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greenstormWell, this is PDA hell.
My employer has decided that the province I live in requires in-person home safety checks in order for us to work from home. Please note all the people who work remotely in this province, many of whom I know personally, do not have this requirement.
They've already used the safety card to say they are going to come to folks' homes if we're offline for more than an hour. That really gets my back up, but I've been handling it. If I print something out to read for work, I just set a timer and move the mouse every once in awhile or something. It's incredibly stupid but now it's been eclipsed.
I really don't want to let anyone into my house. There are tons of reasons, of course.
I feel super unsupported on safety in the first place: this is an employer who pays to dispose of ergonomic office equipment rather than allow us to bring it home (ergonomics is the safety they're inspecting the house for) and who does lip service to mental health but doesn't provide mandatory mental health anti-bigotry training or money for more than three mental health provider sessions per year. They've mentioned pulling training opportunities if I'm going to take extended sick time.
I don't like people in my house in the first place.
I don't trust my boss (!) coming into my house not to make discriminatory remarks until the end of time based on what he sees.
I don't like the look of being forced into a private space where I can't access help with a dude. It's not that I think my boss is gonna sexually assault me; it's that I don't like an institution which requires me and everyone working from home to put ourselves in a situation where that may occur.
But also I do not like being forced to do things that violate my body, and my house is my body. I might choose to allow things I don't like, but this isn't being presented as a choice.
My PDA is SCREAMING right now. I'm going to go into the garden and cry, come back in, cry some more, scream and rock and squeeze my nails into my palms and wander from room to room wailing. Then I'm going to look very calm, wipe my eyes, sit down, log into my work computer, and read the email again. I'm going to write a polite clarification: "is there a way to do this by video or through pictures, I don't feel comfortable with my employer in my home" or something. Then I'm going to go back into the garden and cry and stare into space and not even see the garden. I might dig a hole and plant something.
People don't usually see this part of me. In some ways my PDA doesn't allow them to; knowing I'm like this is a kind of power and I don't like people having power over me, especially people who have no empathy, no understanding, and have not shared vulnerabilities of their own. I'd mask; I'd smile. If I learned about this at work I'd say nothing and just be silent but when I got home it would bubble over.
And here's the thing. It literally feels like dying, or honestly worse than dying. It is the most extreme fight-or-flight response you can imagine. It feels like this will destroy me. And even if work comes to a compromise around allowing video or pictures I'll still have gone through this truly terrible feeling.
I'm so grateful I'm called in sick already for the ongoing whatever it was this week. I can process this, but on the other hand, there's no processing it. There's no thinking it through, rationalizing it, anything like that. There's just enduring the sense of helplessness and violation and threat until it's over, then trying to forget it ,all while trying to live my life and smile at my friends and eat dinner and whateverthefuck else people do.
This isn't a super rare experience. This is what PDA at its medium trigger feels like. This is my life some of the time, and honestly not an insubstantial amount of the time. I could lean into it and get self-righteous but that only makes it worse when its forced to happen anyhow. People supporting me and saying, "yeah, that's bad" makes it worse. Everything makes it worse. That's why I go to the garden.
Edited to add: I can do none of the above now because I wrote that I would do it, which translates it into a demand, and I have zero ability to accept demands now. Isn't this fun? This is my actual life.
My employer has decided that the province I live in requires in-person home safety checks in order for us to work from home. Please note all the people who work remotely in this province, many of whom I know personally, do not have this requirement.
They've already used the safety card to say they are going to come to folks' homes if we're offline for more than an hour. That really gets my back up, but I've been handling it. If I print something out to read for work, I just set a timer and move the mouse every once in awhile or something. It's incredibly stupid but now it's been eclipsed.
I really don't want to let anyone into my house. There are tons of reasons, of course.
I feel super unsupported on safety in the first place: this is an employer who pays to dispose of ergonomic office equipment rather than allow us to bring it home (ergonomics is the safety they're inspecting the house for) and who does lip service to mental health but doesn't provide mandatory mental health anti-bigotry training or money for more than three mental health provider sessions per year. They've mentioned pulling training opportunities if I'm going to take extended sick time.
I don't like people in my house in the first place.
I don't trust my boss (!) coming into my house not to make discriminatory remarks until the end of time based on what he sees.
I don't like the look of being forced into a private space where I can't access help with a dude. It's not that I think my boss is gonna sexually assault me; it's that I don't like an institution which requires me and everyone working from home to put ourselves in a situation where that may occur.
But also I do not like being forced to do things that violate my body, and my house is my body. I might choose to allow things I don't like, but this isn't being presented as a choice.
My PDA is SCREAMING right now. I'm going to go into the garden and cry, come back in, cry some more, scream and rock and squeeze my nails into my palms and wander from room to room wailing. Then I'm going to look very calm, wipe my eyes, sit down, log into my work computer, and read the email again. I'm going to write a polite clarification: "is there a way to do this by video or through pictures, I don't feel comfortable with my employer in my home" or something. Then I'm going to go back into the garden and cry and stare into space and not even see the garden. I might dig a hole and plant something.
People don't usually see this part of me. In some ways my PDA doesn't allow them to; knowing I'm like this is a kind of power and I don't like people having power over me, especially people who have no empathy, no understanding, and have not shared vulnerabilities of their own. I'd mask; I'd smile. If I learned about this at work I'd say nothing and just be silent but when I got home it would bubble over.
And here's the thing. It literally feels like dying, or honestly worse than dying. It is the most extreme fight-or-flight response you can imagine. It feels like this will destroy me. And even if work comes to a compromise around allowing video or pictures I'll still have gone through this truly terrible feeling.
I'm so grateful I'm called in sick already for the ongoing whatever it was this week. I can process this, but on the other hand, there's no processing it. There's no thinking it through, rationalizing it, anything like that. There's just enduring the sense of helplessness and violation and threat until it's over, then trying to forget it ,all while trying to live my life and smile at my friends and eat dinner and whateverthefuck else people do.
This isn't a super rare experience. This is what PDA at its medium trigger feels like. This is my life some of the time, and honestly not an insubstantial amount of the time. I could lean into it and get self-righteous but that only makes it worse when its forced to happen anyhow. People supporting me and saying, "yeah, that's bad" makes it worse. Everything makes it worse. That's why I go to the garden.
Edited to add: I can do none of the above now because I wrote that I would do it, which translates it into a demand, and I have zero ability to accept demands now. Isn't this fun? This is my actual life.
