Pain Clinic ….. Day Nine (but who’s counting?)
Floor exercises.
Followed by Psychology session – Affect of Chronic Pain on Relationships
Followed by Gym
Followed by 2km stroll by the river
Followed by lunch break
Followed by Occupational Therapy
then home.
Somewhere in there – in this morning’s Psychology session to be precise – one of our fellow pain clinic participants decided to start hurling abuse at me across a room where I was having a quiet and private conversation that went something like this :
Uncle Frank: I am tired of these sessions, I feel like everyone else is getting to air their issues, but as soon as I want to discuss something, TrixieCyclist (the psychologist) cuts me off.
Borys: Yes, I know what you mean, we do have a couple of very demanding and vociferous people in the group who seem to dominate the sessions…. but she is doing what she can with what she’s got and she knows she has to focus her attention on those that are having the most difficulty adjusting blah, blah, blah ….
when unexpectedly from across the room in a unnecessarily loud and extremely accusatory tone we hear :
Tracey Shoulders: Don’t you two talk about me! I’ve had it up to here with you (this was pointedly directed to me)
Borys: (perplexed) Excuse me Tracey? We were neither talking about you nor to you.
Tracey: I know you were talking about me and I’m sick of it! If you have a problem with me you can tell me to my face.
Borys: I am sorry to disappoint you Tracey but not everything revolves around you. We were not in fact discussing you, and you may be assured that if I did have a problem with you, I would certainly approach you about it, though I would do it privately in a calm and mature manner rather than inappropriately yelling across a room full of people!
Tracey: Oh, I know you were talking about me! I heard you saying ‘she’ , ‘she’, ‘she’ !!!
Borys: Tracey, you’re not the only female around here and believe it or not some of us have concerns that have nothing to do with you. None of us should have to tolerate this sort of disrespectful behaviour and I believe you owe both Frank and myself an apology for your rude and unwarranted intrusion.
Tracey: I won’t be apologizing to YOU!!!
or roughly something to that effect. At which point the less than cluey TrixieCyclist realized the situation was deteriorating rather rapidly and jumped in suggesting that we resolve our differences later. No doubt this was because it was obvious that Tracey was about to start hurling expletives at me. Which is a not uncommon reaction I tend to illicit from certain people when they pick a verbal fight with me…. sigh.
So fun for the whole group you know. Tracey being barely three years my junior is about 15 years my junior in the maturity stakes. She has been a disruptive, uncooperative, hypercritical, disgruntled, belligerent high maintenance little malcontent (read: whiny little dumbass bitch) from the day we started the program. I believe this has probably had a significantly detrimental effect on the rest of us given that the physios etc running the course have had to pull her kicking and screaming every step of the way throughout the last three weeks.
I am so pleased that I have only one day left and then I will not have to put up with her puerile and small minded behaviour ever again. I’ve rarely encountered anyone so blatantly selfish and self centered. We’ve all put up with her telling others to ‘shut up’ when people try to help her, we’ve had to put up with her objectionable fart jokes and constant twittering over the most infinitesimally asinine and banal things, and we’ve had to listen to her constant bellyaching about her woes… you’d swear she’s the only person on the course.
If I never hear her loud, nasal, whiny, grating aussie-shazza voice again – it’ll be too soon.
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