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(originally posted to Diaryland.com, 2003-09-26 - 10:54 p.m.)
I ended up leaving work an hour and fifteen minutes early today because I just couldn't get my panic and depression under control enough to keep working. One irate respondant (it was a Sprint "why did you disconnect?" survey) would pretty much have left me a basket case.
Last Thursday I happened to get one respondant who, in the course of asking me to "take him off the list" (we don't usually have a list, all numbers are randomly generated), went ballistic when I tried to confirm his phone number, which I'm required to do before placing him on the Do Not Call list.
The conversation went something like this:
Me: "Good evening, my name is Laurie and I'm calling on behalf of --"
Him: "DON'T EVER CALL HERE AGAIN!"
Me: "Sir, I'll be happy to --"
Him (one font size larger): "DON'T EVER CALL HERE AGAIN! DO YOU UNDERSTAND!"
Me: "Sir, if I can --"
Him (in screaming, knife-wielding 18 point type): "DO YOU UNDERSTAND! DO -- YOU -- UNDER -- STAND -- (go to 36 point type) BITCH!!!!"
At that point, all I could say was "Yes, sir" and terminate the call.
At first I was annoyed, and somewhat angry, not to mention disgusted that I'd encountered such a low manifestation of the human lifeform (one who couldn't even pretend to observe the common courtesies that keep our society running as painlessly as possible). But as the evening went on, I realized that he'd made a very small knife wound in my psyche that was rapidly starting to bleed out.
The word "bitch" is a trigger for me. I thought I'd gotten over it, that I could control its effects, but within a couple of hours I was struggling with the reflex emotional reaction that it causes -- paralyzing anger, rage, self-loathing to the point of slashing myself with knives and suicidal hatred of my female-ness. Women are dirty bitches, and I'm one, and I don't deserve to live.
I managed to function. I made it through the shift and got home in one piece; I was even able to eat dinner with my husband and do some email, pushing the venom down into the deeper levels of my mind away from conscious awareness. In part this was the function of the skills I learned in DBT training, and they did their job. In part it was the reflex learned from childhood of swallowing my pain because nobody would listen and in fact speaking of my pain brought invalidation ("You don't feel angry/hurt/sad!") or outright punishment ("You selfish cunt!").
But as soon as I stopped moving -- as soon as I started running a bath and stepping myself down to prepare for sleep -- everything fell apart, and suddenly I was back in that place where I was a "filthy little bitch". I hadn't been there in many years. It was a horrible return visit.
I chose not to go to work the next day, since I couldn't face the chance of taking another hit in that profoundly wounded place. But I managed to go back to work on Monday and get back on the horse, one call at a time, overcoming the fear with action. The aftershocks are still shaking me up. Tonight I checked out early and walked away into the cold autumn night because the wound ached too badly. But at least I could go to work, which is better than I would have done a few years ago. I'm surviving.
Some days I don't want to. Like Tuesday -- I went for a mammogram, which (for any males who happen to be reading this, if ANYONE reads this at all) involves putting your breast between two flat surfaces and squeezing it almost flat so an x-ray machine can snapshot the internal structures. When you're about to start your period that very day (as I was) the breast is tender to begin with, and doesn't take at ALL kindly to being compressed with maximum force. Well, at least I won't need another one for a couple of years, if I'm lucky.
I ended up leaving work an hour and fifteen minutes early today because I just couldn't get my panic and depression under control enough to keep working. One irate respondant (it was a Sprint "why did you disconnect?" survey) would pretty much have left me a basket case.
Last Thursday I happened to get one respondant who, in the course of asking me to "take him off the list" (we don't usually have a list, all numbers are randomly generated), went ballistic when I tried to confirm his phone number, which I'm required to do before placing him on the Do Not Call list.
The conversation went something like this:
Me: "Good evening, my name is Laurie and I'm calling on behalf of --"
Him: "DON'T EVER CALL HERE AGAIN!"
Me: "Sir, I'll be happy to --"
Him (one font size larger): "DON'T EVER CALL HERE AGAIN! DO YOU UNDERSTAND!"
Me: "Sir, if I can --"
Him (in screaming, knife-wielding 18 point type): "DO YOU UNDERSTAND! DO -- YOU -- UNDER -- STAND -- (go to 36 point type) BITCH!!!!"
At that point, all I could say was "Yes, sir" and terminate the call.
At first I was annoyed, and somewhat angry, not to mention disgusted that I'd encountered such a low manifestation of the human lifeform (one who couldn't even pretend to observe the common courtesies that keep our society running as painlessly as possible). But as the evening went on, I realized that he'd made a very small knife wound in my psyche that was rapidly starting to bleed out.
The word "bitch" is a trigger for me. I thought I'd gotten over it, that I could control its effects, but within a couple of hours I was struggling with the reflex emotional reaction that it causes -- paralyzing anger, rage, self-loathing to the point of slashing myself with knives and suicidal hatred of my female-ness. Women are dirty bitches, and I'm one, and I don't deserve to live.
I managed to function. I made it through the shift and got home in one piece; I was even able to eat dinner with my husband and do some email, pushing the venom down into the deeper levels of my mind away from conscious awareness. In part this was the function of the skills I learned in DBT training, and they did their job. In part it was the reflex learned from childhood of swallowing my pain because nobody would listen and in fact speaking of my pain brought invalidation ("You don't feel angry/hurt/sad!") or outright punishment ("You selfish cunt!").
But as soon as I stopped moving -- as soon as I started running a bath and stepping myself down to prepare for sleep -- everything fell apart, and suddenly I was back in that place where I was a "filthy little bitch". I hadn't been there in many years. It was a horrible return visit.
I chose not to go to work the next day, since I couldn't face the chance of taking another hit in that profoundly wounded place. But I managed to go back to work on Monday and get back on the horse, one call at a time, overcoming the fear with action. The aftershocks are still shaking me up. Tonight I checked out early and walked away into the cold autumn night because the wound ached too badly. But at least I could go to work, which is better than I would have done a few years ago. I'm surviving.
Some days I don't want to. Like Tuesday -- I went for a mammogram, which (for any males who happen to be reading this, if ANYONE reads this at all) involves putting your breast between two flat surfaces and squeezing it almost flat so an x-ray machine can snapshot the internal structures. When you're about to start your period that very day (as I was) the breast is tender to begin with, and doesn't take at ALL kindly to being compressed with maximum force. Well, at least I won't need another one for a couple of years, if I'm lucky.
