Last year on this day, I was on day one of my new job. I was so excited – so full of hope. This year, I am now on medical leave from said job beginning today – stress, anxiety, PTSD triggers, and surprisingly, high blood pressure. Never had that in my life. But I do today! And it can’t be treated because it’s a trauma response – not a stable condition. If they gave me medication, when I’m calm, I would bottom out. So, I am practicing breathing when I’m triggered and removing myself from the stimulus.

Ordinarily I use this space to process my life, find the lesson, find clarity, and move forward. Today I’m using this space to sort of put it out there to the universe all the wrong doing that I am witnessing yet powerless to change. I’m hoping karma or the universe or source or even God (gasp) might intervene since no human power can make a difference.

What was once such a place of healing has turned into an absolute horror show. I was talking to my therapist today (stat appointment after seeing my doctor regarding PTSD and panic). I said – have you ever watched A Clockwork Orange? I watched that in college. It was very intense and disturbing. There’s this part that I remember, and thankfully I don’t remember much else about it, but in this one part, a man is subjected to watching atrocities. His eyes are being held open with an apparatus so he’s forced to watch very disturbing acts. That’s what my work feels like. I am observing needless suffering and life threatening situations and am unable to help, make a difference, anything.

Our new owners have decided to shift from being a luxury addiction rehab to taking in the worst of the worst which would be Ok if we had the medications, the staffing capabilities, and the facility/equipment to safely care for these people. We do not have any of those things. We are an intermediate care center “taking care” of very acute patients in detox and withdrawal. We are 45 minutes from the nearest ER. The new regime doesn’t give two shits about safety, legalities, compliance, ethics, and surely not people. These patients are vulnerable and desperate. They are being told they will be medically supported to help their detox and withdrawal be more comfortable. What is actually happening is they are brought out to rural Hawaii in the middle of nowhere 20 miles from the nearest town with no support – no medications to ease their pain and suffering. They are vomiting, sweating, frothing at the mouth, verging on seizures, and no one is caring for them. We do “rounds” every 15 minutes to make sure they are breathing. That’s our safety plan. These patients need hospitalization to stabilize prior to coming to rehab. And if these patients decide they want out, there’s nowhere for them to go. No cabs or Ubers come to our location and “they” won’t facilitate a patient leaving against medical advice (aka bailing because they are so sick).

The result of this for me personally has been a near constant state of panic for weeks. I am privy to “leadership” meetings which have consisted of the new ownership insulting and laughing at the existing team, making fun of the team, targeting individuals and entire departments for termination all the while spewing the company line that we are “united” and “saving lives.” In reality, they are pacifying those that hold licenses in the state of Hawaii while they aggressively recruit replacements. The gas lighting is next level – advertising jobs then when questioned by those on the team – am I being replaced because I found an ad on Indeed for my job – being told nooooooooooooo, of course not! (not me, but others, though I am on the chopping block as stated in an email from one of “them” that was never intended for public consumption but was discovered on an unlocked and unattended computer by someone and distributed). The PTSD triggering for me in watching these people suffer and the potentially really bad outcomes has been more than I can breathe my way through. There’s not enough massage, breathing, meditating, being in the ocean and/or sun, journaling, counseling, medication, baths, self care to counteract this trauma response. I am looking into temporary disability because I can’t be there right now. As it is, I’m off for at least a week, thank God.

As for the team, they are all quitting or going on medical leave, one by one. It began today. A few have quit on the spot. A few are about to – without notice. A few have called in sick. And a few are now on medical leave. The “others” are trying to plug the holes but it’s just the beginning. Most will leave within a week or 10 days and now they have a full house of very sick patients and no one to tend to them. These people really thought they could come to Hawaii, straighten us out, and go back to the mainland without a hitch. They fail to understand that Hawaii is a very different animal. It’s nothing I would have understood if I didn’t live here either though we’ve tried to explain it and they aren’t having it. They don’t believe us. They honestly think they can just place ads and they will hire others. That’s not how it works here. You piss people off, they will tell their entire Ohana and NO ONE will apply for jobs – and that’s what’s happening. 

I’m trying to dig for the purpose of this chain of events. My therapist suggested that maybe the reason for all this is so these people lose their license and others in the future won’t have to suffer or die – because at the other centers owned by these people, patients have died in their “care.” The employee reviews for their other centers are terrible. They’ve been accused of insurance fraud. They’ve gone bankrupt. These are not good people just trying to “save lives,” as they regurgitate constantly. They are insurance chasing, greedy, immoral people. I’d tell you the name of their latest company and you’d laugh because it couldn’t be farther from the truth – but I don’t want to get sued. No one that reads my blog knows the name of where I work or the new owners, thank God. 

My task at hand is to calm myself and continue to work to resolve this newly unearthed PTSD so that I can walk away from this experience on my terms rather than run because of my health. I want to make good decisions for my next steps rather than impulsive choices based on emotional reactions. I am aggressively seeking employment elsewhere and will likely have a few options in the next week however, none of them are on this island. Once again, relocating. Where and how remain to be seen. Starting over, again. Leaving this island is bittersweet and necessary. It’s turned out to be my favorite but there’s too many bad memories here or just plain things I want to forget. I spent the last weekend with a dear friend visiting from Oregon. I took her to all my favorite places and did my favorite things. I went to places I never thought I’d go back to again. It was really nice to share those experiences with someone I love and end my time here with a good memory. Now, it’s time to get busy getting the fuck away from this place. I’ll try to get out and about to keep my sanity but it’s time to start donating and packing what little I’ve accumulated because another move across water is imminent. It’s just a matter of when.

I’m trying to hold onto personal lessons in this and one of those is that I’m an all in person. Unfortunately, that doesn’t serve me. I’m all in with people and all in with jobs. If you’re in, you’re in. If not, you’re out. But life exists in the in between spaces, the gray areas. I tend to live my life on the ends of the spectrum. The past few years have been about trying to find balance, integration vs compartmentalization, and being in the middle. Turns out I still have much work to do in that department. I put myself entirely into situations and suffer the consequences of that choice. I often tell potential employers that you can’t buy an employee like me – someone that will treat the business as my own, that cares deeply, that works harder than others. I’ve always seen that as an asset in myself but I’m altering my perspective on that. I can be a good employee or a good friend without needing to be the best, the most, the extra. I don’t need to drop everything for someone else, every time. I don’t need to give the best gift. I don’t need to make all the effort. I don’t need to prove everything to everyone. I can just be me, with all my gifts and all my challenges, and those that want to be around me, will. Those that don’t, won’t. It’s just as simple as that. But overachieving won’t change that outcome. 

I’m trying to retain the lesson that seems to be presented to me repeatedly which is no job is perfect and no person is perfect. I tend to overlook or decide that character defects or things I’d prefer to be different aren’t significant and surely aren’t deal breakers. I tend to talk myself out of what I see in the vein of not being so critical. Yes, I see this thing that’s inconsistent in my employer, job, or people in my life and tell myself that none of us are perfect, including me, so weigh the pros with the cons and make a decision. Unfortunately, I don’t tend to give proper weight to both sides of that scale. What I need to continually be aware of and work on is boundaries and limits. Just because I see so much good doesn’t mean that the non-negotiables are just me being too picky or hyper critical. I can negotiate. I can ask for what I want and need. If I don’t get the response I want, I can make a decision with that information. But the gut never lies. Sometimes I’m disappointed to find myself yet again in a place where I ignored or discounted what my gut knew to be true. I don’t want to be judgmental but I have those tendencies. So I have to try to balance my predisposition of being judgmental and listening to my gut, my instincts, my intuition.  

As I come to the end of this musing as is often the case, I end up somewhere unintended. Per usual, when I begin to write, I seldom know where I will end up. I don’t ever sit down at my computer and think hey! I’m gonna write about this platitude and won’t that be interesting! I just start and my words meander to wherever they need to go. I began this by saying there’s no lesson in this post but sure as shit, there’s a couple. I swear to God, I’m so tired of lessons. But at the same time, if I can’t learn from this bullshit, what’s the point? To just be miserable? I don’t believe for one second that if there is a God, I’m meant to suffer just for the sake of suffering. In fact, I consulted the psychic that I see in times of uncertainty and she provided some meaning to the past few months that I didn’t want to hear but needed to. She has such a positive outlook and only shares from the highest light for the greatest good. So while I feel like I’m in this gigantic quagmire slogging around so unhappily, better things are on the horizon and someday, this chapter of my life will be looked at with fondness and gratitude rather than disgust and disappointment. It’s time to slam the book shut on the Big Island, hard. There’s nothing here for me. Whatever brought me here and thought I found here is long gone. Hawaii is hopefully still in my future, just not here.