So, it’s been a while since I last posted here — 25 days to be exact.
Maybe you missed reading my stories and have been wondering what happened next.
Maybe no one is actually reading my posts.
It’s okay. I’ll come back to the burnout series later.
Right now, I want to share two portraits I took.
Here they are.
On the first photo, it’s my birthday. I got ready. I was feeling pretty good and confident — which was a huge progress compared to how I had felt in previous months, or even years.
If you’ve read the stories, you probably know I hadn’t been doing great for a long time — even if I didn’t know it yet.
I heard something recently that stuck with me:
You can’t read the label from inside the bottle.
And I kind of liked that metaphor.
Cause that’s how I felt.
Anyway, I was feeling good. I was ready to enjoy a sunny day in Riga.
Going slowly. Wandering, reading, drinking coffee.
Taking time to breathe. To feel.
Just like I had planned when I booked this trip.
And I did.
I went to the park between the old and new town and read When We Were Killers.
I actually had a pretty good day.
It wasn’t much.
I didn’t want much.
I just wanted to feel and reconnect with myself.
That night, I went back to my Airbnb. Thinking about what I’d do the next day.
Probably wander again — this time with my camera.
I wanted to focus on photography.
Yeah, I’d take some pretty pictures — for myself, but also for Instagram.
And maybe I’d take some time to think about the future.
Because I hadn’t done that yet. Six months after my diagnosis, and thinking about the future was still nearly impossible.
But hey — I was feeling good. Being there, alone, breathing, living quietly… it filled me with wonder. With possibilities.
So yeah, I thought I’d take a moment and imagine what could be next. In a hopeful way.
It was a solid plan, right?
I had a pretty good healing strategy so far.
But then — you saw the other portrait.
So I’m pretty sure you guessed it didn’t go as planned.
And you’d be right.
The next day, I received an email from my company.
The one I had sacrificed my health for.
In retrospect — a dumb choice. But again… the bottle metaphor.
Anyway.
They emailed me.
They hadn’t cared for six months. Hadn’t bothered to reach out, even when I tried — offering them an easy way out.
Because I was on sick leave. (I’m French — that’s a thing here.)
And I offered them a solution: we could reach an agreement. I would leave the company in exchange for some compensation. Not much. I knew it wouldn’t be.
In fact, it would’ve been less convenient for me than staying on sick leave.
I would’ve lost financial stability.
But I felt guilty.
I felt like I had failed them.
Like I had to do what was right — for them. Not for me.
Yeah, I know. I was not in the best state of mind.
But they refused.
They didn’t want to let me go easily.
Even with almost no compensation.
An agreement meant they’d have to give me something — probably around 3K. So really, not much.
But still, they refused.
They wanted me to quit. For free.
And after that — silence.
No news for two months.
No written answer.
Just a vague no I had obtained in a call with HR.
That was it.
Those portraits were taken in June — two months after that call.
And out of nowhere, they sent me an email.
They were threatening to sue me for a data breach.
And encouraging me to sign an agreement and leave the company.
It hit like a fucking tsunami.
I was finally starting to get better.
Slowly. But surely.
And then — boom.
Needless to say, I lost it. I panicked. I cried. I was shaking.
I didn’t understand.
A data breach? What data?
I hadn’t touched my work computer since April.
And then — 20 minutes later — another email.
This time from HR. A different person.
This one was about my wage.
While on sick leave, you still receive your income.
But apparently, I wasn’t going to anymore.
Why? Because I hadn’t sent the medical documentation I was supposedly requested to send.
Requested how?
On my professional email.
Even though I had explicitly instructed them to contact me via my personal email.
But now — when it was convenient for them — they did reach me on my personal email.
Just to let me know I had failed to do what was asked.
So yeah. That’s the story behind the second portrait.
It’s me — and my fragile mental health — shattering completely.
Because the company I worked so hard for finally decided I was a liability.
After two months of ignoring me, they came back only to try and make me quit.
What a day.
If you’re wondering how I handled it — the answer is: not well.
Like I said, my already fragile state crumbled.
I cried.
I shook.
I lost my appetite. Again.
I lost sleep. Again.
But — a month later — I’m glad it happened.
Because it got me mad.
It made me sick.
And it made me realize that they had failed me. Repeatedly.
They didn’t care about me.
And it made me want to tell my story.
So I went out. To a café.
I ordered a cinnamon iced latte.
And I started to write.
For two days straight, all I did was drink cinnamon lattes and write.
They gave me the final push to build HTM.
So I did.
Because like I said in my burnout series:
I needed the story out
Thank you so much for reading my story.
If this resonated with you, I’d truly love to hear from you — whether it’s in the comments or in a DM.
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