02/05/2016

Sometimes in life, we meet people who promote our well-being, make us happy, more " solaires ", as Ariane says; and sometimes, there are those who destroy us: stalkers, narcissistic perverts, manipulators or mental patients, it doesn't matter; it is not for me to qualify them : I leave that to mental health specialists.

So 10 years ago, in the public health establishment where I work, I met three people from the second category: a couple of executives and their director. Then began a moral harassment against me which still continues today... Reason for which I wish to testify, like an outlet concerning me, but also and especially to help those and those who live this hell! Like many of you, I wondered why this was falling on me: Jealousy? Superior skills? Power ? Stupidity? Or mental deviance? Maybe all of it combined? I've never had an answer to this question and probably never will...

When I think about it, my story is beyond comprehension, especially when you don't know the managerial practices related to this type of problem. The positive thing is that today I know them all, partly thanks to Ariane Bilheran and her works which have been very enlightening and helpful for me; in this sense, I thank her very much...

So 10 years ago, in full professional ascension, the gentleman of the executive couple in question told me, and I quote: " that he intends to destroy me, that there is no not arrived so far but that his companion will succeed ". So act: my team that I've known for years is turning their backs on me... I find myself alone... 3 months off work... Going to pick up my few personal belongings at my office, everything was thrown away in bulk in a cardboard box, my name removed from all computer documents (what is called " the staging of the disappearance ").

Official version: interpersonal conflict, it was I who left the service " like a thief " and who erased the computer documents (NB: I stayed to work until 7 p.m. while the director in question, who was my line manager at the time, made very few appearances during the day!). to secretarial tasks (at bac + 5)... During this time the famous companion takes my place. I hold out for a few months then break down again and there it's a break of a year and a half... 

I ask the HRD at the time to hear my version, which he will not do since it is already me who is at fault. On the contrary, he gives me a threatening letter... I then turn to " justice " and then file a complaint with the gendarmerie (LOL!!!! -died laughing-): "  case closed without further action ". At the time the laws on moral harassment did not exist, as for the state of mind of certain gendarmes, I prefer not to tell you what I think!!!!...

Resumption a year and a half later: I was assigned as a replacement in a department that was not in the hospital where I was and therefore miles from my home (without financial compensation of course) then in a closed department and disused where I will stay for three months!

I don't see anyone all day, I have no chores to do, in short the closet!

So I come to read: books on moral harassment (hey as long as I can... :) : Hirigoyen, Pezé, Ariane Bilheran of course etc. and there, first awareness that I am experiencing moral harassment and that I am powerless to stop this massacre. The “ affaires ” of work-related suicides will then begin at the national level: Orange, Renault etc. Awareness is all the more violent... but tongues are loosened, we are starting to talk about it in the press, on television... no company seems to be spared, no area either... I emphasize place a blog on the subject for a few years... Then will finally come out a law on the subject... First resilience...

After three months, the general management decides I quote: “ that it has lasted long enough !é. Punishment complete ? Nay! I will then wander like a ghost from post to post (I should rather say from closet to closet) two years here, two years there... and whatever the excellent work done and my excellent grades, nothing will not change... It goes without saying: no executive appointment concerning me despite my bac +5...

Then I will be called to general management where my salary will be increased (without appointing a manager but it was already a first recognition) but the companion in question who had left me alone in my successive closets will awaken her jealousy and multiply the emails to the direction against me, will follow me in the corridors, even sometimes to the toilets... In short, hell begins again...

Until his transfer, first relief for me... Thanks to an outstretched hand from an HRD that I will never thank enough, I will even do prevention on harassment and stress at work... Second resilience... This was without taking into account the presence of her husband who remained in the company and of my former director.

Then, unfortunately for me, the general management changed.

Then takes place an executive competition to which I present myself: I see leaving at the end of the interview with the jury my former director with a triumphant smile on his lips. Of course I was not named!

At the end of the competition, I was summoned by the new HRD who told me that I had not had the competition but that the appointed agent was sick and that I had to replace him!!!! Which I refuse of course... I am therefore summoned by the new director and once again attend a surreal interview: either I accept a post of secretary or I am fired from management. I therefore prefer to be fired once again... Of course, my training is " fucked up " and all the work done so far as well . Again, 4 months off work...

On my return, I take a new position which certainly corresponds to my level of competence at Bac+5 but without appointment or corresponding remuneration...

My work is still prevented by the two individuals in question, the work makes less and less sense, I am not associated with any managerial decision...

I then think that the accumulation is doing its work: I repress my thoughts and throw myself into work despite everything, and insidiously my body begins to decompensate: 3 surgeries in the same year: I undergo a first operation due to a musculoskeletal disorder then it is a gynecological attack for which I would have two operations (I am denied as a person and especially as a woman!). I arrive at the last one with indescribable fatigue. I'm collapsing: burn out... I also had complications following the last operation for which I had to be admitted to the hospital where I work.

A misdiagnosis almost led me to the worst: another realization: I almost stayed there!

At the end, I develop in addition to the rest a post-traumatic stress...

I will of course spare you the details experienced over the past 10 years: assignment to a 2 square meter office without a window, another time: assignment of a broken seat or even change of all the computers in the service except mine...etc. etc and at the level of private life: companion of the couple of executives who followed me in the street, came to wait for my child at the end of school, then aggression by his child of mine in college, they came to settle in my village in 300 meters from my house etc. etc

I have the impression for 10 years that I have been working in a concentration camp under a totalitarian regime where my body is present but not my spirit, fighting every day to preserve my integrity and my values, the only things they do not can't take me... This everyday life that I am describing to you in the public hospital is that of institutional abuse that has become " ordinary " and_cc781905-5cde-3194 -bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ which can only be stopped by freeing speech. There reigns a law of omerta which kills, not only its staff, but also its patients and the public service as a whole... Each year about fifty hospital doctors commit suicide (see recently the suicide of a Professor of cardiology at the APHP Pompidou Hospital.)

Beyond the human drama for this man and his family - married with 5 children - how many patients does he leave idle and in pain? How many years will it take to train another Professor of Cardiology with such knowledge? At a time when France boasts of having the best medicine in the world, who talks about the problems of moral harassment in hospitals? Who speaks of these good doctors and other invested people who are pushed towards the exit or suicide? Not to mention, of course, other health professionals (nurses, nursing assistants... but also administrative and technical staff, etc.) who are also suffering. The same is true in the army, the police, the gendarmerie... Drama and suffering passed over in silence, how many deaths will it take for our leaders to move top of the state? It is a real scourge and public health problem that urgently needs to be addressed...

We are in charge of receiving patients, from “ prenons care ” while we do not -3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_»... Because yes, we have wonderful doctors and extraordinary teams, but we also have some who don't know or no longer know what treating means... and these are often the ones who are in power, endorsed by incompetent leaderships that let it happen...

This is what suffering at work is...  You too don't stay alone, testify to what is happening in our public hospitals...

Today I have been off for months, I am taking care of myself once again because unfortunately for them I am not suicidal... Future???? But who knows his?

Another realization: today I undertook a second therapeutic work (the first having taken place 10 years ago and having been useless. In this type of trauma, it is advisable to choose your therapist carefully, this does not was not the case at the time...). There are now more and more consultations specializing in suffering at work and above all therapists capable of humanity. So I worked alone with my reading, on the internet, TV reports, documentaries, writing a blog etc. and I never stopped this process even when I was resilient. I evolve faster today in a few weeks than in a year and a half last time. The sessions are often difficult for me but necessary for my progress which is going in the right direction since I am getting better and better...

What I no longer want today is to continue working in this structure which is too abusive for me. My departure is therefore essential to the preservation of my physical and mental health. I won't bring anything more to it anyway, I let go completely and I don't want to risk losing my benevolence or letting myself be embittered by the suffering that reigns there while I aspire to the contrary...

My dearest hope and wish: to lead my own structure dedicated to the well-being of others... No precise idea for the moment but it's the general idea... When others are well it makes me happy... My first priority being to take care of myself to better take care of others then...

I think that successive realizations, even if difficult, are necessary for self-change because we cannot change others. Changing my vision of the world, to better change the world. This is my only ambition today. I think I'm evolving towards more wisdom and that's what I'm looking for... there's the positive...  

My fears and my doubts: today I have lost the meaning of work, it is very difficult for me to live, and I am afraid of never finding it again... Here and now, I am here with my values and remains convinced despite everything that it is the good moral values that will change our world of work, therefore the one we will leave to our children, and our way of being and living together...

It is of course necessary that the victims perform therapeutic work to get out of this suffering, but it is also the work that must be treated because treating only the victim is useless... And putting in place reparations: social justice, recognition at work etc... It is the work which must be adapted to the man and not the man who must adapt to the work. It is the managerial practices that must change to move towards fair, human and sustainable management. Because a person happy in his work will be much more productive than one who will be in pain.

And finally, keep hope, that time will do its work and that the harassers will one day be punished for their wrongdoings so that the victims can come out of this status and finally rebuild themselves...

Thanks again Ariane...

Here is the list of works that have been very helpful throughout these years (list far from exhaustive!):

• Moral harassment – Marie-France HIRIGOYEN

• Psychosocial risks at work, real questions, good answers  - Olivier BACHELARD, Michel DEBOUT etc.

• Preventing stress and psychosocial risks – Benjamin SAHLER – Editions ANACT

• Harassment, family, institution, company – Ariane BILHERAN

• All harassed? - Ariane BILHERAN

• They did not all die but all were struck, journal of the consultation “ souffrance et travail ” 1997 – 2008 Marie PEZE

• Work on equal terms - Marie PEZE

• To put an end to tyrants and perverts – Yvonne PONCET-BONISSOL

• The manipulators are among us – Isabelle NAZARE AGA

• A marvelous misfortune – Boris CYRULNIK

• Manual of survival in the world of work - Jacques SALOME

• Who would I hurt if I was myself? - Jacques SALOMÉ

• Suffering in France, the trivialization of social injustice – Christophe DEJOURS

• Giving meaning to work, promoting psychological well-being – IRSST

• The RPS notebooks – CATEIS tri-annual review

• Psychosocial risks – Catherine BRUN ARACT Aquitaine

• Screening for psychosocial risks, indicators to guide you – INRS February 2010

• Be solar and free yourself from toxic personalities - Ariane BILHERAN

• In Praise of Weakness - Alexandre JOLLIEN

• Live without why? - Alexandre JOLLIEN

• Everything is bad, I'm fine - Christophe BLOCH

• The Narcissistic Pervert - Matiale O'Briens

• Change yourself, change the world - Christophe André, Jon Rabat Zinn, Pierre RAHBI and Matthieu RICARD

• Happiness, a philosophical journey - Frédéric LENOIR

• Three friends in search of wisdom - Christophe ANDRE, Alexandre JOLLIEN, Matthieu RICARD

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