Blast from my past

In 2003 I began working in a small nursing home in the rural area I would eventually call home. In fact I purchased my home with proximity to this place in mind. I was there about 8 months when I was placed on disability leave for six weeks after starting an antipsychotic for a mixed state and having a very bad reaction. While I was off, my assistant (who was an evil little thing and everyone knew it) told everyone in the facility exactly what was wrong with me, including some embellishments, one of which was that I was hospitalized when instead I had simply had a night in the emergency room. So I returned to find everyone believing that I had had a psychotic episode and been hospitalized for a significant time. While there would have been nothing wrong with that having happened, and it certainly could happen at any time, it was not the truth and it wasn't a rumor I found it easy to dispel.

I continued doing my job, but the director of nursing who is also evil, was bent on getting rid of me. She made a lot of very ugly comments in open settings, which I didn't find out until later. My favorite was "what does she know, she's crazy?" when I rightfully wanted to treat a patient. She and I began having a lot of conflicts regarding who was in charge of therapy decisions. I was not very effective in arguing with her about this, because I didn't learn to be assertive until about 2 months ago, and so ultimately it got so bad that my company pulled me out of the facility. The next day I was told I was being totally transferred as my other facility was owned by the same company and that company had decided that they did not want me in their facilities. Ever. For any reason. They would give no reason, my company questioned them very specifically about my clinical skills, etc. and all they would say was "we just don't like her". This was particularly odd since they said I was fine as a clinician, I was fine with patients, and the person saying this had never had a conversation with me and had only been near me 3 times. Later she told someone that doing this was a "mistake".

I should have sued them for discrimination, but I didn't. I didn't want to come out to the entire world that I am bipolar. I didn't want money, I wanted my job and my confidence in my abilities back, and neither of those things would happen with a lawsuit.

Over the next few years I learned to believe in my abilities again. For a long time I thought that I was only good with my psychiatric patients, but time has proven this is not so.

I never considered what would happen if I encountered people from that other place again. But with this new job I have. One of the floor nurses from the old place has completed her RN and is now the director of nursing at one of my new buildings. I have no idea what she knows, heard, or remembers of me from before, only that she does remember that I was there. I also know that she is acting just like her previous boss.

Tomorrow I am going to have my first real battle with her in the "you do not tell me what to do" war. She's not qualified and the things she tries to make me do are plain old stupid, but she's very insistent. We're not doing therapy that way. I will leave first. But we'll battle it out before that comes up. The thing is that I know she learned from the woman who I truly consider to be evil on earth. That woman defeated me and I will not lose again. Yet I don't know if I even have a chance.....