Elle__4
27-06-14, 00:37
I'm livid.. Or am I devastated? ....Or am I relieved?!
Despite myself suffering from mental health since my teens, I've worked as a Health Care Assistant for 25 years, most recently in A&E. Alongside this I have also worked 10 years in Learning Disability and Mental Health - Low and High Risk.
I've never had a gap in employment until last year when I had 3 short gaps - one due to suffering severe anaemia, the second due to having a subsequent total Hysterectomy (and even then I returned to the ward within 5 weeks - I was still having iron transfusions in my lunch break!) Then another break when I moved to another County and reapplied for another job at the local hospital in January.
I flew through that interview. All subsequent references from my previous NHS ward and my mental health agency were glowing and my Police Check came back clean as always. I was extremely patient waiting 6 months for all the checks to go through (which caused huge financial and practical issues). Last week I was told the application was at the final stage of simply being 'checked over and signed off by the Senior Project Nurse Team'.
Today I received a call. Literally this was said to me;
'Hello am I speaking to Elle? Well, I'm sorry to inform you that you've not been successful in your application, but thankyou for applying. Ok, well, Goodbye.'
!!!!! I just managed to stop her from hanging up and urgently asked for a brief reason. She replied that she did not have the reason and gave me an address to write to. And again she was off. So heartless and cold.
I was in total shock. I called the HR dept and asked what they had found so wrong that they could not employ me in a job that is dangerously understaffed and that I am highly qualified for, soundly competent in, and still totally in love with. They put me through to the department that had interviewed me.
The nurse I spoke to there said she was really unhappy that I had been rejected but that it was out of her hands. She did however say that the original senior project nurse who had called me should have given me the reason as she DID know it and she assured me she would make her call me back and tell me what had happened.
A few moments later the original nurse called me back and sounded really cheesed off and had a go at me for calling back when she had told me not to. She told me at breakneck speed that my application was rejected by the project team as I had gaps in my employment during the last 3 years and that due to this, they could not obtain the sufficient references required for this period. She then told me to write to the address she had given me as she couldn't give me any more information ... ''like I told you to'' as she kindly added before cutting me off!
So I can not do my job in a profession that needs me, simply due to not ticking boxes as usual. The Country is on it's HEAD.
I put the phone down and it took all my strength to just not go and lay down and take a shitload of pills and end it all or jump on a plane to Africa (where we travel, and I where I feel I belong). I have a daughter and so they can never be options but my God, it felt like a final straw and was the closest I have ever come to thinking I needed to end my life regardless of anyone it would leave behind. I couldn't even push my tears out despite a massive lump in my throat that is still there. I was just so DONE with my emotions and trying to cope with Anxiety. I just thought, 'Ok, the World wins. Anxiety wins. I'll sit at home and and give in to anxiety and just shrivel up while patients suffer in staff starved hospitals'.
I shouldn't even be FUNCTIONING with this illness, let alone trying to be a useful member of society and helping others.
The thing is, working is my best medicine and therapy for my own issues and I have loved going to work every single day of my life. Yet it can also cause me so much social anxiety with colleagues which I then over-analyse for days afterwards. So work has always been bittersweet. Every day I find reward and punishment through working.
Although I am truly devastated at the hospitals decision and I know I'd rather be there and that it does me good to be in that environment, I also keep feeling calmed by the thought that if I am unemployed I can become more reclusive and avoid some of the situations that caused me angst. However, although my partner would provide for myself and my daughter, I know losing my independence will eventually lead to depression and loss of control and self worth.
I wonder if I am better off being employed or not!
How does everyone else find this issue?
Despite myself suffering from mental health since my teens, I've worked as a Health Care Assistant for 25 years, most recently in A&E. Alongside this I have also worked 10 years in Learning Disability and Mental Health - Low and High Risk.
I've never had a gap in employment until last year when I had 3 short gaps - one due to suffering severe anaemia, the second due to having a subsequent total Hysterectomy (and even then I returned to the ward within 5 weeks - I was still having iron transfusions in my lunch break!) Then another break when I moved to another County and reapplied for another job at the local hospital in January.
I flew through that interview. All subsequent references from my previous NHS ward and my mental health agency were glowing and my Police Check came back clean as always. I was extremely patient waiting 6 months for all the checks to go through (which caused huge financial and practical issues). Last week I was told the application was at the final stage of simply being 'checked over and signed off by the Senior Project Nurse Team'.
Today I received a call. Literally this was said to me;
'Hello am I speaking to Elle? Well, I'm sorry to inform you that you've not been successful in your application, but thankyou for applying. Ok, well, Goodbye.'
!!!!! I just managed to stop her from hanging up and urgently asked for a brief reason. She replied that she did not have the reason and gave me an address to write to. And again she was off. So heartless and cold.
I was in total shock. I called the HR dept and asked what they had found so wrong that they could not employ me in a job that is dangerously understaffed and that I am highly qualified for, soundly competent in, and still totally in love with. They put me through to the department that had interviewed me.
The nurse I spoke to there said she was really unhappy that I had been rejected but that it was out of her hands. She did however say that the original senior project nurse who had called me should have given me the reason as she DID know it and she assured me she would make her call me back and tell me what had happened.
A few moments later the original nurse called me back and sounded really cheesed off and had a go at me for calling back when she had told me not to. She told me at breakneck speed that my application was rejected by the project team as I had gaps in my employment during the last 3 years and that due to this, they could not obtain the sufficient references required for this period. She then told me to write to the address she had given me as she couldn't give me any more information ... ''like I told you to'' as she kindly added before cutting me off!
So I can not do my job in a profession that needs me, simply due to not ticking boxes as usual. The Country is on it's HEAD.
I put the phone down and it took all my strength to just not go and lay down and take a shitload of pills and end it all or jump on a plane to Africa (where we travel, and I where I feel I belong). I have a daughter and so they can never be options but my God, it felt like a final straw and was the closest I have ever come to thinking I needed to end my life regardless of anyone it would leave behind. I couldn't even push my tears out despite a massive lump in my throat that is still there. I was just so DONE with my emotions and trying to cope with Anxiety. I just thought, 'Ok, the World wins. Anxiety wins. I'll sit at home and and give in to anxiety and just shrivel up while patients suffer in staff starved hospitals'.
I shouldn't even be FUNCTIONING with this illness, let alone trying to be a useful member of society and helping others.
The thing is, working is my best medicine and therapy for my own issues and I have loved going to work every single day of my life. Yet it can also cause me so much social anxiety with colleagues which I then over-analyse for days afterwards. So work has always been bittersweet. Every day I find reward and punishment through working.
Although I am truly devastated at the hospitals decision and I know I'd rather be there and that it does me good to be in that environment, I also keep feeling calmed by the thought that if I am unemployed I can become more reclusive and avoid some of the situations that caused me angst. However, although my partner would provide for myself and my daughter, I know losing my independence will eventually lead to depression and loss of control and self worth.
I wonder if I am better off being employed or not!
How does everyone else find this issue?