I was a software developer who worked as contractor for a non-profit up until a few days ago. The business relationship ended because their expectation of me was to do the work of multiple programmers + a user experience designer. Any time I described I was headed towards 'burn out' and that this was 'too much' for one person, they said whatever they could to 'string me along.' Rather than going along with this, I left the organization. The founder of the organization was not happy.
Throughout our working relationship together, and even now - they continue to act like I owe them something. This behavior culminates in different ways, such as saying I should be available after the working relationship has ended to support the new programmer via phone or email - with no discussion of or willingness to pay me for my time if I were to provide this support. I expressed that this is not in the contract, and not something I'd be able to honor - to which the founder loudly proclaimed I was being 'unreasonable.' Yet, he was fully aware at this point that I am totally burned out. The issue is, my emotional and physical health is in a bad place due to the stress and burn out brought on by this position. The organization has an outstanding bill for my time that they have yet to pay me, and are claiming they are doing an internal review of my work and then will contact me with any questions.
I can tell you they've never done any internal review of my work before, because they have no experience as programmers. So, it's hard to know why they are doing this. My guess would be to try and get out of paying, but that's not what this question is about...
The idea of interacting with these people in anyway gives me severe panic and anxiety. These people are the types (and I've experienced this during the working relationship) where I could answer their questions a million times over, and they either cannot understand, or seem to have some distrust of the answers I give them, so then they seem to check what I've said with a friend of theirs who is a professional programmer - and this individual has backed up what I have said every time. Sometimes this answering of their questions has culminated into them texting me for hours on end, but if I need to get a hold of them, I am unable to do so.
The anxiety stems from the feeling that this relationship will never end. My programming has made them hundreds upon thousands of dollars this year (it is a service app), but everything I do is 'under a microscope.' I am afraid of saying the wrong thing and somehow ending up in litigation or not getting paid. I have no timeline as to when they are going to get back to me with questions, and I need to move on quickly so my sanity doesn't deteriorate anymore.
What is it that I can do to end this relationship as quickly as possible? One thought was invoicing for an hours time for every email that they send or saying that all questions have to be sent by X date, it needs to all be in one email, etc. Should I get a lawyer to draft some sort of official note?
Any help would be great. These people have destroyed my love of programming and hope for the future. I am getting help now, but I have so much PTSD from this job it is ridiculous.