# Feeling singled out



## hao (Mar 21, 2013)

At the moment I'm really suffering at work and feel like I need to write it down to try and get it in some context, so bear with me! 

I'm naturally quite a shy (but friendly) person, with a not very "big" personality. I'm pleasant and amiable but initiate conversation an awful lot unless I trust and like the people I'm with (I know that they're not threatening) and suffer feelings of crushing rejection usually waay out of context to the thing that's happened. Standing up to someone, even saying "no" to someone when I have the right to scares the life out of me and I'd really rather just say "yes" and suffer. I'd really rather just spend a lot of my time with my fiance, quietly at home.

I have always been bullied in one form or another-at school, at university and I'd hoped that work wouldn't be the same. A lot of my behaviours do come from this feeling that I'm "different". So, if I perceive that someone's treating me unfairly, what will pop into my head is: "well you're a fat useless freak so no wonder, you're not normal at all". It's very difficult to make friends when you constantly think that, but I do try.

I work full time and am currently working on the fourth floor of a busy understaffed hospital in 26 degree heat. It makes everyone irritable and unhappy I suppose, but as the girl everyone seems to hate is currently away, they all seem to be taking their frustrations out on me. 

It started when I got back from 2 weeks off-less people would speak to me, shot me hostile looks and just generally acted strange for no reason at all that I could think of. This isn't everyone by far, but quite a few people were doing it. Of course, this made me feel even more useless and like I stood out and as I had no idea this was going to happen, I did struggle with the change in dynamic.

The other day, I was told to take a patient down "for a cigarette" in the morning when I was trying to help with patient care. When I tried to stand up for myself and refused on the grounds that we were trying to make the patient better not worse and my manager had said that nobody must take this man down for a cigarette, the nurse telling me to do it got VERY nasty, her face changed and she started acting like she hated me because I wasn't doing exactly what she wanted at that moment. Bearing in mind there were around ten people on the ward doing the same things and she could have asked any of them.

Next thing I knew, another more senior member of staff was basically guilt tripping me into taking this patient down just to get some air (NOT a cigarette as the nurse had said). Then I had to sit by him to stop him from walking out himself as he ranted and abused me verbally. The other members of staff seemed to think this was funny as they went by-at this point tears were coming into my eyes, it was too hot and frankly I felt singled out. Patients were sitting in wet beds and I was the one who had to sit by this man, as if my contribution wasn't worth much on the ward. When I came back up, a patient told me off because she'd been calling for someone for half an hour, which upset me further. I don't like letting people down but it wasn't my fault. This ALWAYS happens to me, despite not being the newest on the ward

My thoughts were basically: this nurse has said she'll find someone else to take him down but she didn't ask the other member of staff who was right next to me and who is on the same level as me, or anyone working on her side of the ward. I felt like it wasn't even worth standing up for what I thought was right because I'd just have to do it anyway. 

The day before a member of staff commanded me to go and get her lunch even though I wasn't even going that way and then acted surprised when I hadn't been on my break yet. Another nurse seems to think it's their prerogative to tell me to do something every time I pass them or stop for three seconds, despite people stood by the nurses station for ages doing nothing. They asked me to wake a patient up and ask them something pointless and to hand a plate of food to a patient after they'd just wandered past the room the patient was in, while I'm rushing around trying to do everything in a very short space of time.

I am convinced it's because I'm an easy target, I'm quiet and don't have a "smart" remark for everything. It's a very gossipy, spiteful atmosphere when I work and I make an effort not to join in with this because I really don't like talking about people behind their back, but I feel like this has backfired. I'm just so stressed and feeling very down about going through everything I have to be treated like dirt in yet another place. My fiance is nice but he has his own stuff going on, my parents live miles away and always seem to be out when I ring and my one friend I feel I can talk too also lives far away and has troubles of her own. I'm feeling very isolated and depressed at the moment-why should I be punished for essentially doing everything everyone wants of me all the time?


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