We need to cool the activity here – it is too active anyway – and just sit with jen for the next few days. That may seem like kind of a dramatic statement but it’s not. She got side smacked yesterday.
Only those who have had similar experiences can know what this kind of thing can do to one’s mental balance, especially at the critical and emotional time we are all in right now as we start another year.
It’s like she has to go to work and deal with that stuff and smile this week but she has been attacked. So we need to think of her this week so she can get over the initial shock of what happened.
Chill responded to jen yesterday:
…I wish I had more to offer but know that I am totally rooting for you….
And Corinne said:
…please feel all our support at this time….
The advice from Robert got to the core of the thing. It’s just that the report from jen is too intense. It cuts through me and makes me feel the same feelings of isolation from my department that I felt at East High School three years ago when I was the only one besides Meredith Richmond (Diana Noonan’s best friend and an early warrior now retired) in a department of ten.
That time at East was a reply of when I was struck down in Jeffco years ago by Lakewood High School and Dakota Ridge High School. That was the worst. That was no fun. Now jen has to feel this kind of thing. I’ll bet we didn’t know that when we started checking out TPRS/CI some of us would have to wear EKV gear (Emotional Kevlar Vests) to work.
I want to be clear – when one is attacked by colleagues, especially from ignorance on their part (we must call a spade a spade – it is ignorance pure and simple) it is a terrible feeling – there is no other way to say it. We can’t gloss over it and we can’t feel what jen is feeling for her this week, but we can be sensitive to what she is experiencing.
The only thing worse that I could think of would be to be completely alone in this work with no emotional support.
This stuff can make you crazy!