Forever Tainted

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My actual resignation letter said something like this:
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"Dear L...

Please consider this letter my official resignation effective today.

Thank you for the opportunity you have given to me to work with you and the experience I have had the chance to learn.

Sincerely,

Tainted"

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What I was actually thinking was:
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Last week, you came back from your cruise with a horrid frown on your face. You had a nasty cold, maybe a touch of the flu, but when we asked what was wrong you clearly stated you were pissed at what happened in the office while you were away and it wasn’t you being ill that was getting to you.

I’d still like to know, what exactly you think happened, because as far as I was concerned, the office was running as smoothly as ever while you were away. I don’t recall any conflicts, or issues after you came in and put an end to the initial and as far as I’m concerned, only problem that occurred before you actually left. I know whispers hit your ears that pointed fingers at both myself and another of your employee’s being culprits in something. Initially, I figured even with the far-fetched tattletale being one of your longest devoted employee’s, you’d see through the bull, since during your entire leave, that other employee was out of the office at least 90% of the time. There literally was no time for conflict!

But you stayed miserable for a full week. And your misery rubbed off on others. Friday, I asked for help and the response I got was, “Can we do this some other time? I’m not in the mood today.” I agreed, and asked what was wrong. The response I got was, “She’s being a bitch, a real bitch,” and to that I agreed, but also stated you’d been that way since you came back and no one really knows why so we needn’t take it personally. None-the-less, she told me not to bother completing the task of getting her resume formatted, since she intended to do it herself over the weekend. I almost laughed when she admitted in a staff meeting to seeing your employment ads, then stating she can’t remember what she was looking for on the recruitment site!

Anyway, come Monday, you had prepared a speech and held a talk with four of your staff members. You talked about the problems, the petty bull, then you apologized to two of the members, explicitly expressing that they were not a part of the problem and you regret them having to be a part of the conversation. You then make clear that you have already held conversations with the other staff member present, and turned to me and stated I was certainly part of the problem. You had held no private talks with me concerning this as you had with other’s; in fact, you’d simply treated me like shit period since you’d been back. You choose not to bother, before taking whoever’s words for gold. And pointing a finger at me (despite you not seeing it that way, when you eliminate 3 of the 4 people you’re talking to, there is only one left and metaphorically speaking - that’s pointing a finger), wasn’t a real motivational factor.

I hope you have half the true will to learn that you believe and profess you have, and that you will hear these words and if not agree with them, at least consider them...

I could have succeeded in your office. I could have been one of your best employee’s. I wanted to expand and grow there. Your office failed me as much as I failed you. Here’s why:

You gave me a trainer (without actually telling me she was my trainer, forcing me to learn that by asking the wrong people questions), who could not and can not teach. I brought this to your attention, but it slipped into one ear and out the other. Then, when my ‘trainer’ takes emergency leave, you expect that I know everything I need to know - when in fact, I knew very, very little. Trying to accomplish the tasks at hand, I ask the only other person available to help me. Time and time again I’m told not to bother, that she will just do it as she is too busy (training others and what not). And if not that, I was simply ignored. Concerning one project, I almost beg her to tell me how to do it, but she insists she needs to go through the files herself, because she can’t know what the problem is otherwise. I ask her to do so, then when she finds the problem, to point it out to me because I want to learn; she agrees. Amazing, the next day during a staff meeting, she insists she already taught me what to do, implying I really am that stupid. Fact: If she had taught me, It would have been done rather than sitting on a bloody waiting list!
This may be petty to you, but it’s not the first time, and I was sure it wouldn’t have been the last time your staff members placed undeserved blame on me. Let’s take for example our client, the cancer patient. Before you decided to blame me for not noting we should only be calling only one of them, did you even LOOK at the T1 take in sheet? I did - when I scanned it for you. It clearly shows that I did in fact note that we should NOT be calling one of the pair. Funny enough, that last little bit of bull was the last I was willing to take at your company.

Most of what I learned in your company was taught to me by the girl who quit just 2 weeks prior to me (which is one of the reasons I hated to see her go so bad, I knew if she left, I’d be short behind because there was no one else to help me learn (one of those aspects you pride your company on!).

I told you when I joined I have one really strong weakness, and that’s the inability to work in a place where I am not happy. Feeling stranded up shit creek without a paddle, because there is work on my desk I don’t know how to do and have no one to ask for help or to teach me as it piles high, is not my idea of a happy place to work. Especially when that work is time sensitive and I’m going to get shit for it not being done in the end. Being lied about, and made to feel stupid is not my idea of happy. Being talked about behind my back, to you and to others, not my idea of happy.

You may not feel that you lost much when I quit, mutually, I don’t feel I lost much by leaving. But I hope you realize your office has its faults and helped me fail, through as much as it taught me. I spent a few months taking responsibility for faults that weren’t mine as well as those that were mine. I hope you take responsibility in recognizing the faults in your office and doing something to fix them, before hiring your next staff member.

Last night around 5pm my brother was walking home through the fields. He spotted my mom across the field. Upon seeing him, she ran off. By the time he reached the place he'd seen her, she was gone. He searched the house, the fields, and everything in the area and could not find her. He figures she must have gotten into a car or something to get away.

In the house he discovered she had taken off with the cordless phone. He had to buy a new one.

She hasn't been seen since.

It started first thing in the morning. My brother had called me to let me know mom was missing again. As he was telling me about the charade the night before, with the police creeping up on him while he slept because my mother had gone to the police station and started to file a complaint against him only to walk out when the officers left her alone for a minute. They had no choice but to look into the matter. Mid-conversation she slammed into the house, in a rage asking if my brother and father were having fun. She started slinging insults and acting down-right-out belligerent. My brother hung up with hopes of my mom swinging at one of them again, so they could press charges and hopefully get her into the system with some psychological, medical attention she so desperately needs.

Not a half hour later, my father was on the phone again letting me know he had called 911 and intended to get the police out there to take her away. She had kicked and hit him - but at a whole of 90lbs, it hardly hurt and he felt stupid for attempting to press charges; but hoped it may actually get her help as he’d been previously advised.

The next time the phone rang, it was my father with an officer who told me that pressing charges will do mom no good, since it will restrict my father from being able to go over and help her, and really he is the only one trying to make sure she eats. The same officer said she could not arrest my mom or have her taken to the hospital again. Suicide is not a crime here, according to Ruth C. The police are not the right people to be in contact with, she insisted. We needed to get in touch with a doctor because they have the authority to have my mother evaluated against her will, according to the Mental Health Act of British Colombia.

We decided pressing charges wasn’t the best option. We decided to take the day and as a family try and get help from the medical society. Our first stop was a clinic that specializes in Mental Disorders & Addictions. Being a public holiday, they were closed. So at the advice of the officer earlier that morning, we headed off to the Royal Jubilee Hospital. The officer said they had the mental facilities and a doctor would see us even with my mother absent. Not to any of our surprise, we were not received there. We were told we needed to contact EMHS, the Emergency Mental Health Society, a society we have been in contact with for more than 10 months now and has done nothing to help us - except maybe neglecting to make the right diagnosis during the 45 minutes they evaluated her (after she had been arrested for kicking my brother in the balls and spending the night in jail), and thus helping her become a full-fledged alcoholic by sheer neglect.

After being turned down there, we headed off to the walk in clinic my mother frequents. Perhaps a doctor who had seen her there a couple times could help us, by giving us the authority to having her evaluated against her will. Don’t misunderstand, at times, my mother is willing to get help. She even cries often that she has tried the hospitals and the police and no one will help her. I even have her on video stating this. But she gets frustrated not getting the help she needs - probably because she is not able to coherently explain the symptoms or the problem she perceives (she has tried to press charges against my brother and my father and she has tried to get the hospital to document bruises she claims are from police brutality, but as far as we know, never once explained ALL her symptoms and problems to one person in authority). Part of losing your mind just might be the inability to articulate yourself accurately. Anyway, she then gets stubborn and refuses to seek help; angers at anyone who suggests it. She’s given up time and time again.

At the clinic, the doctor on call was not the one my mother sees. None the less, he has access to her files. He should be able to help us make some assessment; after all, the police officer that morning told us a doctor at the clinic should have the authority to have her evaluated, and we most certainly should be trying to get that done as a family immediately. The doctor on call was flabbergasted at the suggestion. He explained legally he had no right to help us, especially because he had never even met her. The tapes couldn’t help him. Legally, his hands were tied, even if we somehow convinced her to go in and see him, and since my mom is a danger to herself, it’s the police’s responsibility to hold her and get the evaluation done.

So back at square one, we headed off the police station again. We asked to speak to the same police officer who had given us the brilliant suggestions that morning. As stubborn as I’d ever known a person to be she asked , “Do you think we wouldn’t help you if we couldn’t? We see these situations all the time, we see worse and more often than not, even when we do call EMHS, they are let go within the hour for one reason or another.”

A year ago, my whole family had a brilliant future. My parents were wealthy, healthy and had the ability to retire and travel the world for the rest of their lives. Today, my mother looks like a drunken malicious baglady and she acts like one too. She’s nothing more than skin and bones, my guess weighing less than 90lbs. The system failed to help her when she initially begged them for help with physical and mental conditions. They almost forced her to self-medicate through alcohol and now that she’s a drunken alcoholic, they refuse to treat or even attempt to diagnose her apart from being alcohol dependant.

Over the past year, trying to get her proper help we have contacted EMHS, the NEED helpline, Police, the hospitals, the clinics, The Umbrella Society, and the Quadra street clinic. We’re still being shuffled in circles from one administration to another. The society so far that seems to be even trying to help us, is The Umbrella Society. And for that we say thanks. Otherwise, every other department or society agrees something has to be done, but denies having the authority to help; sending us somewhere else.

Right now, my mother is missing.

This morning I called the Mayor. City Hall had the Saanich police call me, who have promised to try and get her re-evaluated by EMHS. This morning I talked to a clinic with hopes of finding help and the receptionist there confided in me that she had lost a loved one because the system failed her in exactly the same way. An officer told me just recently they had a case where a gentleman was in and out of the system for similar things for years, until finally he killed himself. I WILL NOT STAND BACK AND LET THE SYSTEM KILL MY MOTHER.

I intend to start petitioning the Prime Minister of British Colombia. And if my mother dies or kills someone in the process, I honestly believe I will have every reason to sue every and any organization that has refused to get her the help she needs so far.

Dear Mom,

I have just spent the last three hours listening to recordings of you ramble on... You have rambled on to yourself, you have rambled on to your animals, you have rambled on to no one at all. You have laughed and you have cried. You talked with perfect sentence structure and you have mumbled and made no sense at all. You have refused to do nothing. You have told noone to leave you alone. You swear you are not doing it again and we are all trying to put you away. You have gone on about not being able to remember. You have confirmed you will one day go for coffee and you have asked for water with ice. You’re breath has been torn between orgasmic and terrified, sobbing tears. And the scary thing is... You have been recording yourself the whole time.

Noone put the recorder there to catch you in your craziness. The tapes show that you are clearly knowledgeable of turning the recorder on and off yourself. You acknowledging the fact that you should have started recording sooner or should turn the recorder off, prove that it’s you recording yourself. What are you trying to accomplish? Whose voice do you think you are recording? Whose questions are you answering? Who are you telling that you’re not willing to do it, to?

The recordings of you and my father talking... They are nothing more than you rambling about what a bitch I am, how your son’s a pig and how my father is an asshole. They show you being relentlessly ruthless, maliciously hateful towards anyone who loves you and pretty fucking evil, period. Somehow you think the false charges of abuse you brought against him justify your actions. Somehow you think the fact that you weren’t caught drinking and driving before we took your car away, means you aren’t a fucking drunk and you have done nothing wrong. Somehow you think, I am your nemesis and you somehow believe that the hundred thousand dollars you stole from him, were yours to begin with. Somehow, you believe him seeing another woman now, is a mistake he made... Him being unfaithful, despite the thousands of times you have told him it's over since your mind seemed to have slipped.

You go on about how you’ve given me so much and you and you alone have done so much more for me than you have done for any of my siblings. You then ask why I deserve so much more, failing to realize that not only did I not ask for anything, but I have been paying back every fucking penny you (and Matin, because we both knows it was his money to begin with) have ever given me, while you have lent my siblings fractions of the money you’ve lent me and they have failed to pay you back a dime.

I’m tired mom. I’m really fucking tired of it all. Perhaps you’re crazy. Perhaps you’re just a fucking alcoholic as you were when I was a kid - letting child molesters sleep on our couch, failing to acknowledge the harm they were doing your daughters, or any harm at all for that matter... Perhaps, you’re just a useless fucking bitch who can’t sort out her own shit, who shouldn’t have had children in the first place; because even as I grew I knew I was just as fucked as you must have been at my age, and I, like all your other children look forward to a future as dreadfully bright as yours; no matter what I do, eventually confining myself to literally living in garbage, animal faeces, rotting food, refusing to leave despite the million dollar fucking house waiting for you, and hating the world, as life proves all your other children are and do too.

Whatever the case, I pray for one thing... It’s that I never become the animal you seem to be these days and that I never hate my child the way you seem to hate yours.

I love you mom. And it's the truth. But it's real fucking hard to love you through all the hate you throw at me.

Exactly one month from today, it will be a year since I left the United Arab Emirates and returned home. Even though I said it, I don’t know that when I left I believed I’d be gone this long. I’ve probably done more growing up in the 11 short months I’ve been home, than I did in 12 years I spent in the UAE. Things are real here. The good is true, not plastic; the bad is graphic and cold, rather than sugarcoated and lied about.

Five months ago, I found myself a good job, in a good accounting firm that ironically is run by women, and women alone. Approximately ten months ago, my mother started to lose her mind. Things have been just as dramatic here as they had in the UAE. Just two days ago, I talked to my 5 year old son, who is still in the UAE with his father - where I hope to have the strength, the means, and the stability here with my mom, to return eventually.

The gripes are different here. The storyline & characters have altered a little. But the tone has not changed all that much. And since this is my life we’re talking about, I doubt the tone will ever change beyond recognition.

I have decided to start writing again. But I’ve decided this book is going to be more about me, and what I’m experiencing, what I’ve experienced, what I aspire for, and what I want to write (as always). I’ve decided this book will be a real journal, and not just one conceived to inflame, infuriate and entertain; that by no means, means I will not get inflamed or enraged, and I will not entertain... Who the hell can predict such things?

The point is, this is going to be my journal. My real journal. You’re welcome along for the ride, but keep in mind that just because the door is open, doesn’t mean I invited you in. Respect the fact that what I share here are pieces of me. You don’t have to like me. I ask only that you respect me and my little place here.