While discussions about toxic workplace injury are increasing on LinkedIn and mainstream media, less is said about recovery and healing from a toxic work environment.
According to the US Surgeon General, businesses and employees both incur significant losses from hostile work environments due to racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism (see link in comments). Conversely, employees and employers both benefit when workplace trauma is healed.
As toxic workplace survivors share experiences of abuse and recovery, the systemic nature of our abuse and pathways to healing emerge in the following ways.
How We Heal from a Toxic Work Environment
1. Bullies Are Jealous of Us
Bullies often work in organizations that protect the status quo. Targets of bullying behavior tend to be some of the brightest, most talented, & ethical, justice-oriented workers (see research by the Workplace Bullying Institute, link in comments).
2. Bullies Fear Us
Workplace narcissists are threatened by our genuine skills, social desireability (i.e., colleagues tend to like us), & integrity (i.e., we speak up about illegal activity like discrimination and morally reprehensible activity like bullying). While we were just trying to do our jobs, stay out of office politics, and be left alone, bullies perceive us as existential threats to their careers so they organize others to tear us down.
3. Oppression Can Be a Sign of Success
The further BIPOC, LGBTQ people, and women go in our education & careers, the greater our exposure to toxic oppression resulting in stress related chronic illness, disability, and early death (see research on Weathering by Arline Geronimus, link in comments).
4. There is No Shame in Being Bullied
Survivors of toxic workplaces have nothing to feel ashamed about. Rather, we are extremely resilient people who, given the right circumstances, can and do heal.
Ingredients to my healing include:
✅Getting away from workplace abusers
✅Having time for rest
✅Engaging in cultural healing practices
✅Training my nervous system through daily somatic exercise, to move from a state of autonomic emergency stress mode into recovery mode.
✅ Hiring a trauma informed lawyer
✅ Working with a trauma therapist
✅ Attending somatic racial trauma healing circles (link in comments)
Listening, singing, and dancing to liberatory music interspersed with they-done-me-wrong type songs, and music that expresses rage and sorrow have also been extremely helpful.
This song “Superbloom” by MisterWives was on repeat in my home in the earliest days of my recovery from a toxic workplace. Please share in the comments any songs that help you survive and/or recover from toxic workplaces.
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