Grief can affect your life in so many ways.
It doesn’t just go, it lingers…
I am about to share my experience with you in the hope that awareness around the intensity of grief is addressed in the workplace, in the home and in your personal life.
When someone you love dies, you can find yourself engulfed in a fog that blurs the lines and confuses your mind to the point where you continue in a state of autopilot that allows you to carry on, but devoid of emotions, numb to your pain and the reality of situations you may find yourself in.
My father died suddenly in 2004, I was on maternity leave and his death left me without family and real support. I was a single mother of two young children and I worked for London Underground as a Train Driver on the Bakerloo Line; I was 26, I had a mortgage and I had to carry on. Whilst I was consciously aware of death, I didn’t know what grief was, I didn’t know that this was an energy that sucks you into a deep dark place and although I would mask my misery with humor and a smile, I was completely hollow inside.
When I returned to work I wasn’t given any information about grief or the organisations in place that could help me with my emotions. On the contrary, I was told that I was to put my private life to the back of my mind and drive the train. Let me tell you now, when you are working an eight hour shift in the tunnels, your mind will wonder. Mine did, I would replay the trauma of my dads death and family loss over and over again. As I result, I had SPADS, this means that I moved trains past red signals and fail safe mechanisms would stop the train. The customers were not in any danger, but this was a sack-able offence.
In 2006 I was raped by a manager I trusted, he was aware of my fathers passing as I had confided my grief to him on one occasion when he boarded my train on his way home. The rape resulted in a pregnancy and I had a termination. I resigned from London Underground in 2009 after my final SPAD. I couldn’t continue with the company, I feared seeing him on platforms or running into him. I began to retreat into myself and the pleasure of working for the company turned into despair.
About a year after leaving the Underground a company magazine called On The Move dropped through my letterbox. As I flicked through the glossy pages I froze as I saw the image of my rapist receiving some kind of award. I broke down and told my partner what had happened to me in 2006. With my partners encouragement, I wrote about my experience and I posted it to my blog. It received a lot of attention and I received messages from women saying they had had similar experiences. I later learned that the man who raped me had been given early retirement and his full pension. I also learned that he had assaulted someone else.
In the next post you will read the full article that I shared on my now defunct website DipseyAura.
I will then share with you my realisations about grief, the trauma I experienced whilst on the Underground and the reasons why it has taken me so long to address this deeply distressing matter.