This article is written by Victoria Camp, Project Director at Local Partnerships.

  • The problem: Once you have decided to leave a toxic workplace you then need to work out how to process what has happened and find a way to move on.
  • Why it matters: Moving between roles is hard enough, particularly when you’ve had a bad experience.
  • The solution: Taking care of yourself and remembering to validate your experience

Writing about toxic workplaces is really common, a simple Google search will find you lots of really good clickable content from great sources like HBR and others. They tell you how to spot one, how to cope and recover with the toll they take and how you might cope. Now I’m focusing on the recovery element of working in a toxic workplace and some of the very real cognitive dissonance that we might have to learn to live with whilst we go through that healing process.

I’ve struggled to find one that fit the bill for me – one that said all the things I needed to hear and that could maybe have made my healing process a bit swifter. I’ve worked in several toxic workplaces – toxic for a variety of reasons; bad bosses, lack of autonomy, diabolical culture and also just general mismatch of expectations. All of them have had a few things in common in that the effects on me were both similar each time, and substantial too:

  • Lack of confidence
  • Highly sensitive and emotional
  • Second-guessing my competence and capability
  • Emotional overeating as a response mechanism
  • Switching between defensive behaviour and attacking behaviour to self-preserve
  • Dragging the stress back home and feelings of total inadequacy at home and at work
  • Anxiety attacks – which lasted beyond the job
  • Depression – lack of motivation for anything including things I usually enjoy
  • Inability to see past the current situation.

Toxic workplaces exist everywhere, in all organisations and at all levels. It might be one boss making things tricky, it might be an entire culture within a team, department or organisation which lends itself to this. Forbes published an article last year that suggested the reason for the ‘great resignation’ was not pay, benefits or progression as people suspected but toxicity in the workplace.

I was lucky in most situations, except one, to be able to change jobs quickly, and it’s the one I couldn’t leave easily which caused the longest damage and healing time. I want to focus on that healing and some of the logical conversations I ran through during the time it took me to find a way of accepting what I had been through.

  1. Time – It took me about two years to get over my last toxic job, and I was only in the job for two and a half years. I struggled to drive past the office without my heart rate rising. I still get slightly panicked if I see a car of the same make/type as one of the key people there in case it’s them. I fantasise about bumping into them and how I might deal with the situation, or how I might not. I work in Wales which is a glorious and magnificent country but is also fairly small where the anonymity of a city does not exist. Many of the colleagues I had worked with were known well by my new employer, and so it was important to develop a ‘party line’. Having a standard line or phrase to repeat also helped give me time whilst I found the right way to process what I had been through. It might take you longer, and it might not, but for me, I just kept going over key conversations to try and play out what had gone wrong. I do this with other things, so I expected a fairly long recovery time, but I didn’t expect the effects to continue as long as they did, I thought I would have found my way through quicker.

    I genuinely believed I had brought all this on myself OR that I was imagining it and really nothing was wrong.

    I’ve not failed because it took me that long, it just did. Much like grief, there is a process to go through and whilst there may not be helpful steps, I’m here to confirm that you can take all the time you need. It will be worth it because at some point several years later I was driving along and I finally had a way of explaining it all that I couldn’t pick apart. A way to see what happened that I could rationally use to explain all the emotional situations, and it stuck. I refine it from time to time and as I learn more about myself but what I want you to take away from this if you are thinking of leaving, or just have left, just be kind and loving to yourself and take all the time you need.

  2. Reality check. This one is easiest explained with the questions I asked myself:

    1. What did I do wrong?
    2. Why don’t they like me?
    3. How could I have done things differently and what would that outcome have looked like?
    4. Why don’t they mind working here?
    5. Why do they think I’m crazy when I talk about toxic behaviours?
    6. IS IT ME?

    So that last question haunted me and I had therapists, friends, family, loved ones, and new colleagues all telling me with love what they thought was helpful; ”It’s not you, it’s them”. But I didn’t believe them. Such was the impact on my own self-belief that for most of the time I was there and after, I genuinely believed I had brought all this on myself OR that I was imagining it and really nothing was wrong. The latter was really hard to process because there was evidence that I could find easily which supported that argument. Some people had worked here for years, new people were joining and they liked it just fine, no one was leaving in droves, senior leadership thought things could improve but not that it was catastrophically bad, no one else appeared to be falling apart like I was, and so ultimately the only logical conclusion I could come to time and time again was that it was me. How could all these things be true, the cognitive dissonance I suffered during this time was huge; both in terms of my behaviours and beliefs, and those around me. I’ve not got the words to unpick all of this but what I can say is that much of the above can be true. You can work in a toxic workplace which is toxic for YOU and you alone and that in which you have done very little to create that toxicity. You might explore things and find out you didn’t help the situation and that would all be excellent personal development and yet what is more important is to remember just because others don’t see/feel/hear it doesn’t mean it’s not happening for you. Your experiences are valid.

  3. Validating your experience – In relationship therapy we are often told that it’s important to recognise the validity of someone’s feelings. I might not feel as frustrated with my husband that I leave things in the sink, and yet it’s important for me to validate his feelings of frustration about that because if I don’t then I’m telling him he’s not important, I’m telling him HIS emotions and feelings are not important to me. Now I want you to apply the same thinking to yourself. I felt attacked, I felt unsafe, I felt unloved/unheard, undermined, bullied, or harassed, insert your own word and then recognise that your feelings are valid and important because YOU are important. Make this your fortress of truth – impenetrable as you progress through your healing. It matters not if someone didn’t have the same experience as you, and if people don’t value your experience as valid then you need to question the health of that relationship.

Toxic places will continue forever as long as we group people together forcibly for work, school or other mandated activities. If you cannot leave then all you can do is cope, and if you are lucky enough to escape, I hope this little guide can help you through some dark times. There is, after all, always hope. I promise.

👋 You can create a post like this one! Share your thoughts with a community of public servants. Learn more

(Image Credit: Unsplash)