Things seemed to be going well for a change – I should have known that the next kick in the guts was just around the corner.

The last few days I have been getting that feeling… that precursor to a kick arse flare.  You know the one, where you feel bloated, tired and just generally nasty?  That one.  Well, it got pretty bad yesterday so I took myself home from our Melbourne Cup (the largest and most well known horse race in Australia) function early.  I got home at about 4:30pm and slept till about 7pm.  That’s pretty unusual for me, generally I am into my graphic work at that stage.  Anyway, I got up feeling pretty groggy but managed to get on with things.

Today I went into work with a clear head but still worn.  My day started like most other days… everything changed when I got an email from our GM with a new organisational structure attached.

I just sat there staring at it.

At least I know why the SM was being so nice to me.  He got my job.  Very subtly, without any explanation, his title changed on the structure to Sales and Marketing Manager.  The last 5 years I have spend with that company has been based on a lie – and I feel absolutely, ridiculously stupid for believing that I was anything but a work horse.  I think the worse thing is I have had two good job offers this year.  The first I knocked back because of my meandering health, the second I knocked back because I thought the cogs were finally starting to turn in my favour.  You see it would have been a lot more beneficial for me getting the title of Marketing Manager rather than the pay rise I was offered to step sidewards into another Product Management job.

For years and years – they have moved the goal posts just that little bit further afield for me… this year was always going to be the last that I was going to put up with it.  But I would have liked have been informed of their choice in more of a civilized manner and I don’ think anyone, including the people involved, could blame me for that.  Today, I realized they had lied to me to keep me there… to keep me there doing all of the marketing work without any of the financial or status benefits.  I have been thoroughly used.  I think the worst thing is there was never any intention to give me the job.  The only intention was to keep me there as long as possible… because employing someone else to do what I do would be difficult to say the least.

I am so disappointed in myself for being this naive.  Its not their (or anyone elses) fault that I was so stupid I believed what they said.  I only have myself – and to some extent my illness to blame for the position I am in now.

I think I am most discussed with myself over working through my grieving period.   Where I should have taken a week off to deal with the repercussions of being told you have an incurable chronic illness.  I just got on with it… and it was unreasonable to expect that I could just soldier on.  Put yourself in my position, after getting the full Crohns rundown – would you get your defeated arse out of bed and got to work the next day?  I can hear the chatter now – no staying in bed would not have done be any good – but taking some time would have meant that my journey to acceptance wouldn’t have had to have been so hard and public.

I don’t know… I am muddled and upset and above all else I feel betrayed.  If the position was never available to me… it would have been my preference that I was never lead to believe it was