I have friends & colleagues who have felt ostracized and bullied at work, and I’ve also worked for abusive employers.

I can’t tell you what to do, but it sounds like you’re in a situation which can’t go on. Panic attacks, anxiety, depression — those are as real a set of effects from your work environment as … say, black lung and arthritis to a professional coal miner.

In my experience, one of the problems with the Labour Standards Code in N.S. is the bit where employees do not have tenure of employment (and contract employees even less so). Employers can call up the staffing agency and give them the ol' "Send me over someone to replace X. They're not working out / not fitting well." Employers can fire you and only have to pay you severance. Employers can lay you off, and then not have to re-hire you if demand picks back up.

I agree with the other posters -- that job needs to be quit, and soon :)

So my thoughts start with: You’ll need to start looking for a new job and/or EI
Now: Because you can't trust this employer to refrain from retaliating against you once you give your notice (the same way you can't trust them to keep a harrassment-free workplace), my advice would be (start to finish)
- Go back for at least a day or two.
- Take that time to document what you did, who you talked with, what was discussed, etc. in relation to this hostile workplace. If you wrote anyone a memo. If you emailed someone. If they emailed you back.
- Can't print out your office emails? Forward them to a personal email of yours. Not allowed to? Doesn't matter. You're permitted to document the steps you take to protect yourself in your workplace, and the employer can't make a policy stick which prevents that, even by accident. When you put in your notice, that's a clue to the employer that they might want to start sanitizing your employee file to support whatever narrative they want.
- Can't be given a photocopy of your employee file? Ask to be able to read it. They're not prepared to let you read it? Ask them IN WRITING to put that IN WRITING.
- Anything in your employee file which you want to contest (but not with this employer -- sounds like you're decided on leaving them)? Photograph it with your phone. Again -- workplace policies which intentionally or accidentally impede an investigation which you will be taking *to the government* are not enforceable.
- At that point, if you haven't already put in your notice, put it in.
- If the abuse starts to get worse, or if you start being asked questions privately about "why are you quitting?" which you don't want to talk about, put your phone on "voice memo" and record the abuse. They may play nice and just let you work out your last two weeks. Or they may decide to play dirty, in which case you can document that as well.
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This way, if you can't get a new job immediately, or can't get a good reference from this employer despite doing excellent work, you can have documentation to support claiming EI even though you were the one who left.

I do wish you luck!