TW: terminal illness, mental health
Left this team after 3 years there end of 2021. I’m so happy I found a new role in a different team at the same company (they pay for my graduate school, can’t leave unless I wanna be on the hook for grad school debt).
However, I can’t help that if things are so much better, is it ok I’m still feeling some effects of trauma from the last team?
In my last team, there were MANY red flags. But the biggest thing that crushed me was my supervisor passing away from almost a year long battle with cancer. He worked for 9 months after his diagnosis before taking medical leave, then passed away almost a month and a half after that. He essentially worked till almost the very end. We fell into that trap where the six of us (four team members, supervisor, and senior manager) got really close over the two years we all worked together. Met his son and wife (who was pregnant with their second son). We all became close friends naturally. We all got a text from his wife to say our goodbyes over video and they’ll play it for him before he passes away. Emotionally gutting, right?
Meanwhile, leadership gave us only 5 minutes to be sad. They posted his role within the week and asked for referrals by Christmas (passed away first week of December). I was yelled at for not having a spreadsheet done the day after the announcement of the passing. (I distinctly remember trying to take time and cry for a few days but they’d call me despite knowing I’m OOO and why). The four of us took over his responsibilities while our senior manager had to hire and work with HR to process it as a termination. HR said we could all take the time we needed to grieve but the directors and executive directors still wanted strong end of year results. They somehow threw a holiday party and no mention of honoring or moment of silence for our team member / supervisor lost to cancer. We didn’t feel supported.
Luckily I had a new job lined up for the new year (things were already falling down a spiral prior to his passing). It’s been six months. Some days I get really stuck at work or school because I still get flashes to how horrible that old team was, for not letting us process the trauma and for everything else terrible they did. Is this normal? Is it ok? Will I ever be ok?
(I’m already in therapy, we’re processing there too. It’s taking a bit to recover, but I’m wondering how long does it take to recover?)