chin
august 30, 2009

image by Maira Kouvara