I used to think I was just bad at coping with stress.
Every Sunday evening I feel anxious about the coming week. My chest will tighten when certain emails pop up in my inbox. Before the meeting, I rehearsed what I wanted to say over and over again, trying to avoid saying the wrong thing.
At the time, I blamed myself.
I told myself I had to be tighter, calmer, better, more patient. Others seem to be in control, so I assume the problem must be mine.
What I do not understand is how highly toxic the workplace can affect your self-esteem.
From the outside, everything looks good. This organization is respected. The leadership team was ‘successful’ and admired. The person at the center of my stress is usually kind, confident, and highly caring.
That makes it harder to believe in my own experience.
There was no apparent threat. No shouting. No great incident I could point to and say, “This is why I struggle.” Instead, it is a slow accumulation of small objects.
Conversations that make me feel strangely shy. Criticism pretends to be ‘advice’. As I was about to leave, I wondered if I had misunderstood what had just happened.
Sometimes I was warmly praised. Other times I was a little indifferent or depressed. The potential of the team made me feel scared and excluded. Inconsistencies have made me constantly try to express myself.
The more careful I am, the more adaptable I am, the more self-critical I am. I think if I communicate perfectly and practice well enough, things will get better.
I finally realized that I was starting to lose my self-confidence. I guess the second simple decision. I kept apologizing. I get tired of following the emotions of others and trying to avoid conflict.
Then one day in a group meeting, I remember there was a time when I realized that my work environment was replicating my home environment. Different people, of course, but the same characters. The charming boss is a joker surrounded by ‘creators’ – all wanting to cut back on justification or excuse poisonous behavior. In that. When I saw it for what it was–Narcissistic abuse in the workplace.
Looking back, I can now see how a bad environment always sets us apart from our own instincts. We focus on keeping the peace, pleasing others or avoiding criticism, or even focusing on our ambitions that we stop noticing what our mind and body are trying to tell us.
I have been trying to tell you for a long time.
The turning point came when a friend asked me, “Do you really feel safe there?”
I remember feeling surprised at the question because I had never thought about mental safety at work before. I assumed that professionalism meant intolerance, discomfort. Push through. Adaptation.
But deep down I knew the answer.
No, I do not feel safe.
Not physically, but mentally.
I feel unable to speak openly without results. I do not feel comfortable making mistakes. I no longer feel calm or secure inside. Everyone is vying for the approval of the boss, which I can see being used strategically.
Acknowledging that it hurts, but it is also the beginning of something important.
First, I stopped seeing my anxiety as a personal failure and began to acknowledge it as information.
My body is responding to an environment that always makes me doubt myself.
Healing did not happen overnight. It takes time to rebuild my confidence and connect with my voice again. But gradually I stopped reducing what I was experiencing.
And I stop blaming myself for being affected by it.
I think a lot of people are taking experience in the workplace that they are not completely aware of because the dangers do not always look great from the outside. Sometimes it seems gradually getting smaller, quieter and more uncertain about yourself. Professional experience should increase confidence or not diminish it.
After I left, I immediately felt relieved, and my sense of self-confidence and self-confidence quickly returned. It changed the feeling that it was not me or my fault. I am having an understandable response to being in a toxic state full of toxins and side effects.
And experience only helps to tell my understanding and ability to recognize this later. Talk to others who feel the same way at work. It is not uncommon for us to find ourselves in a ‘familiar energy’ – even at work. But what is known is not necessarily healthy.
If you know yourself in this story, I hope you know this:
You are not weak due to exposure to a bad environment.
All of us as human beings are greatly affected by the space and relationships we spend in our lives. And sometimes the first step toward healing is just letting yourself tell the truth about what those spaces or situations have done to you.
