Pull Yourself Together

Have you ever actually been told this? I was told this today at a final meeting I had with my Human Resources director at school who has been refusing to acknowledge and compensate me for my second Master's Degree finished in August (which, by the way she approved 2 years ago, and the approval was in writing). I spent an hour maintaining my composure explaining to her again and again about my program, things which I had already expressed via email and letters. My overall point of frustration was that She Approved the Program to be counted as my "6th year" degree (which bumps me up on the salary scale). So she approves the program before I begin it. I complete the program some $10,000+ and 2 years of my life and lots of stress and juggling obnoxious students with completing program requirements and whatnot later and then she has the audacity to say that she doesn't think the program meets the requirements stipulated in the contract.

Anyway. This arguement had been ongoing since September and I eventually had to resort to my Union for support. (Our union rep for our region I worked with on negotiations a few years back and don't find to be particularly effective, as an aside, yet he's my legal rep anyway...) So he is at this final meeting with me after school today, me, him, and human resources lady. I go through the whole rigamarole of everything I've already expressed to this lady in one way or another as she continues to ask me the SAME things over and over and I continue to respond to her until I reach my composure threshold. Logically, having to defend myself when I've done nothing wrong has been my biggest problem in this entire situation. When you give your word that you are going to do something, then do it for goodness sake. Don't make me suffer because You made a poor decision that you regret when I followed the rules all along...So, eventually, an hour into going over the same things again and again, my eyes well up and my nose begins to run and I am...crying (but not sobbing, just watering and running because who knows why...because I was in a crappy situation and I was tired of defending myself when I shouldn't have had to.) Next thing you know, in walks the executive director (in other districts known as the superintendent). He is vaguely filled in on what I've been expressing after which he proceeds to ask me THE SAME QUESTIONS I JUST SPENT THE LAST HOUR AND FOUR MONTHS ARTICULATING. I explained that I have just finished answering those questions and that my responses are in the HR person's notes and in my previous emails and letters. I then explained that if they were going to require a specific product from a degree program (as if a diploma is not enough) then I recommed that in the future they make that stipulation in writing PRIOR TO APPROVAL. Those two eventually excuse themselves and the guy on my side says to me, "Calm down and pull yourself together a little. This is not helping our case." Guess what buddy, if not allowing tears out of my eyes was an option, I wouldn't have started to cry in the first place. Like I WANTED to cry in front of the two people who are making me jump through ridiculous hoops to receive the benefit that I have already earned.

A few years back I had a deposition for a car accident I was in and had been treating a neck injury for over 2 years. I had originally told the other insurance company that if after a few visits to the chiropractor the pain went away then I would not hold them accountable. However, when the recovery was more extensive and time consuming and the discomfort essentially constant, I got a lawyer and sued for damages. Well with "soft tissue damage" it's difficult to prove your case and all I know is that I went to so many different doctors and told my story to each of them (and eventually as time went on began to cry when I would be explaining the ongoing discomfort because it was so real to me all the time, but not debilitating, not keeping me from everyday tasks, but constant and nagging, etc.) So anyway, at that deposition I was essentially attacked as well, made to feel like I was making up my pain and that the chiropractors I went to weren't real doctors, nor was the naturopath, or the massage therapist, or energy healer (I tried all kinds of things to get relief). The only credibility they allowed was that of the osteopath who said it looked like classic whiplash (except he used a fancier term, and eventually told me that I was just going to have to deal with the pain...thanks doc...)

Anyway, I cried at that deposition too after being attacked and feeling as if I did nothing wrong and my attorney told me then, too that the crying "didn't help the case"...

So today as I drove home from this meeting, letting all out in the car, shivering and practically hyperventilating, I was wondering why I cry in these situations...and how people can control it because I certainly can't. I'm not talking about the hallmark commercial kind of thing, though I admit to tearing up rather easily in those situations, but it's somehow more acceptable to cry for sadness and joy, pain, sorrow, and suffering, but what was my crying for? Was it "poor-me" crying? Or, more likely, a Don't You Fucking Get It? kind of cry... Because that's essentially what it's all about. Don't you have compassion? Don't you feel? Don't you care? I think that is ultimately why I cry, out of hopelessness or something. Out of utter frustration and disappointment that so many people in the world Just Don't Get It.

In the end, they "granted" the salary change (which they had already approved) which I was supposed to feel very grateful for though I didn't have it left in me to show them that gratefulness for something I was owed. I am Not a fake person. I cannot hide my feelings, or fake them, nor should I have to. I am human through and through. I bleed, I love, I laugh, I cry, I feel. And all of that is okay. Life's too short to hold in the tears.

(By the way: Were you aware that there is a significant connection between suppression of feelings and fears (which is a form of stress) and the development of cancer. Just a little tidbit I picked up in my degree program that ties so very nicely in with this entire situation...I'd take crying over cancer any day...)