Deciding to leave a job due to chronic illness is not an easy decision to make. One day you wake up and seem fine, do a couple of tasks like run errands, house chores, take short walks outside, and then you are out for a couple of days in bed. Increased chronic pain can interfere with being able to work and contemplate being unemployed.
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To make matters worse, you’re fending off gossip, office bullies, people who think they know more about what’s going on in your life than you do, and an unsupportive boss who enjoys adding to your chronic stress by allowing co-workers to treat you horribly.
More than 25 million U.S. adults have some level of daily pain, and 10.5 million have considerable pain every day. Over time, chronic pain can affect your emotional and mental state. Not too many people know people with chronic pain are at an increased risk of suicide.
In the long run, more harm can be done if you stay the course, ignore your body and not prioritize your health.
Anticipated Stigma and Bullying
I am putting out a BOLO (be on the lookout) on the serial predator, unsupportive boss and co-worker masquerading as an office bully that promotes and participates in acts of demeaning and illicit behavior towards individuals living and working with a chronic illness.
Anticipated stigma does not help alleviate chronic illness and improve health and well-being. Bullying creates social isolation.
In case you, your boss or co-workers are not aware, disability discrimination and workplace harassment are unlawful. You do not have to tolerate workplace harassment.
You can file a discrimination complaint. Choose the latter option after you have exhausted all mediation attempts with your boss, labor relations representative and human resources office.
Regardless of the path you choose, healing starts with looking the invisible illness in the eye.
Let me tell you a story about the sickening and demeaning experiences employees go through every day who work with a chronic illness and experience disability discrimination in the form of office bullying.
Medical Misogyny
My chronic illness symptoms slowly and quietly began nine years earlier after returning from a 12-month overseas deployment to the Middle East, beginning with fatigue.
I made an appointment to see a doctor. My labs came back normal. I was diagnosed with depression.
I knew I wasn’t depressed but had no idea of what was going on with my body or how to explain my symptoms except my body was exhausted and sleep-deprived. Too often, women experience “medical misogyny” when trying to make people believe her pain.
Some doctors think women, especially women of color, are exaggerating, leading to being misdiagnosed, ignoring severe medical conditions and not getting proper medical treatment.
When it comes to animal injuries and disabilities, humans can be more compassionate to animals than to their fellow human beings.
If there ever was an appropriate time to engage in dialogue, have a deep and thoughtful conversation about chronic illness, disability and how employers can help employees to manage a chronic illness at work with reasonable work accommodations and thrive, that time is now.
Jolted by the experience at my doctor’s office, I convinced myself the symptoms I was experiencing were all “in my head.”
After being pricked and poked for over five years and tested for Lyme disease, MS, rheumatoid arthritis, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, chronic pain syndrome, low back pain, headaches and fatigue.
As the pain, chronic migraines, and episodes of vertigo increased, I started thinking about quitting my job.
Deciding When to Leave a Job
While I was happy to know what was wrong with me, with the doctor reassuring me I couldn’t die from the chronic illness, I needed to learn more about fibromyalgia and what it meant for my quality of life.
My symptoms of fibromyalgia, brain fog, chronic pain, headaches and vertigo continued to worsen. It led me to verbally inform my boss years in advance that I would be leaving my position. I later provided my supervisor with an eight-month notice.
I remember drafting and turning in my letter of resignation like it was yesterday. That week, pain and anxiety levels were higher than usual, and nothing was going right in my personal and professional life.
The response from my boss was, “If you leave, you will disappoint me.”
With each passing day until my last day at my job, it slowly became apparent that everyone in the office knew of my invisible illness and was having water cooler conversations about it, facilitated by a stressful environment of constant office bullying.
My co-workers would arrive in pairs at my desk in the morning to give the greeting of the day with off the wall comments and proceeding to instigate verbal confrontations to get a reaction. The daily harassment was seen by my boss, overlooked, giving the green light that disability harassment was OK.
Maintaining a sense of humor and facing everyday challenges and triumphs of an invisible illness head-on is my daily mantra. If you can’t laugh at yourself, somebody else will.
Anticipated stigma doesn’t help alleviate chronic illness and improve health and well being. Bullying creates social isolation.
The decision to leave my job wasn’t made overnight. My health reality check came from my doctors, who stopped me from staying the course and overdoing it by working myself to death to prove there was nothing wrong with me.
No one should have to choose between health and wellness, being a caregiver for a sick parent, and a job. I finally acknowledged I needed a lifestyle change and fast.
I was not happy about leaving a career I loved. As I look back at my decision, quitting my job was the right decision and saved my life.
The daily harassment got so bad that at the encouragement of friends and family, I agreed to their excellent idea to expedite my departure from the organization by leaving three months early.
The Attempt to Save Face
Depending on the position you hold in an organization, submitting a letter of resignation due to chronic illness can become political, less about you, and more about organizational perceptions and the reality of the underrepresentation of skills and colors of the rainbow.
It’s not your job to make people feel comfortable with your medical condition or make the big, “I’m leaving my job because I’m sick” announcement with balloons and streamers.
Let someone else in the organization answer the 99 questions of why disability discrimination and workplace harassment is allowed and why the best and brightest are silently walking out the door unapologetically.
If you hate being the center of attention, come in after-hours to pack up your things. On your last day, walk out the same way you entered on your first day on the job, out the front door.
Quitting My Job Saved My Life
Chronic illness is not a game. Mocking, making fun or deliberately trying to humiliate another person is nasty and purely uncharitable. No one should have to put up with an office bully, an unsupportive organization, or a lousy boss. You do not ask to get sick.
The turmoil I experienced does have a happy ending. I no longer worry about verbal threats and digital taunts adversely impacting my career development or showing up on my doorstep.
I will never return to the cubical farm. That ship has sailed. Working from home has allowed me to practice self-care and be a caregiver to an elderly parent.
Before quitting your job, make sure you have a financial plan and can maintain focus on your health while searching for other career opportunities.
This story originally appeared on Jaiemare’s blog.
Photo by Kinga Cichewicz on Unsplash
Collective community storytelling about chronic and invisible illnesses creates a platform for people living with disabilities to be seen, heard, and no longer feel forgotten by society. Having a support system around along with individuals who have similar chronic conditions makes me feel less alone. I look forward to sharing my struggles and triumphs about living with fibromyalgia, reading your stories, gaining strength to continue to show up, and look the invisible illness in the eye.
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