Patterns of Behavior

On March 8, 2025, I drove my son to youth group. The previous week, warm temperatures had melted the stubborn ice from the group leader's sloping yard, but two days before the youth gathered, unexpected snow fell again. The subsequent hard freeze made the leader's driveway and dooryard a glacial nightmare again, and when my son and I arrived, I told him to go in without me. I planned to take my time walking in.

As I stepped from the car, my misgivings shot from mild to extreme, and a little voice in my head told me to get back into the driver's seat, but I didn't listen. I determined to press on. With my second step, I decided that I should have listened, and I began wondering how to return to the car. However, my feet were already sliding, and I realized my only hope was to keep moving. I hoped to reach safe gravel before disaster struck.

My hope was dashed as my left foot slid right and I lost my balance. As I began my rapid descent, I thrust my left arm to the ground to break my landing; I didn't want to hit my head on the spikes of ice behind me. I was successful in that regard. However, the force of the impact led to complications that persist to this day, seventeen months hence.

In the course of the following three weeks, I visited my primary care physician several times. I was diagnosed with a severe concussion that was caused by the whiplash when I fell and caught myself before hitting my head. After several attempts to treat my condition were unsuccessful, I was ordered to a month of bedrest on the first of April. I did not return to work until early May. While cleared to work, many of the symptoms persisted, including intense headaches and migraines, the latter of which altered my thinking and emotions for several months.

Even though personality changes are a common side effect of brain injury sufferers due to severe concussions, this condition was not taken into account by my employers, and from the time I resumed work until now, I have experienced a significant target of attention on how I conduct my work. The head of administration at my location told me this week that, "Over the past year, we have seen a disturbing pattern of behavior" in regards to me, and as I listened to his descriptions, I realized that he is receiving input only from prejudicial sources. He has no supervisory role over my work, so he has to rely on others to inform him about the quality of work that I do, and until the past year or so, he has always expressed enthusiasm for my efforts.

This change in his opinion, of course, is nothing I can control, so I go about my job to the best of my ability and hope it's sufficient to the expectations. I find value in my work, and I believe I belong where I am. Still, to be told that someone uninvolved with my work sees a "troubling pattern of behavior" while receiving only one side of every story means that the input is faulty, making the output unhealthy.

Perhaps the most troubling is that this involves someone who works to implement justice. When the arbiter is unjust with the employees because he puts his finger on the scales to pursue outcomes that favor his agenda, how can anyone else expect justice? I am not an example of a perfect employee. I have made poor choices, terrible errors in my judgment, action, and thinking, and have been unprofessional at times. I wear my emotions on my sleeve (on my face, really), but I strive to make my work environment a safe space for our clients to do their work. It takes a lot of pushing my buttons to get me to respond badly; I can work around a lot of nonsense. After more than a decade in this work environment, I have a positive reputation for this among the clientele. But for some reason, the bosses seem bent on painting me as a troublemaker and a malcontent; someone with a pattern of misbehavior.

The temptation is to revile my revilers, or to threaten those who inflict suffering on me. You might say, "Are you not doing that here?" And I would reply that I am describing what has been happening, but I am trying not to revile them. I am trying not to repay evil for evil. In truth, I am trying to follow this advice:

"When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly." 1 Peter 2:23