The Breakthrough
The trauma of a toxic work enviornment
2016- Old Job
It wasn’t that I had never prayed before; I had. It was just that it had been measured, careful, thoughtful. But the car was spinning on the ice, and I was just yelling nonsense to whoever or whatever may be listening.
I wanted this to be the last time I tried to drive my cobalt, “the murder mobile,” on the ice and snow this winter. It was only January, and February promised more bad weather. So that was unlikely.
I live on a ridge, and there are, by my count, five hills I could go down, but none of them have been maintained by the road department yet. It didn’t matter; I had to be at work. The last time I slid off the road and abandoned my vehicle, walking a mile home, they threatened to fire me.
I’ve been there for almost ten years. I am a body, a number, and very little else. My creativity, my loyalty, my spirit didn’t matter. I had just this love for a very narrow aspect of the job. The rest is mostly contempt for myself, for whatever it was keeping me there. My hair was falling out, and my mornings started with nausea at the thought of going in. And I cried all the time.
2019- New job
“Can you come up to my office”
“We need to talk”
My boss is the King of vague texts.
So far, every meeting has been positive. My creativity has been praised, which is new. I walked to his office, thinking about the last several things I had done and how they could have been interpreted or possibly misinterpreted. I’m trying to consider every possibility as I ascend the three flights of stairs. He probably hates the business cards I designed. Maybe I overstepped in that last staff meeting?
Shit, shit, shit.
I stand on one side of the door with so much uncertainty. I know that I am not good at conflict. Do I defend my decisions or admit I don’t know what the hell I’m doing and promise to improve? Which option will make him not regret hiring me?
…He gave me a T-shirt.
Similarly, “We Need to Talk” was about something equally as congenial and mundane.
At some point, he told me, “Brandy, we’ve never yelled at anyone in this office. You have workplace trauma.” He does that. Drops nuggets for you to chew on and walks away to let you think about them. My boss is a therapist. The thing about working in a building of therapists is that they see everything; they FEEL everything. There is no hiding here.
He walked away after dropping a bomb like “workplace trauma.” Hair loss, nausea, the feeling of impending doom, the feeling that I was going to get yelled at when entering any room. The fear I had about asking for help.
30-40 percent of people suffer from workplace trauma. People in the healthcare industry are even more likely to be affected. Walking into every meeting at my new job was tense; my jaw was clenched, and my stomach was in knots because trauma alters emotional responses long term. These are behaviors that are now conditioned and I must unlearn. You don’t just feel safe again when you leave that type of environment.
So what do we do? What are our actionable steps to recover from this?
The first order of business is to listen to our body. My body was in revolt. The second is to acknowledge what’s wrong. A job, much like a relationship, can be toxic. That job was not an environment where I could grow; it was not a safe place to exist. Even after I left, the emotional responses I had to contend with were complex. I had to learn to trust people and to trust myself.
So,
Step one: remove yourself from the unhealthy situation
Step two, therapy in some form
Step three, self-care
Step four building healthy relationships with your new environment
Step five, be patient with yourself (I still have work to do within conflict)
2025- Today
For the first time, I ran out of gas.
Literally, not figuratively, although that has certainly happened before.
I was sure I could make it to the gas station; perhaps I was overconfident, not an issue I used to have.
I ran out of gas right in front of a gas station. And all I could do was laugh. It felt like such an apt metaphor. I could have pushed my car the rest of the way into the parking lot, but I had the option to ask for help, so I did. I called a friend (thanks Aaron), who I worked with for help. I could have called 50 of them. Would any of my lady friends had an already full gas can ready… debatable, but they would have helped me.
This is where I am now, the environment that I surround myself in gives me peace not trauma. But I still remind myself to unclench my jaw when I walk into a meeting at times. I work for that peace, everyday. I did the scary thing and left, now I do the scary thing and trust.
Need more of a Break?
Grab a copy of The Mountain Is You by Briana Wiest