I heard a program on radio recently about euthanasia in Holland which is legal. Switzerland and some other places have similar laws. An older couple in Holland was interviewed who were days away from dying together. They were sick, but nothing out of the ordinary for older people. One was sicker than the other, but they wanted to die together.
They had one son who tried everything he could to persuade them to NOT end their lives. The couple sounded normal, spoke completely sane and rational. They just wanted to die together while they still had the conscious choice. I have to be honest that I felt how selfish they were! Their son was devastated, trying to convince them that life has still so much to offer, but the parents didn’t care it seemed.
I don’t believe in euthanasia, and yet it’s a very complex issue, and I cannot judge people who want to die in a “safe” place. The discussion in countries like the UK, where it’s illegal to die when the physical or mental pain is unbearable is, how far would it go? Would people with depression just want to opt for euthanasia, and this would become too easy as an option? I think to myself that if you want to kill yourself, do that on your own WITHOUT involving friends, strangers or family. Just go. And yet, life AND death ALWAYS involves others. I can’t bury myself. It’s too complex a subject.
I don’t want to go into detail of my own “suicidal journey”, and I wouldn’t know HOW to end my life to not burden anyone or create a massive “mess”. But I know what I wouldn’t want, and it is not to involve others. What has a train driver or truck driver done to be traumatised for life if I was to throw myself in front of their vehicle. But I can’t judge people who do. The state of mind in deep distress or even under the influence leaves you out of control.
I’ve lost everything, didn’t know for 5 weeks that my brother was dead AND 5 days before finding out that they cremated him. I tried everything to help my dad in his last years/months/days, whatever he had left and had to legally fight against his sister who stole from him WHILE he was in a coma. As soon as my dad came out of a three-week coma, Pret ordered me back to London to fire me. I couldn’t bury my mum during 2. lockdown … I don’t know it any other way now.
Friends abandoned me very early on, making everything more complex and hopeless. No, I don’t harbour bitterness against them, but I neither need to have understanding nor ever re-connect, unless they deeply understand what this has added to my devastations. More and more I’ve lost my main online channels, YouTube, social media accounts, some projects I poured my heart and years into. NONE of those I benefited from financially, it was just pure passion. Social media accounts get shut down, which now happens more when people, who are p!ssed off with my grief, pain, my drunken emails, or even opinions etc. gather others to report me to get me shut down. It doesn’t matter.
People who get annoyed with my trauma while not having been there in the first place can do wahtever they want if that floats their boat.
I survived a lot of things, one which is systemic workplace bullying at Pret A Manger which many either don’t understand, or don’t take serious. Even therapists just want to talk to me and tell me how interesting it is to talk with me. How about I get some help without people just wanting to draw from my psyche?
Many people, not all, just want something. They either want a story (journalists), or a deep chat (friends), or whatever (men will be men) … completely ignoring MY humongous loss and trauma. I sometimes feel that friends are mad with me for not being this strong person anymore that I used to be. How dare I become vulnerable.
I guess I then pushed everyone away to DESERVE to be dropped.
Occasionally someone, somewhere gets it. A complete stranger leaving a comment on social media on a post I published, just out of the blue.
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I’m not a post hardcore / heavy metal person, but I love La Dispute, the boys next door, who look like they drink milk before bedtime, but kick ass with prose and tunes and a punch about how life can throw such hard curve balls.
I saw them a few times in London and their vibe and care for their fans is next to nothing.
I will put the lyrics of one of my fave songs of them here in full. I don’t know if I got better or if I never quite recovered from it … I want to at least have THAT decision to myself.
My brother died, we didn’t know, and then they cremated him.
My Mum died during 2. lockdown, I couldn’t bury her.
Pret A Manger had nothing better to do then to target me to get rid of me as soon as I became bereaved, no matter how good I did my work. All while claiming to care and do “charity” (for tax breaks and PR).
All of you want to reach out to everyone of you, but NOT because of them, but because of you. Whatever you think you want from me, I cannot give. I want to be left alone if all people want is whatever they need.
And ALL of you who are 40/50/60/70+ and still have siblings, even older siblings and both parents, a job, any food you can choose, someone to bury you, and you STILL want something from me while I am ready to fncking go!
I lost my huge YouTube channel which was partly my fault, but it was a one-off mistake they didn’t forgive me for, but also they didn’t make any money from my content. Huge channel as in from 2007 – 2022 with over 1000 live videos. I started one again which got locked after I posted that it’s a replacement of the suspended account. I just wanted to be transparent.
I never did a channel for clicks, it was just to catalogue all the gigs I went to and dediacte some space for my brother and then my family when everyone just died. I reached out to YouTube, apologized, but they just had a laugh and linked to my suspended channel to ask if that’s the channel I meant, rubbing it in that my channel is gone or maybe hidden? And then they kept ignoring.
The power-tripping and mocking of faceless, nameless people who get a little bit of “power” on a platform that became too big a corporate giant, and how they enjoy to power it over people who are vulnerable or admit to mistakes … No wonder no-one apologizes anymore for fear to get ridiculed.
I miss the simple early YouTube days where a 3 minute video upload took 45 minutes, but you were FREE! No censorship, no copyright strike, because in reality you helped many artists get their music out and show their early gigs. YouTube even had an internal emailing system. I was contacted via private message within YouTube once by the father of an artist (Lady Lamb The Beekeeper) I took videos of two or three of her London concerts over the years. He thanked me for capturing the gigs in London as he and his daughter are from the States. Unfortunately I never expected for YouTube to stop the internal private messaging system, or I would have copied it over to email or a document.
Or other artists leaving nice comments on the videos of their gigs, or getting a “press pass” to an artist’s tour to film etc. etc.
I learnt to not have all the eggs in one basket.
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Too many people these days claim PTSD, ADHD, Autism etc. but very few have a formal diagnosis. My question is NOT if you’ve ever suffered, because we all have and we all will. My question is, did you get better, and if so is it because you had a lot of support?
Apart from being an amazing poet/writer and story teller who doesn’t pull back from hard subjects, I find it spot on how La Dispute’s singer Jordan Dryer describes the possibility of the heart “shrinking” after tragedy. With PTSD and my own quest to understand why I don’t have the desire to travel or even go to concerts anymore except for very very few gems of artists, my world has shrunk. I don’t see possibility anymore. I hardly leave my home. Compared to before everything happened, I don’t like to go to anything even close-by, except in few exceptions.
My world has shrunk and has become a very small place. If I ever recover, I don’t know. And don’t make it too easy on yourself please to give me advice or steps to follow or 0800 numbers to call. Without support, especially when you lost your tribe (family, friends …) you will shrink and it’s a feat on its own to trust again. And that’s what life is anyway. We all will shrink away.
My video at the bottom.
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“Have you ever suffered? If so, did you get better or have you never quite recovered from it? Did you find your lover laying in your bedroom with another and then. Did you let it hover over you and everything else well after the fact?
Show me all your bruises. I know everybody wears them.
They broadcast the pain-how you hurt, how you reacted.
Did cancer take your child? Did your father have a heart attack?
Have you had a moment forced the whole heart to grow or retract?
Or just shrink.
Does the heart shrink?
Tell me everything. Tell me everything you know.
Were you told as a child how cruel the whole world can be?
Did anybody ever tell you that?
Tell me what your purpose is? Who it was that put you here and why?
Did anybody really put you here at all?
And what of those necessities? Like how to cope with tragedy and pain?
Did anybody ever show you how?
When it hits will my heart burst or break or grow strong?
Is there really only one way to know now?
I’m not sure if I’m ready yet to find out the hard way
How strong I am. What I’m made of.
I’m not sure I am ready yet to walk through the fire.
I’m not sure I can handle it.
Do you think if the heart keeps on shrinking
One day there will be no heart at all?
And how long does it take?
Am I better off just bursting or breaking?
Because I don’t see my heart getting strong.
Tell your stories to me. Show your bruises.
Let’s see what humanity is capable of handling.
She lost her kid, only seven, to cancer.
She answered with faith in her god and carried on,
While he was attacked by his son and was stabbed in his stomach and his back and his arms.
He showed me scars.
82 years old, told me, “I still have my daughter and my wife. And I still have my life and my son.”
Tell me what your worst fears are. I bet they look a lot like mine.
Tell me what you think about when you can’t fall asleep at night.
Tell me that you’re struggling. Tell me that you’re scared. No,
Tell me that you’re terrified of life.
Tell me that it’s difficult to not think of death sometimes.
Tell me how you lost. Tell me how he left. Tell me how she left.
Tell me how you lost everything that you had.
Tell me that it ain’t ever coming back.
Tell me about God. Tell me about love.
Tell me that it’s all of the above.
Say you think of everything in fear.
I bet you’re not the only one who does.
Everyone in the world comes at some point to suffering.
I wonder when I will. I wonder.
Everyone is out searching for someone or something.
I wonder what I’ll find. I wonder.
Everyone in the world comes at some point to suffering.
I wonder when I will. I wonder.
Everyone is out searching for someone or something.
I wonder what I’ll find. I wonder.
I wonder what I’ll find, I wonder.
I wonder what I’ll find…”
– La Dispute / Jordan Dryer
I live and die on my own.
London 2023, Koko:
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I worked at Pret A Manger and survived systemic workplace bullying during bereavement that involved HR, the top leadership, HQ and even the now “retired” former CEO Clive Schlee. I declined 4 settlement offers if I am silent about my ordeal. But I rather speak out to help others. For an overview of important blog entries of my experience with Pret, please visit “My Ordeal with Pret A Manger”. The little arrow to the right next to each heading will lead directly to the post.
An incomplete list on what other Pret staff say about Pret’s bullying environment: Caught in the Act Bullying at Pret and What shop MANAGERS & HQ staff say about Pret incl. CEO Pano Christou.
I tell my story for the first time verbally in below audio player interview on a podcast by The Adam Paradox, and wrote two articles in the Scottish Left Review as well as mentioned by the BBC.
Please also see the MEDIA page for more.
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Interview:
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Bullied during bereavement in Pret A Manger 