Life was good. But, as many do, I tried to find something wrong with it. Long before my diagnosis of cancer, I spent much of my life in doctor's offices wondering if there was something wrong with me. I suffered from hypochondria and anxiety. If I had any weird symptom at all, I would immediately jump to the idea that it was the worst possible thing. A lot of times I would think things like "What if I have cancer?" Or other terrible diseases that I would find on google.
There is a man named Bruce Lipton. He wrote a book called the Biology of Belief. He talks about people having a gene and it's activated by our environment. So, according to him, I may have had this cancer gene and it was activated by something in my environment. It could have been many things that triggered it according to him. If this is true, I have some theories.
First of all, before I was diagnosed in July 2017, I had a string of very stressful jobs. I was at an Autism Center for 2 years where I worked as a Behavioral Therapist, it was a rewarding job, but very stressful. There were kids there that I fell in love with, but there were also kids that physically attacked me on a regular basis or covered me in their feces and their vomit. This was part of the job. I would come home with bite marks and scratches and to be honest, there were times I was terrified of these kids. If I saw the schedule and would find myself scheduled with one of the more aggressive kids, I would get so stressed out. After two years, I found another job!
I was very excited because it was a step up from being a behavioral therapist and I would no longer be dealing with aggressive kids. Also, I was told it was a manager position and only a small part of my job would be working with adults with disabilities. So, I was excited to be in more of a management roll, but still be able to work with people with disabilities, since it was a passion of mine at the time. I didn't make it very long. I met some wonderful people at this company and I still miss my clients. But, the job turned out to be very stressful and I came home crying more than once. The job was explained to me by the director of the department and from what I could tell, I was basically lied to. There was one house that I managed that I couldn't keep staffed. People would call in sick, and when I took over as manager, I had a few staff quit. So I ended up having to cover at this house many many times. This was physically and emotionally taxing as the family was very strict and they had two adults in the house who needed assistance. One of which required lifting. At the time I was barely strong enough to do it. I was able to hire someone who showed up for her shifts, but the mother in the family hated her for some reason. So, she didn't last long which meant I had to go and cover again. I was working 12 hour days. After, far too long I started looking for a new job. I told my co-worker about it and she reported it to my manager to proceeded to call and yell at me. After being yelled at in the most unprofessional way possible, I knew I had to get out of there even more. So, I pushed forward with a job that wasn't ideal.
It was a data entry job at a company that did credentialing for doctors. It had basically nothing to do with my either of my degrees in either Theater arts or Career Counseling/Psychology, but I had to get out of there. Not to mention, when they hired me, they wanted to start me as a temp. I took the job. I made the mistake of not telling my fiance that it was a temp job, but I HAD to get out of the job I was in, I was very very unhappy there. The day I left, I packed up my stuff, wrote my manager an email that I sent right before I left and then never looked back.
At first, I loved my new job, my trainer Lauren was so sweet, and so were all the other people that helped train me. There was a sweet girl there named Sasha, she and I got along really well. She was always so sweet to me and we would hang out at company events. It didn't take long before they hired me on, and I was no longer a temp, but my fiance almost broke off our marriage because I didn't tell him about it. It was a mistake not to tell him, but I don't think it was a mistake to leave the company I was at previous to this. It was the best decision for me to get out of there. After making lots of friends at this new company, I got better and better at my job and although it was kind of boring after a while, I got comfortable there. There were other departments that were more stressful so I was happy where I was and I loved my team and my manager was also great. The other thing I loved about the company at first was that they did all these things for their employees. They had great insurance, great 401k packages, and they also did all these fun events for employees like happy hours, group walks and runs, ice cream trucks, and so on. I had never worked for a company that had so much fun together. But then things turned really dark, things started to change for the worst and this job became the most toxic job of my life.
My sister is the one who had suggested I come work there. She is the one who basically got me the job, so she worked there as well. What happened was that everyone in my department was moving around to different positions, so Lauren became my manager, and my manager became the director. For some reason, this caused both of them to change. Lauren was suddenly super mean to me, and so was my manager who had previously been so supportive and kind. I really liked both of them, but when they moved up, they both changed. I couldn't tell if it was stress, or pressure from above, but there was no kindness or understanding left in either of them anymore. By the end of my employment there, I was being micromanaged by Lauren. She was literally watching my Instant messaging and if I went inactive for any amount of time she would send me a message and tell me I was leaving my desk too often. I literally had to start putting up away messages when I went to the bathroom or went to print something which was a common part of my job. Eventually, I was told that I had two weeks to increase the amount of applications that I completed or I would be let go. I did my best. I was pulled into the office with Lauren and the new director (my previous manager). And I was told that I sent out an empty application. It's impossible to do this unless you are really stupid, and I know that I did not do this. When I told them that I didn't do that, they showed me a fake paper trail. I was pissed, and I told them "It wouldn't happen again". They let me stay on another week before they fired me.
It was extremely traumatic, the whole experience. Not long after I was let go, my sister who was in a different department had a similar situation happen to her and she was also let go. This didn't help the stress of the whole situation. The company was doing this left and right. According to a friend who worked in HR, she said she had seen companies do this before, where they weed out the "bad" ones by creating reasons to get rid of them.
I went between emotions of anger, resentment, and sadness. I thought I was okay at first, but I spent that first day mostly crying. To please my fiance, I immediately applied for unemployment and started looking for jobs through my tears. My sister was very supportive during this time as she was still at the company for a while longer before she was let go. She wasn't happy there anymore either, and she had been ready to leave for a while.
I fell into a deep depression for quite a while, it was months before I started to take classes at the unemployment office and started to find ways to get a job that I actually wanted. It took a long time, but I finally got a job in my field of Career Counseling and Career Management. I took a job at a company in Minneapolis, and they were focused on working with people with either disabilities or people with low income. They offered classes and certifications and I was mostly working with people in these programs. They had a technology program, a data entry program, a health care program, etc. Part of my job was going to be data entry, and the other part of my job would be working with clients. I was so excited to get started. And I fell in love with my co-workers almost immediately. They were all wonderful! Not to mention, they encouraged us to go for walks and take breaks when we needed them and that was such a huge difference from the micromanaging that was going on at my last company. I absolutely loved my boss! She was and still is amazing. (I keep in touch with her since having to leave the company.) I was only there for about 4 months before I was diagnosed with cancer and unfortunately, never got the chance to go back.
