The bad dream

The year 2011 was fascinating from the morbid perspective of a victim. It was the worst year but also one with the faint glimmer of a new life. The year lost me most of my friends and colleagues and it forced me to abandon something I thought precious to me. Something precious that was draining the very life out of me and that almost succeeded in killing me. This was a time of intense fear, old friends betraying me and the horror of the isolation that followed.

I clawed my way back, slowly. I took up a new job after I was also robbed of income. That gave me a first hint of what stability feels like and the possibility of hope. I traveled to places far away. Had to change anti-depressants. Got permanently sleepy and then got hammered down by insomnia. Withdrew from people and got to a point where all I did was to stare at people around me.

But we managed to move out of central London and into a great home on the Thames. I forced myself to take up running for exercise. Changed medicines again. And slowly, so very slowly, I started feeling alive again. But in my mind, I relived the horrors of 2010 and 2011 every day and every night. A lot of damage was done. It took me months to write this down. I have changed the words and removed whole sections many times. And I had to change the wording and make it subtle, with innuendo that puts the meaning beyond the mental capacity of your average company hijacker. This was done on purpose, so apologies if it makes reading this essay more difficult.

That character lurking in my darkest nightmares is real. And I fear a retaliation, a return, a comeback to scream at me in the never-ending monologues and the inconsistent e-mail diatribes. It is this horror I want to banish from my soul.

Fourteen months ago,  I took a flight to SA to try confronting that bad dream. I feared that my life's work was slowly being dismantled and I had to do something. Employees resigned too often and the atmosphere I sensed from the other side of the world was... uncomfortable. Colleagues were barred to contact me. They were berated at the first hint of communication involving me. This would be denied of course. Naturally, it was all to 'protect' me or to 'minimise distractions'.

Arriving home was always a wonderful experience. But not this time. The last act of an urgent evacuation was in progress.  An urgency necessitated by my imminent arrival.  I witnessed it in the glowing tail lights of an expensive car. There was no possibility of eye contact - only a silver car door banged shut before I could move. According to the receptionist this holiday has been planned for a long time. Approximately as long ago as the day before. It was no coincidence.

I spoke to a few of my colleagues who have gone. The themes were clear and consistent. And the themes were not of joy. Eventually the holiday ended and I managed to be granted an audience. I tried very hard to prepare and to figure out a way to make things work. I even met with my ex-business partner and tried to get his help. He was very sympathetic and told me he will support me. I was a fool to believe him - this meeting set the scene for a betrayal even bigger than the one here. Maybe I'll write about that some day.

I needed to get a few very important points across during the upcoming audience, but had no idea how to do it without triggering Armageddon. Eventually I decided to make a list of ten thoughts that made my position clear. Usually I was very direct. But I feared that it wouldn't work. So I selected my ten points, complements carefully balanced constructive feedback. I printed this list and took it with me. Essentially, I tried to make it clear, without triggering an outburst, that everyone was living in a state of fear and that there was a certain lack of people skills.  Well, when I presented the list, it was read with the kind of disgust usually reserved for dealing with rotten flesh and sewers. It was cast aside and the screaming started. I heard that the company only survived because of his glorious sales efforts and selfless contributions. And that I have once again failed to deliver on my commitments. It was not a good last meeting. Later I read in an email that my list was laminated and exhibited as an example of how disturbed I am.

I returned to London feeling dreadful. But worse was to come. Worse, in the sense that the rest of the leadership team decided to go on holiday without telling me. And leaving me alone to deal with our then biggest customer and support mission-critical systems over the December holidays. From Europe.

This harks back a few years when then current leadership did exactly the same and left me drowning in the consequences of a financial meltdown of Greek proportions. And once again a year or so earlier when they left me to conjure up a system due for delivery eleven days into the new year. On my own. All alone. While my partners bake in the sun. I think I see a pattern now.

This time though, everything was imploding. The systems were overloaded, traffic crippling it in ways it could not handle. I struggled for days without sleep to stabilise this, tracing issues never anticipated and deploying fixes in a never-ending stream. This while the customer called me non-stop. This was as close to hell as you can get without actually dying I think. I can't describe how tired I was. I think I got the system stable on 1 or 2 January 2011. I can't remember. I only have a photo of me sitting with my computer at 23:00 on New Year's Eve monitoring fixes while everyone else got drunk. I also burned myself out. Not a single person thanked me for the work and personal sacrifices since Christmas. I felt dead and betrayed.

Oh yes I forgot - a crucial detail. In a previous reality I committed to deliver another system in this same timeframe, but weeks before. Obviously I didn't, because I was dealing with that meltdown. I would be reminded of that fact roughly nine seconds after the blue glow turned on and the white chair was occupied. The truth is, I couldn't do it - I wanted to, but I had no more to give.

This started a sequence of events that led to me being given a disciplinary in absentia. My colleagues were dazzled into endorsing a letter of reprimand. For bad attitude and dereliction of duty. And that led to resignation. And my discovery of the psychological disorder Narcissism. This is what I wrote on 13 January

From:    Rudolph van Graan <rvg@ex-company>
Subject: Resignation 
Date:    13 January 2011 12:08:58 GMT
To:      <Employee 4>, <Friend that I miss>

Dear <Employee 4> and <Friend that I miss>

It is time for me to move on.  This letter serves as my official resignation as a director from both <ex-company> SA and <ex-company> UK effective immediately. For 8 long years, I have put the interests of <ex-company> and the interests of staff first and my own sanity, career and relationship second. I can no longer afford to do this. 

These past three or four weeks have been absolute hell for me. My efforts have not been acknowledged and as I said yesterday I felt and still feel completely unsupported. I have considered many options, including another attempt to reconcile with the parties involved next week. As you know, I did exactly that in November. I can't do that again.

Please don't ask me to withdraw this resignation - I am not going to do that.

Please confirm receipt of this mail.

Thank you.

Rudolph van Graan

The time that followed this email was the most horrible time of my life. I got isolated from everyone I counted as friends - every single person except one. You know who you are. Thank you!

I now understand narcissitic behaviour and irrational fears. And that they act solely to preserve their own distorted sense of self.

It took me ten whole months before I could look life in the eye again. The past few months have been great. I rested, got fit, got back in contact with people I haven't spoken to for years and started to live again. I have been busy writing this blog entry for almost three months now and it is well overdue. But here it is. I don't fear the old Narcissist anymore. Obviously there is much, much more to say and I think I will - it is the only way to really heal. I don't know what will happen when and if he stumbles upon this article.