Disclaimer: The views in this post are my own, based on my lived experience and personal recollection. My ERA proceedings against the Department of Internal Affairs are ongoing. All supporting documents and evidence will be disclosed through that process.
A caterpillar does not simply grow wings. Inside the chrysalis, it breaks down almost completely, and what comes out is built from what survives. In June 2025, I did not know I was about to go through this metamorphosis myself, in my forties.
If you have read Selectively Human Resources (Selectively Human Resources | DIA HR and Workplace Bullying — Voices@WorkNZ) and other earlier posts, you already know how I came to be placed on special leave in June 2025. I had asked for my complaint to be investigated, and I ended up being the one under investigation. I will not go over the details again. This post is about what those months were like for me.
At first, I believed it would be over in a few weeks. I believed someone would look at what had happened and see it clearly. I wanted to be ready when I went back. I created a strategy for the delivery of the programme; I noted down the risks and issues that we could face with ARIS platform etc. I was a manager even though without a team, waiting to be called back.
The call never came. Weeks turned into months, and something in me started to give way. I stopped sleeping properly. I stopped eating properly. Anxiety was there when I woke up, and it was still there when I tried to sleep. I needed a doctor’s help and counselling just to get through it.
The strangest part was wanting two opposite things at once. The thought of walking back into that office frightened me. At the same time, going back to my team was all I wanted. I wrote to DIA asking to return, and I never heard back.
I arrived at DIA as a confident and capable senior manager. Within months I barely recognised myself. I began to doubt my judgement, my skills, and whether I was still good at the work I had done all my life. My children saw it. I was trying to be their mother while I was barely holding myself together.
It took months before I felt safe again. Those months were taken from me. I believe my employer wanted me silenced because I spoke up. I will never get that time back. I will always remember those months, and I will always remember why.
There is something I have learnt about myself over the years. Every time life has pushed me into a corner, I have found a strength inside me that I did not realize was there. Somewhere in those long months, I found it again. It came back gradually. I started to feel like myself, and I started to believe the truth would come out and I would return to my team.
Then, on 31 March 2026, DIA dismissed me. It was one day before my team moved to the Public Service Commission. I have written about that timing in Part 19 (Where Do Our Tax Dollars Go, Part 19: Case Updates — Voices@WorkNZ). I believe that if I had moved with my team, fresh eyes would have looked at how DIA’s HR had handled my case. I do not think DIA wanted that.
I did not expect it. After everything, some part of me still believed the employment relationship meant something. I had held on to it long after DIA stopped acting like the other party to it. When the letter came, that belief broke. It was devastating.
And yet, that was the night things began to turn.
I did not write about DIA while I worked there, even when things went badly wrong. I still believed in that relationship, and I did not want to be the one who broke it. On 31 March, DIA broke it for me. Once it was over, I realised there was nothing left to protect by staying silent.
So I started writing. Putting my name and my story in front of anyone who cared to read it, including the people I was writing about, frightened me. But I was the one deciding what happened next, and I had not been able to say that since June 2025. I had taken my power back, and I did not intend to hand it over again.
That was when the chrysalis began to crack.
You have been on this journey with me ever since. Some of you sent good wishes. Some of you sent kind words about the writing. Some of you helped me in ways I will never be able to repay, and some of you prayed for me. I want to thank every one of you. You are the reason I came through this without losing myself. You are the reason I did not lose it all.
My mental health has improved, and I want to be clear about where that came from. It came from the people who stood beside me - my children, my friends, my family, my therapist, my GP and readers of this blog. None of it came from my employer.
I am not out of this yet. The case continues, and some days are still tough. Over the last few months my posts have slowed down, and I have told you more than once that I was busy. I owe you an explanation of what I have been busy with.
I am sharing it for another reason too. If you are going through something like this right now, I want you to know there is a way through. The systems meant to protect you may fail you, and they may fail you more than once. With the right support, there is still a way out.
When you lose your job, the one thing you suddenly have is time. At first, I did not know what to do with it. I struggled to understand how to fill those days without sinking deeper into depression. My therapist helped me through that time. Little by little, I started to get back in touch with the parts of me I had lost to all the trauma at DIA.
I picked up my paints after more than a year. I had not been sure the joy would still be there. It was, exactly as it had always been. Writing took longer to come back. For a long time, I had not been able to write regularly, and that had frightened me more than I admitted. Then the words returned. I wrote a couple of short stories. I went back to my book, ‘Brown Girl Red Tape’, and kept going. Music found its way back in too. I finished a level of Hindustani vocals, and now I am learning guitar so I can play along to my favourite Bollywood songs.
The damage to my mental health had been severe, and it lasted a long time. But it taught me something I might never have learned otherwise. It showed me exactly what brings me joy. Painting, writing and music have been my pillars of strength all my life. I had come so close to losing sight of that fact. But now I know, and that knowledge will stay with me and help me in the future.
With those pillars back in place, I found I could learn again. I read, I researched, and I wrote papers. Two of them are now published, and a couple more are on the way. That was the silver lining of losing my job, even though it was done in a way I believe was unjustified. For the first time in years, I had time to learn as much as I wanted.
It also meant my coaching certification could finally be put to use. I had worked hard for it, and it had been waiting for the right moment. The certification taught me techniques that help people work through trauma. I have used them on myself, and they helped me process my own trauma. I have used them with friends and family too, and I have seen how well they work. Now I have started taking on individual clients. I have also built a training programme in mental health awareness, from what I had studied and from what I had lived.
I have always loved working in IT, and I loved every job I held before this one. When I joined the public service, I was looking forward to using technology to give something back to people. DIA closed that door. I have found another way to give back, through my skills, and yes, even through my trauma and my depression.
The training programme led me to a charity organisation here in Wellington. The people who engaged me had read my story, and they had very kind words to say about it. They believed, as I do, that people should be able to speak up. That did not surprise me. People who work to support others tend to understand other people’s struggles, even when that particular thing has not happened to them. Empathy is one of the qualities that helps volunteers and social workers support people well. I got the chance to help them do it even better.
Through those sessions, I am meeting some amazing people. They bring their experiences, and I bring mine, and we listen to each other. For a long time, my story felt like something that only hurt me. In that room, it is helping someone else.
I had always imagined doing this kind of work later in my career. Instead, I get to do it now. I am paid for work I love, and I am my own boss. The cherry on top is that my clients come from all over the world. DIA has kept making findings against me since my dismissal, and I believe they are meant to keep me out of New Zealand’s public service agencies for the next three years. DIA can keep adding to that file for as long as it likes. It has no bearing on my ability to find clients.
There is one more thing I am proud of, more than anything else in this post. I did not give up.
I once told someone at DIA that I would not give up and I would not go away. What I meant was that I would not accept punishment for doing the right thing and speaking up. I have kept that promise. I continue to speak up about workplace bullying and the waste of taxpayer money in public service agencies. I continue to connect with people who believe what I believe. I met many of them through the hardships of this dispute, and I would never have known them otherwise. Together, we will keep working to make workplaces in New Zealand safer.
The fight is not over. I will not rest until I receive the justice I believe I deserve, and I will keep you updated every step of the way. I will also keep helping anyone who needs support through this process, because it is a hard road and nobody should have to walk it alone.
For now, I simply wanted you to know that things have started turning around. The woman who went into that chrysalis in June 2025 broke down almost completely in there. What has come out is built from what survived, and it has wings. I am stronger, and I have discovered new talents and strength inside me. Two career paths have opened up for me, writing and coaching, and I love both of them even more than I loved IT. I am glad, and I am so grateful for the support I have received from so many of you.
Speaking of things turning around, I will soon share another update with you. It is about one part of the system that has finally worked, and it has given those of us in this situation some respite from all the parts that are broken. That is a story for another post.
