When we asked Silvia and Elisa (invented names) for a photograph to be published together with their story, there was silence. Then Elisa, just turned 50, took a breath: “What we have suffered has destroyed our life, the projects we had. Everything has changed. I went to psychiatric treatment, took drugs, ended up in hospital. At times I thought I’d get it over with. I am no longer the same person as before. Now thinking about putting your face on it, I know it’s important but it’s scary ».
I met Silvia and Elisa, a life together, in a park in Rome. On a strange day, with a shy sun and the first reopening in place after the stricter restrictions imposed by the pandemic. «At 2 pm I have to go to work» Elisa tells me, who after living hell in the call center where he worked and where he suffered mobbing for several years, has found a new occupation. Starting from scratch, no longer with a permanent contract, with a reduced hours (therefore a reduced salary) and a mortgage to pay. In a city, the one in which he lives today, which he had chosen only to be with Silvia, moved from the company where they both worked.
It all started when Silvia was transferred from a foreign office of the company she worked for to the office located near Rome. “I had specified that I would return but only if Elisa had also been transferred”. So it was. Silvia and Elisa have looked for a house, moved, asked for a mortgage, started a new life. “I knew immediately that something was wrong. I felt I was not well received from day one: I didn’t have a personal desk, not my own computer ». What appeared to be just details soon turned out to be a concrete reality. “Elisa and I have never talked about our relationship, we have never shown ourselves in attitudes of closeness in the company but up to that moment we had not had any problems related to our relationship “.
Then the chatter began in the company, it became heavy and turned into real mobbing. “My idea is that the managers of the new headquarters did not accept my role and it was the excuse to start attacking us as a couple and because we were two women who loved each other”. Silvia and Elisa still love each other, very much, but as Elisa recounts with a trembling voice “we have lived through hell”.
A fall into hell made up of spurious calls during working hours, pressures of all kinds. «They would call me back while I was on the phone with customers saying that I was using my cell phone, or that I was eating and it was evident that it was not so but I could just shut up. They told me I shouldn’t look around, stare at the computer monitor. ” Then came the heavy jokes, the words that hurt. “They called me using the masculine, I was continually scolded in front of everyone or in private for things I hadn’t done.”
Month after month the situation for Silvia and Elisa became unbearable. «I started having panic attacks, I was struggling to breathe, I was no longer the same person. The manager had gone so far as to make fun of Silvia in front of everyone, for example by imitating her by flanking, and I had to stand there and watch. In silence”.
Silvia and Elisa asked the company for help, making reports to the competent offices. “They told us that after all, we shouldn’t have married our boss.” When the suffering turned into illness, Silvia (who in the meantime had also had to suffer a hand on her butt, fortunately witnessed by a colleague) and Elisa left everything.
“Elisa lasted another two years or so after my resignation, despite the panic attacks and two emergency calls to the emergency room.” The last morning of work was the one in which Elisa threw up before entering. “I was still in the parking lot, approaching the entrance. I understood in that moment that I could not continue like this. I went home and promised myself that I would never set foot in that place again ».
Today Elisa is better but she keeps repeating that she is no longer the person she used to be. “I’m 50 years old, I’m from L’Aquila, I’ve experienced the earthquake, I’m not someone who gets thrown down easily but that company destroyed me. Now thanks to the support of ours lawyer Michela Scafetta, thanks to’Arcigay who helped us a lot and thanks to our strength we are still standing. But we want justice. The financial compensation doesn’t matter, but I can’t accept that two people can be hurt so much just because they love each other and they are two women. I don’t want it to happen again. ‘
In Italy bullying is a scourge that is still too little reported today. “People who believe they suffer from it must report it “he explains the lawyer Michela Scafetta, expert in labor law. «First of all, they should contact a psychotherapist expert in mobbing and a lawyer. There are specialized centers against bullying that can be asked for support. The moment you become aware of bullying and denounce it, you start to feel better. Not only the mobbed is sick but the whole family is hit, because you enter a state of mind so serious that it spills over into all aspects of a person’s life “.
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