so I had to quit my job.
TL:DR : I was mistreated, sexually harassed, verbally and emotionally abused, and had my accommodations removed as “punishment”. I am privately hired to work with 2 people in their home, not through an agency or anything, so there is NO HR. Theres nothing. I just had to leave. This job has done so much psychological and physical damage to me in so many capacities, my already fragile health is at an all time low. I need help surviving while I get the treatment and care I need so I can find a new job. Here’s the GFM , as well as my payment links.
*****DO NOT REPOST THIS POST WITH MY GIANT VENT. IT IS NOT REBLOGGABLE. PLEASE REBLOG THE NEXT POST I MAKE THAT ONLY INCLUDES THE LINKS AND A BRIEF DESCRIPTION! THIS IS VERY SENSITIVE INFORMATION AND IT IS PRIVATE IM JUST TRYING TO VENT*****
https://gofund.me/0cb096606
VENMO: @ ephraimjans
PP : @ sonofsappho
Last 4 of phone is 5447.
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I had to quit my job. I had no choice.
which is a nightmare. Bc it’s the first job that has given me financial stability in my entire life. And it was private hire, so I didn’t have a like… manager or anything? Just me, working in my employers’ home. It was supposed to be great. For me, sure- but also for my 2 clients.
And now, 6 months later, and 4.5 months into applying to new gigs and trying to keep this job until I found the next, I can’t do it anymore. Warning, after this sentence ends, there will be mentions of: s*x*al harassment, workplace harassment, ableism, classism, ABDL/CGL (as in, my clients were participating in it and were lowkey involving me without my consent), and a lot of other shit- but, I need to get this off my chest.
I started this job when I was looking for work and saw a post in a local group where someone was looking for in home support with chores, errands, and meal planning for them and their partner. They had completed their masters, come into a LARGE amount of money, and decided to use part of this money to pay someone to help with the parts of life that both of them were not faring well with taking care of.
I have lots of experience with Direct Support, Comhab, housekeeping, food prep, case management, being a personal assistant, and trauma-informed care. This job seemed very much within my scope- two or theee 4-6 hr shifts a week. doing a deep clean and tidying, organization, and creating systems so client A&B could maintain these things on their own a bit easier. After that was accomplished, it would be running errands(groceries, pharmacy, laundromat), basic chores (dishes, sweeping, tidying, organizing, taking out trash and recycling), meal planning and VERY minimal preparation(making spice mixes and starting rice cooker before I left so it was ready for dinner, occasional baked goods, etc), and some more “administrative” tasks (making lists, putting things on calendar, reminding them of appointments, mailing things for them).
I had done much, much more intense work with and for people. I am passionate about making the lives of other’s more manageable, and through that, empowering them. This couple seemed nice enough- they seemed keen on the idea of me being the person they worked with. They liked me, my experience, and felt less intimidated by and judged by me than others. After all, outside of my work experience, I’m also autistic and trans.
At first, it was just that. A couple weeks in, huge strides had been made- they were so very pleased with my work, and the difference in their home environment was really significant and soothing to them. It wasn’t so hard to look at once the sight of it didn’t immediately and constantly remind that there was a daunting task they needed to get to, or someone did. This made me feel so proud, of myself, of them, and of what is possible when we ask for help. I was stoked to keep going and doing all I could for this couple.
3-4 weeks in, and I am reflecting on work. I realize that every session, there are more tasks tacked onto the list. I realize that the clients are no longer participating in this, and hadn’t been since wrapping up on week 1. I didn’t mind- people need to rest, an enormous weight of a painful burden was being lifted off of them, and I too would want to enjoy it. I had been letting it go. The money was good. My clients were happy. And then, while again reflecting, I had realized my shifts were growing longer, and they were asking for more. Instead of 2-3 days of 4-6 hours, I was doing 3-4 days of 6-9 hours, and then 4 days of 10-13 hrs, and then consistently 12-14 hr days, 4 times a week. And it has stayed that way.
It was early on, maybe week 4, when client A was really feeling anxious about receiving so much assistance. Told me they felt guilty, like they need too much, etc. and I tried to uplift them. I told them how we all need help with some stuff, and they need help with the. That despite having the “ability” to do more, sometimes we are burnt out. That they were very fair to me as far as pay. I didn’t want to make them more upset. At all. Then, I said something i thought would be so helpful but it was worse: Whatever your goals are, I am certain we can get there. We are gonna get there, I promise.
Client A got viscerally upset. “Where is THERE?” I said “well, where you want to go. That is up to you! And your goals! I’m just here to help you figure out what you want and to do what’s needed to help you get there.” And even after reinforcing that this was up to them and their partner, as I am here for them, on their dime, they started shouting more. “YOU better NOT be trying to SHOVE independence on me! Total independence is not possible for me. I don’t want anything to do with it.” I tell them that I am not trying to determine anything that they need for either of them. I remind them that I am creating systems to make it easier for both of them to do stuff, not to force them to do it all alone as soon as I set something up. This seemed to help.
And that is when they told me that they are actually a “little 2yr old girl and also a cat and so they need someone to care for them” and that their partner is similar. I have no reason to give anyone shit for feeling however, so I ask them to tell me more about that so I can show up for them better. They freeze up, I remind them it’s always okay to say no, or to not want to explain, or to tell me they would rather return to this conversation later down the line.
I am describing those moments in detail because THAT is when everything seemed to spiral. That night, I received an essay in my text messages explaining therian identity and age dysphoria and lots of other info about how they identify and feel and how I can best show up. They tell me about what triggers them in regards to feeling bad about these things. They clearly just don’t want to feel judged or misunderstood. I thank them for trusting me. I tell them I am grateful they could share so much with me, and that I will keep these things in mind, and when they feel able, that it’s always okay to let me know if I do or say something that makes them feel judged or unsafe so I can learn and correct that. And I meant it. I wanted to help them. I understand (and understood in that moment) that these clients were a deeply traumatized and autistic couple, who have seemingly been habitually misunderstood, mistreated, and outcasted. I didn’t want to contribute to any more hurt for either of them.
I’m not therian, and while I don’t have age dysphoria specifically, I have dysphoria, and I have DID and cPTSD and have my own struggles with age regression. Lots of people I have loved and do love are therian. I kept showing up.
At this point, I’m running every errand. Doing every chore. Cooking almost ALL of their food , prepping snacks and meals for later and for days I’m not there. I’m doing all the cleaning. As I am working on stuff, they started coming into that room to grab stuff and leaving a huge mess behind them. If I was cooking or doing dishes, they’d come into the kitchen to get a snack, leave wrappers and dishes and open Tupperware that they didn’t put back in the fridge, spilling stuff and not wiping it or even saying to me “hey, could you get that?”
In the beginning, we had a conversation about my severe chronic illnesses. My complex medical situation. My immunocompromisation. My necessary accommodations. They were so kind about it in the first couple weeks. They respected my limits, my boundaries, my needs while working in their home. That was all flushed out the window. But, well, I needed the money.
The sexual harassment was always vaguely happening. Because of the age dysphoria, I didn’t clock it. It wasn’t until I found pornographic material of adult women in diapers with pacifier in various suggestive situations and without any other clothes left out on the counter that i started thinking maybe there was something else to the “I’m just a little girl!” Things. Client A & client B both had multiple times left really intense diaper fur porn out in the open. At first, I figured it was left out on accident, and I didn’t want to embarrass them. When I didn’t mention it, I noticed they were kind of suggesting if I “knew where the zine they left on the counter went,” and other things referring to ABDL fetish stuff was left out more and more. Pictures, art work, screen savers. Then, a poster. A body pillow appeared next time I cleaned their room with an anime girl in a diaper.
I felt frightened; Seriously and totally frightened, when I recognized that things were escalating with the “putting sex related stuff intentionally in front of me.” Without listing out the whole timeline, this became client A wearing a diaper and a onesie and sitting on the floor baby babbling and sucking on a pacifier and drinking out of a sippy cup in front of me. I ignored it as best I could, tried to just let it be. Then, they reached the territory of trying to involve me in the CGL dynamic. At first, it was little things about how much they want to feel nurtured and I provide them that. I would try and say “I’m glad , I am happy to be doing my job well.” And other responses that emphasize that doing this stuff is my job. They would tell me how special I make them feel. Not immediately, but gently I would bring up other clients I’ve had and work I have done with and for them. “You make me feel so small and that’s all I ever want to feel!” And I would try to (with couth) tell them that I’m happy my work makes them feel better about themselves, and that people of all ages and sizes and backgrounds and such need help sometimes, even with the everyday life stuff.
It progressively worsened. They began interacting with me and each other constantly like literal babies, participating in ABDL, Pet Play, and CG/L directly in front of me, having conversations about breast feeding one another, telling me they “wuv” me, always saying my name like a baby would (“effwum”) and crying and kicking and screaming when I didn’t participate how they wanted, telling me that they pay me to make their lives happy and so I need to “nurture” them. Leaving dirty, used diapers on the kitchen floor where I do lots of work, and when I would inform them (without trying to embarrass them) to pick it up, they would cry that they can’t because they are just babies and how they wish the world would see them as babies and children and animals. Asking me to clean rooms during my next shift, and when I go to do so, used/unsanitized sex toys are left all over. Asking me to clean their vibrator for them. Asking me to place orders for their diapers. Asking me to open their mail bc they “don’t know how” and other things they suddenly “didn’t know how” to do would come up, always presented like a toddler who needs help tying their shoes.
When I didn’t engage, they would have these enormous melt downs and scream and cry about how I think they are a “bad baby” “bad kitty” “bad puppy” and how they just want me to love and nurture them. They would also, usually in the middle of the night, send me essays where they would threaten my job, and thusly my livelihood. Or lodge complaints against me and at me like I was somehow being mean and disrespectful for not wanting to participate in that. As soon as they would do that, and as soon as I would respond, I was again evil and bad and being mean.
Like most sexual harassment, it was hard to pin point at first. And as it grew and became more obvious, and the more fearful I became, and the more I tried to deny that this was the reality and that there had to be some other explanation, the worse and worse it got.
I began doing all the parts of their lives that were not leisurely, that they considered unpleasant. And they would shift my list of duties around what they didn’t want to do each day. I admittedly knew I was no longer HELPING them manage their lives- I was participating, pretty unwillingly, in fetish work. I was a FSSW for years. I know it when I see it. Even if I try to deny it.
Beyond the sexual harassment, there was so much more. A seemingly endless stream of bullshit. Yelling at me, freaking out at me. Avoiding accountability by making everything my fault. They’d ask me to schedule appointments and remind them to go. I would. They would flip out that they didn’t want to go and cry and scream. Then, when they missed that appointment, it was my fault. I didn’t do enough. I had caused them this issue by not calming them well enough or presenting the reminder how they wanted.
I would ask both of them to discuss and let me know what they wanted for dinner. They would decide, I’d make it, and if one decided they actually wanted something else, I was picking sides and being hurtful and mean, and I should make another option. When i started making second options to always have on deck, then I was being wasteful and not encouraging them to get better at making decisions. I could not win. I was always doing something wrong.
If one of them lost something, I must’ve taken it. They’d yell and cry and scream at me to look everywhere and to find it. I would search, only for it to be in their purse, where they said it had disappeared from and they looked first. And that I must’ve put it back in there to stage a search to get more hours. But, if I tried to work fast and work less hours in a day, I was not doing enough and they would complain about everything else they wanted done that day.
Everything was my fault. I was the best, most nurturing, most helpful and healing thing in their life. I was also the most aggressive, shitty, rude, maniacal, and harmful, calculating master manipulator on Earth. I was the only one who cared, and I was the shittiest thing they spent money on. They respected my boundaries and wanted me to communicate them, but then my boundaries were violating their boundary of not wanting to be told no, or that they were wrong.
They would eavesdrop on my phone calls, and then interrogate me about what they heard. Once, I was talking to my husband about someone who works in the kitchen he manages who was wearing footwear that was unsafe for a kitchen. All they heard was my part of the conversation, and assumed I was slut shaming someone bc of my “comments about their clothing.” When I explained, and told them to PLEASE mind their own business when it came to my phone calls with my husband or ANYONE else for that matter, I was suddenly violating their boundary that this is THEIR home. When I asked them to keep the CG/L and ABDL out of my face, I was kink shaming, shunning, and making them feel bad- all i wanted was for them to keep it behind closed doors when I was working. When I would ask them to do something for themselves (like, things i literally couldn’t do for them bc I am not them, like get a new ID) I was “forcing them to be grown up and that was just as bad as transphobia bc they identify as children and baby animals” or whatever the fuck.
The list is immensely long. This is not even the half of it. I am out of will to describe the happenings of this whole situation.
I spent the last 4.5 months of these 6 applying to new jobs so I could make a smooth transition- i figured something would come along and I could deal with this until it did. I needed the money. I have rent and bills and special needs pets. My husband and I cannot survive on just one income. I needed the damn money. I needed the job. But I could no longer pull it off. The last straw happened on Wednesday, when I received one of those essays I mentioned- ya know, where they change the duties of my job and how much they want to pay me and everything else about our contract, where they challenge my accommodations that I cannot work without. I’m not supposed to be doing all this physical labor to begin with.
I’m immune compromised. I’m allergic to mold. I have had mold toxicity before. And they had a case of black mold in their bathroom (I never used it and had to walk .5 miles to use the nearest public one bc theirs was so unclean no matter how often i cleaned it.) and they admitted they knew when it started last year, but “forgot” to tell their landlord to send someone. And now they are embarrassed by how bad it is, and that they want ME to deal with it. I explained again, like everytime there’s been mold they ask me to deal with, that I cannot do that. They flipped shit about how mean and unhelpful I am. How they “don’t ask for much” and “need me to do what they pay me to do.” I told them that no one in the world is paid enough to risk their life like that, when there are people who can safely deal with it that their landlord will have to pay for. But, how dare i! Asking them to call their landlord? After I had already asked them to do so when their stove went out 2 months ago and saw how triggering that was for their collective anxiety? I must be out of my mind or just plain CRUEL to do that! That’s right - I was supposed to risk my life so these clients didn’t have to feel anxious about a phone call. Me offering to call the landlord for them wasn’t enough- it made them just as anxious.
I was blown away at how much they truly and fully believe that their complete and total comfort and avoidance of all things unpleasant no matter how slight and mundane was worth more than my literal life, health, and safety. I quit. I had thought about quitting every day for months and talked myself out of it to make sure I could keep my job and not risk losing my husband and my housing or go hungry or anything. To make sure we had security, at any cost. I needed the money. And I could no longer handle the shit, even if it meant poverty and instability were about to rear their ugly heads in my life once again. I just. Quit.
So now, I am jobless. My body has taken such a beating. I have been sick for a long time, but I was managing my health and maintaining a solid baseline pretty well for a while. In the last 6 months, all of my wellness has flown out of the window. After work, I can’t do anything. I go home, I lay down, I try to get rest. On my weekends, I was all but bed ridden, trying to recover. My feet and legs were swelling up so bad after every shift my crocs (that are big on me, normally) are even too tight. I have migraines nearly every day. I have no appetite. I’m not getting any good sleep- I am getting less that 20 mins of deep sleep a night. All of my dreams are stressful at best, if not horrific. I’ve been nauseous always, and vomiting often. My body hurts so bad I cry every morning when I wake up to the pain. I’m getting stress rashes. My hair is falling out. My heart rate and blood pressure are all fucked. I’m in incredible amounts of pain and I cannot recover in 3 days off just to do it all again.
My mental health is wrecked. I am trying to face the fact that this shit has effectively traumatized me. I have intrusive thoughts about gross shit I’ve seen in their house. When I think about work, I get clammy and nervous and all kinds of other ways bc I am so haunted. I feel so unsafe. I’m always angry. I’m always upset. I can’t do anything for myself. I’m not doing any work in my own home. My husband, who is so wonderful, is carrying me. My contamination OCD, that I worked on for YEARS in therapy, is back and worse than ever. My DID symptoms are horrendously persistent. When my phone gets a notification, I panic. Like fully panic. When I hear a discord notification (the primary means of contact with these clients), I fully melt down. I am avoiding my phone - which means I’m avoiding friends, family, doctors, and other important shit.
I have had no time to see my physicians while employed by these clients. I would’ve, but then my schedule got longer and longer with them. I haven’t been attending therapy. I haven’t been getting my bloodwork. I’ve been missing my T-shots. I am a fucking zombie. A shell of who I used to be. I am so fucking burnt out and so damn far gone from all of this stress and anxiety and hardwork and pain and being treated like shit. I am riddled with shame and guilt. I hate that I am in a position where THIS is what I had to do to make money that was even remotely liveable- and it wouldn’t be liveable if not for my husband’s wage.
I need to get mental health treatment, urgently. I need that so I can get another job and not lose it bc I can’t function as I am. I need help. I need to see my doctor and have a lot of things checked on bc my body is a mess and I’m afraid I’ve made everything so much worse. Every fucking thing.
I need help and support. If I want to survive this period and get to the next chapter, my husband and I need help supporting ourselves and our family. I have a Go Fund Me. If you can donate 10$, 5$ even, that means a lot to me. I need help. I need urgent fucking help.
