We help the helpless (fanfic writer)

I didn't post yesterday, I was simply too tired once everything was done. We met with the person in charge of helping us navigate healing. I explained some of what I experienced at my job at the prison and realized from the facial expressions I got that it was far worse than I had initially thought. It was explained to me that it was indeed worse. I'm still navigating what happened, still trying to understand why, still coming to grips with the fact that I'm never going to get those answers. I will simply have to live with the confusion and lack of closure and my assumptions for the rest of my life. For now, I just don't understand.

I understand why my coworker turned on me. I understand she somehow got our other office mate to join her. I understand the tension it caused turned our supervisor on me. I understand they wanted me gone, not transferred because they knew what they were doing was very close to illegal but 100% against company policy and means for a lawsuit and would cost them their jobs if proven. That makes sense to me. I wouldn't do it, I simply tell people when I have a problem, give them two chances beyond that for the behavior to be fixed and if it isn't, only then do I involve a higher up. More often, I simply avoid them and keep exchanges surface level. But I'm in my forties now, I've been working for more than two decades. I've raised multiple children and navigated firestorms people have a hard time believing actually happened due to how severe they were. I'm not wired for petty behavior anymore. I don't enjoy it while it's happening, it doesn't bring satisfaction at it's end- and it doesn't solve a single problem. I desire solutions. That's where my satisfaction lies now.

But I don't understand why the only man there I genuinely wanted to be friends with pretended to be a good friend to my face, then said the most disparaging things behind my back. He'd seek me out in the break room, get close and speak so soft and encouragingly as he asked if I was okay and I might have answered him, but warning alarms were going off in my mind. Then I'd hear him acting like it happened the other way around to others. I tried ignoring him entirely, that pissed off everyone. I tried simply waving and continuing on with my work when he'd walk by and wave, that made all the women gossip that I was trying to steal him away from his wife...and all I could think was, first, I don't do that. I've been asked to be a mistress of the most beautiful man I've ever seen, he literally ticked every box I ever had on what I dreamed of aesthetically and mentally, with the opportunity for separation, discretion and very little chance of it affecting my life at all and I STILL decided not to for his wife's sake. I'm not going to go looking to homewreck at my job, the only thing writing my meal ticket? No.

I don't understand why our top boss got so weird with me. Why he'd give me these absolutely sweet smiles like the one he gave at orientation that had my entire training group telling me to be careful, grin at me the unfortunate one time I didn't catch myself and checked him out as he was walking by, then other times make absolutely cruel comments or offer to fire me for nothing at all. Or walk by the office repeatedly glaring at me with his fists clenched when I'd been doing my job quietly at my desk all day. OR try to reach out and touch me days after when someone died, how could he look surprised I avoided it and quickly left? Why did he act like we needed to be kept separated with help from others when I was already avoiding him? Why did he say what he did to my second supervisor that had other leadership coming to check on me and coworkers walking me to my car for a few days without being asked and telling me I should wear scrubs to avoid attention? I'm fat. What attention? The only attention I got in that prison was mean and derogatory? Targeted and designed to make me feel unsafe, not attractive?

I didn't feel wanted by anyone there...not even the man who put his body against me, or the CO that tried to catch me with my pants down in the bathroom, or the other CO who invaded my personal space in a forward way in front of absolutely everyone when I made the mistake of joking with him. I only ever felt bullied. It was only ever about power and control. Making me feel insignificant and small. Like they were trying every possible method to frighten me. Anything to make me submit or leave, but submit to what? No one ever declared any terms of surrender. They just bullied. They didn't know I was a survivor of torture, neglect, rape and severe child abuse before I started middle school. If they did they'd realize bullying wouldn't have worked. I'd become too spiteful and stubborn to let it stop me by the time I was 8. Might've sped up their work by months, or simply fired me and saved me from the mess I dealt with after, possibly from the pneumonia I know I caught from working in medical during the height of flu season. But instead they put my through 6 months of unnecessary behavior, 6 months of feeling worse at work than I did in high school, while I was being stalked at home by someone from our old life(I believe) and unable to sleep. In the end I walked out the morning the top boss made it clear to the INMATES I was a free-for-all for inappropriate behavior with no protection even from him.

It feels confusing. I have it all recorded, each incident documented with dates, locations, times, witnesses, even if it doesn't help in any other way than provide clarity for myself in the fog. I'm so angry. I feel violated. I feel purposely misunderstood. I feel vilified for simply wanting the rules to be followed and to do my job without having to interact in gossip or backbiting. Obviously I was wrong. It didn't escape my notice what they said about me to justify their behavior. It didn't escape my notice the way it spread and poisoned the growing friendships I had with many people there. The rumors that got spread had people thinking I didn't earn my place there or that I wasn't qualified when I had decades of work experience and a decade of directly applicable clerical experience- not to mention how quickly I learn computer systems. I know they noticed that, I know they noticed because after my transfer to medical they didn't train me in the computer system at all. I got a five minute one time tutorial and was left to figure it out, sink or swim. It was mind boggling how off they were about me, how willing they were to despise me, with no desire whatsoever to fact check themselves or do any research at all before they ran with any or all rumors like it was scripture.

I'm glad I'm gone. I loved what I did and I loved working with the inmates, it was exactly what I was looking for in work to be happy, but I hated almost every minute with my coworkers because 90% of them were the most foul behaved people I have ever witnessed- while being literally surrounded by inmates who were guilty of serious crime who acted ten times better on a daily basis. There were bright spots of course. The people who treated me the way I treated them, which was politely and warmly because that's how I treated everyone regardless of how I was treated. But those people were rare and in the end, most of them were too afraid to do that if anyone else was watching. It was heartbreaking.

Don't work for CoreCivic.