My Experience with a Manager Who Mocked My Mental Illness

I wanted to make sure my first few experiences weren’t too heavy and as bad as the title sounds; this one isn’t the worst one I’ve had. This was during my first job when I worked at Disneyland; I worked in retail, I’m choosing to omit locations and names since there’s a chance this person still works there.

Some backstory incase you’ve never worked in the parks or known someone who has. The attendance system is very different, according to them, from other businesses; they want to focus on you being at work so they call it ‘presenteeism’ instead of the more common ‘absenteeism’. Depending on whether you were full time or part time, you had a certain number of points you can receive before disciplinary action is taken. Now here’s the kicker that no one tells anyone, as a full time cast member you can get 36 points (this was the case in 2018 when I left, no idea if it’s the same) but if you actually hit 36 you get that disciplinary action. If you were what they call a lead, a manager by any other standards, then you shouldn’t have those actions against you but the position was almost like an ‘at will’; they could say you weren’t living up to expectations and take it away.

Now that the background is out of the way, I can move up to my story. I was having a ‘talk’ with one of my ‘developmental’ managers, we were all assigned managers to help us develop…some where better suited for the task than others; not everyone is a people person. We were talking about random shop things and what we needed to do to make it better, the norm. Then she asked about my call outs, *side note- in my 13 years there, I NEVER received one of those warnings for points, or for anything else EVER* she noted that even though I hadn’t hit the 36, I had called out like 8 times in the past year; oh yeah each call out was 3 points, so 24 points. I said, ‘yeah, and?’ which then prompted the normal ‘if you’re struggling with something you need to let us know so we can help, if you need time for something you need to let us know. Here’s the thing, I didn’t hit that cap, far from it. At no time was I there, I taunted it sure, but never hit it.

*More backstory – I suffer from severe depression, anxiety and agoraphobia, which I knew but to be honest they (mangers) had no need to know my MEDICAL information*

I foolishly felt safe with her and admitted that I was seeing a therapist for my depression and I was getting help, but some days were harder. The therapist wanted to put me on a 2-week program but I couldn’t afford it at the time and I wanted to be there for work. She said that was awesome that I was getting help and (I can’t stress this enough; THIS IS A DIRECT QUOTE) ‘at least now (that I’m getting help) the other leads won’t laugh at you for being all bipolar!” (that was burned into my brain and heart)

I was crushed; had I thought of it I would have reported it and done something more than clam up and become so quiet that the silence was deafening and I made up a lie to leave the room and meeting. She NEVER sensed that what she said was wrong, or that if affected me so much. I never trusted the managers with my private information after that point and I just let them believe that I called out so frequently because I didn’t want to come in. Did it hurt me? In the long run, kinda – I went through a slump and was able to pull myself out so I became this poster child for self-improvement but that moment still lives with me, and just makes me aware of how much people just still don’t get it.

When I left Disney for another job it much later, the managers moved around so often that this manager moved a few months after this and I didn’t have to see them again. It really left a poor taste in my mouth though and still makes me nervous to tell higher-ups about my different mental illnesses.

**please note; I am not saying anything is wrong with being bipolar, my managers comment illustrates how much ignorance is out there and how strong the stigma really is**

Take care and stay safe ♥

Vanessa

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My Experience with a Teacher who Undermined my Confidence…

I am trying to make this first one less heavy than others and since I feel this is a bit more relevant at the time with so many other students now doing remote learning. I can say that all of my time in school was physically in a school and while, at times, I wanted it to be online away from others, seeing how some teachers act now, I’m glad that was not the case.

This event that I am going to speak of happened in 8^th grade, since I am in the US our elementary school is 1-6^th in a school, then 7-8^th in another and lastly 9-12^th on a different campus. I go into this detail since 8^th grade is sort of important as it sets up 9^th grade and the beginning of your high school experience. My 8^th grade English teacher was a new one, we were her first year of teaching on her own; from our understanding she had been with other teachers and obviously done everything else required of her, but we were her test class. This class was also a Pre-AP class, why a class in 8^th grade bothers to be AP I’ll have no idea, but it was like the school’s way of saying Honors, but spicier. I remember her name, look, attitude, everything about her but for the sake of I don’t know who will read this, I will call her Jane Doe.

Now Jane had a habit of really getting into things, she really wanted us to be prepared for high school and for those AP classes; she wanted all of us to be able to get a 5. I can’t stress enough how much more school we had to go through in order to get to those actual tests-we wouldn’t be actually taking them for YEARS. She had decided that we would do a mock English paper, and this part is a tad fuzzy-we knew they would be graded by an outside group but they had nothing to do with AP classes, maybe it was like an honors class type of thing, but the general information you need to know is that after we wrote our papers, timed of course, they would be taken from us, graded by an outside group, then returned to us. This grade mattered, and would have an effect on our grades so this was an important paper.

To prepare for this paper, she would have us write and write, but not in the ways we had been taught; the intro paragraph-body(s)-conclusion pattern was not good enough for her. She advised us over and over again that our INTRO needed to be spread out through our paper and that the thesis shouldn’t appear until the end. This went against everything I knew growing up, everything my teachers taught me had been challenged. Being a good student (at least at this time I was still trying) I took her way of writing to heart. I would write all of her assignments this way and she would grade them appropriately and I did well. I was excited; this test was nothing I was going to ace it. Testing day came, I couldn’t tell you what the topic was, something that was like Tell us about a time where you wanted something you didn’t get, I don’t know, but nothing like a book report.

I wrote three pages, as required, and then turned in my paper. Three weeks later we got them back. Most of my friends had ignored Jane’s way of teaching and wrote the normal way and were getting 4’s and some random 5’s, I expected at least a 4. I looked at my paper and boom, 3…and then a 2. If a paper was graded with a failing grade then they had someone else look at it as well. I failed. The first time in my entire school life, I failed. I turned my paper upside down and walked out of the room; should I have asked, sure. Did I walk to the bathroom so I could cry? Hell yes I did. I cried and cried in that bathroom, and the teacher much have said something since my two besties ran into the stall after me and tried to console me. I explained to them what happened and they were just as shocked, we all had similar writing styles and always seemed to do well but when I asked them how they wrote their papers, they told me they ignored Jane and her ‘stupid way of writing’.

I was shocked and my confidence was gone; from that point in class I was quiet, I didn’t want to share I didn’t want to write anymore. For those that failed, like me, we were given an opportunity to retake the test. We were sent to another class, a completely different English teacher, and then we were told of the criteria again, and given the test with a new topic. Before she handed out the papers, I asked about the form my paper should take; I asked if I should stick to the normal intro-body-conclusion way or the ‘other’ way, and she responded with “Why is there an ‘other’ way? The given standard is intro-body-conclusion?” She was so confused, but I couldn’t go into detail without taking more time from my writing, so I ignored Jane and put pen to paper.

5, I received a 5 on this new test and felt relief; I wasn’t stupid or ignorant, I just had bad direction. I felt as though in some way this was personal; Jane didn’t like us, and set us up to fail. This was me in 8^th grade, now as an adult I can see that she was new and ignorant to how her actions would affect those she taught. I began to doubt other things however, like if I really belonged in that class, scoring a 2-even once, did I deserve a spot in an Honors class? Jane made me forget everything prior to that moment; any awards I had received, any praise from previous teachers, I was now a 2.

It took a few years for me to become confident again, which I know sounds silly, it’s just essays and writing; nothing too serious. She was also the one who would recommend what class we took in 9^th grade however, so when I wound up in a remedial English in 9^th grade everyone around me was shocked. I had final grade of A in her class which means I should have continued onto Honors in 9^th grade, but no. The teacher in this new class even questioned it and I, once again, had to take another written test to determine which English class I should really be in.

Side note: I’m not saying anything about students and what classes they are in, we all need to be where we can find the most help, we all need to be catered to in different ways and that’s not a bad thing. If you’re in a non-honors English class that doesn’t mean you’re stupid or can’t do the work, is simply means that you express yourself in different ways. I got off track, but again just because you might be in a different type of class doesn’t mean you aren’t smart-the way schools work places value on different areas.

I was finally able to get into the class I was supposed to be in, but even after leaving her class Jane was still showing her true personality towards her students. I have so much more I can write about Jane, but since this post went a little long, I’ll write about those experiences another day.

If you feel as though a teacher, or other academic adult is treating you unfairly go to someone else and tell them. There is always someone higher-up who should respond. I wasn’t aware I could say anything as a child, and let me tell you, I should have.

Take care and stay safe ♥

Vanessa

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My Experience With…

I have done a lot of soul searching in regards to what I wanted to focus on first on my little side of the internet. I thought about more food posts or perhaps some more makeup hauls, but then as time went on, I really kept having this feeling about wanting to talk about small things I’ve dealt with in my life and then maybe that might help someone else out there as well. While I am on my way to getting my Bachelors in Marriage and Family Sciences, I am not done yet so everything I am going to talk about are purely from my perspective and how I’ve handled them. I think I will call this collection “My Experience With…” and then change as the subject changes. Maybe this will help others out there, maybe only a few people can see it, but in any instance, I feel as though typing out my experiences will also help me cope with them.

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