Hey all,
If you read this block of text, I could use some advice.
I started a job in July of 2022 and 3 weeks in my coworker (same team as me, I'll refer to them as Misery) verbally berated me in the office. For context, the office is like a library, you could hear a pin drop. I also, hadn't done anything wrong in this situation and had several people reach out to me after it happened. During this time my direct boss was out on vacation. After being yelled at I promptly messaged in Teams to Misery and asked if we could speak about what just happened and they refused. A day later during the week this happened, I started experiencing heart palpitations for a couple weeks and even saw a heart doctor/ran tests. Everything came back fine so the doctor gave the diagnoses of it being nothing more than stress/anxiety induced, so nothing they could do.
When my boss came back from vacation they decided instead of having us talk out the situation together that we should ignore each other for two months until the release of this big project Misery was working on was over. The difficulty in this was, Misery was training me on a business process specific to the company that was created as as result of current system bugs. So this meant, I had to go through my direct boss to ask any questions for Misery to answer. The additional kicker was that Misery could speak to me, but I could not speak back. I started seeing a therapist the following week after this happened. Also, I should note that everyone on my team has been working together for 20+ years and she has done this to everyone on the team before and has a history of behavior like this (that management does nothing about but give a simple “talking to”)
Fast forward the 2 months, I have fixated everyday since this occurrence happened because I am a fixer. I like to fix things that are broken including relationships and when you have a communication breakdown, the smart thing to do is to talk it out. Unfortunately for me as time progressed I developed PTSD from the event and became very paranoid. Eventually we had a meeting (only because I still wanted to resolve what happened) and basically, this other employee felt justified in how they handled the situation because they felt I was stupid. They said this in front of our manager who did not bat an eye.
Fast forward April 2023, 8 months of therapy later, I feel like I can move forward now without having any PTSD symptoms and feel okay to be in the office again. Prior to this I was actively trying to seek work from home accommodations but my boss's boss and HR refused because the President didn't want anyone WFH even though an individual on my team and the Intern were already.
Fast Forward August 2023 and it happens again, milder, but PTSD symptoms come flooding back and all of a sudden I'm back where I started last year. I was not eligible for FMLA for my first year here, so I tried Short Term Disability which got denied, and tried a WFH accommodation which also got denied. Is what I am experiencing normal? I'm not sure if it matters to anyone, but where I work I am an individual contributor, Solutions Analyst, schedule is hybrid 3 in-office, 2 WFH. Everyone on my team has been there 20+ years and is white and this mimics throughout the job site. I'm a person of color and feel pretty isolated, again.
I'm open to any thoughts or suggestions. I plan on leaving and seeking employment outside this company already, but am looking to be able to survive the transition. My heart races even thinking about work now and I'm trying to not be a number that dies early due to heart attack. I'm only 30.