Conflict

I had a whole post written about a conflict I'm having at work, but I became afraid that somehow someone would find out about it, and I would get fired. I couldn't figure out how to delete the post, so I erased it. Sorry about that.

I did come up with a theory, though. I am stable, I think, but most of the feelings I'm experiencing usually occur when I either manic or depressed. I feel angry, indignant, and paranoid. Everyone is out to get me, and I get extremely upset over the smallest things, most of them imagined.

I believe that these feelings have their roots in my bipolar disorder, and, because I have felt them so frequently, they have become my normal reaction to conflict even when I am feeling well. I just can't cope with conflict, so I avoid it when I can. If I can't avoid it, it makes me feel sick.

I know this is not healthy, but I don't know how to manage my feelings.

I had a time where my assistants were not following the care plans I wrote and were pretty much falsifying their notes since they were documenting how the patients were doing on things they had never done with them. I talked to them. I talked to my manager. I was told to write it down and make them sign it whenever they didn't do it. It continued. I was getting ready to quit when I was fired. The company I worked for had a reputation for firing experienced therapists to replace them with cheap new grads so I think that was part of it and part of it was they didn't want to hear about the ethical thing because it was more time productive to not do the plan of care (yet the plan of care was appropriate for the patients). Edit: What they were doing was legally and ethically wrong and since I supervised it was wrong for me as well. The buck stops here kind of wrong. I did get them to not document they did things they hadn't. Most of the time. So I couldn't have been disciplined as easily. But they still were very wrong and I let them be.

What I learned is that pretty much you have to do what you can live with. 2 years later I had a patient who had been treated by those same assistants while in the nursing home; I was seeing her for home health. She was doing well but one day said "I just don't understand why the OT in the nursing home never did this. I should have done this before I came home alone". And she was right. But because I didn't make enough fuss (and didn't report it to the state) the bad therapy went on. That makes me sad because good therapy from the outset makes a huge difference in recovery.

It's hard to take risks like that but it's also hard to live with knowing you let something happen that shouldn't have.

(Having said that, whatever you do document well so you can use it to fight should you need to)

This sounds a lot like me and what I do......there's a ton of conflict every day where I work and I feel all sorts of paranoia (most of it imagined). I get indignant all the time because I believe the job is below me (perhaps my PD talking there).

Starting this year, I had a very tough time staying even when I walked through the door in the AM. I would prep in the car on the way to work (be mindful, play it cool, etc) and it would ALL go to s*** in the first 10 seconds of me walking through the door when the first conflict or challenge erupted.

So knowing this was a regular problem for me, I try to front run any episodes. I meditate, stay current with my meds, sleep, read, eat well, stay away from booze, focus on what makes me happy. In the past, I was always in *fight* mode and never really happy, no matter where I was or what I was doing.

Now, I make myself top priority and whatever it takes to make that work, that's what I do. My job takes second place in my life now.......work and career is no longer a top priority for me.