I have a panic disorder. I got fired for being “unable to control it”.
I was in the middle of coming up into a panic and was trying to calm myself and boss asked me to come do tai chi with her. I said okay bc she’d been trying to “help” for weeks bc she also has PTSD. We walked outside behind some of the trees and did some moves.
The entire time she criticized me for the wrong posture and being unable to control my breathing (my episodes involve convulsions). At the end she literally said “well you can’t seem to get your panic disorder under control so we have to fire you”
That immediately made it all worse. I said I had to lay down bc i was getting faint so I laid on the ground outside in the dirt, in my fetal position, hat over eyes and hands over ears. She started screaming at me telling me I could control it and it was all my fault and I’m letting it happen. I began crying and convulsing and she then grabbed some cedar branches and started hitting me with them “to cleanse my spirits”.
She eventually walked away to get my partner who also worked there. Idk how I got to the car but I did. Let me fuckin tell you I felt so “spiritually raped” and destroyed by a person.
My partner quit and I haven’t talked to them since. I’ve never actually told this story and have been wanting to post it in anti work for a while lol it really fucked me up and I haven’t worked a retail job since bc I’m too scared of people now.
Edit: for weeks prior to this event my partner and i had been trying to get me into the kitchen away from the busy register. We told them it was too much for me at that point. They kept scheduling me in front even tho o kept asking to not be, and legit shaking and crying on shift.