Gosh That Knocked Me Sideways

 The shock of the letter, the ferocity and vexatious nature of it, out of the blue has given me three months of stress and anxiety that I did not need, mild panic attacks and seriously doubting my sanity and myself.

Yesterday I felt a lot better and not so paralysed about it all and today I feel lighter and the weight has lifted somewhat.  I've done loads of research, tested theories and checked my working, my knowledge of commercial and contract law and finally, I have explored all the possible avenues I can think of for any comeback or further action towards me.  What was clear in the letter was that it was written in anger and in a revenge fuelled way.  Doing so opens emotional arguments and not fact based ones.  Facts take a back seat.

What is annoying to me is that it even got this far.  It should never have seen the light of day and it should have been stopped by those who purport to know better.  It was devised to give me maximum stress and doubt and it did that because that's what it is intentionally written to do.

 I like that I took those days off to think about it and to not think about it too.  The problem I have encountered is my drinking has gone through the roof and that stops tomorrow, I need to walk away from that stuff and whilst it is summer and a beer is nice, out there by the sunset seat and fire pit, it cannot be 4 to 6 cans of beer per night every night!  That's not sustainable either from my body's point of view nor financially.  It is so easy to do, to go at the end of the day and drown your sorrows and reflect on what's going on but this isn't the way.  

I now have a clear action plan to follow and have an idea in my head what I need to do, action plans are also written down, ready to implement.  The only worry is now will he come back for a second bite at the cherry?  There's little or no room for that and almost everything I can think of has been documented and mitigation is ready to be implemented.

Three months it's taken, goodness knows what this has done to me through all the stress and uncertainty and I imagine he will be going through the same now.  A good thing to do is to get all the anger out and I have some wild notes that I wrote at the time to get it out of my brain and on to paper which I can destroy shortly.  It clears your mind of the emotional stuff and focuses in on the facts, figures and reality of the situation.  It also reinforces your analysis of the contents and nonsensical parts of his argument, the distortion of facts, facts that have now been copied and returned to counter his untruths and finally, the coup de grâce written in his own hand which destroys all the arguments put forward.  

A good thing that I keep and reference this stuff and there are a few more items I have too should it ever come to it.  That letter should make the whole thing go away.  But on top of that, offering for talks and mediation as a way forward to defuse all of this provides a way forward, should they want it but if they aren't thinking straight still, perhaps not.

Anyway, the good news is that I am feeling that much better about things now and finally I am over the cycle you go through with this stuff (Kubler Ross) and whilst my INTJ brain is good for this stuff in a business sense, in a personal sense it doesn't function as well as it should.  I actually knew the answer straight away though but had to work through all the angles and scenarios to prove it to myself.

So, onward I hope and upward I'd like to think too.