What No One Tells You About Leaving a Toxic Work Environment
Have you ever worked in a toxic work environment? Most likely, yes. Surveys say that about 75% of employees have worked in a toxic work environment or described their work experience as unhealthy.
In my opinion, many work environments, especially in US based companies, are toxic because we’re conditioned to attach our identities to our jobs and work. Americans’ relationship with work is different from many other countries where balance is actually possible.
And because many people cannot separate their self-worth from their work, it leads to ego-driven, low vibrational environments. Additionally, manufactured “urgency” that’s very common in many corporate cultures adds unnecessary stress and pressure.
You’re more than likely NOT saving lives with the work you do unless your job is to save literal lives.
Not to mention, many people in leadership positions don’t have soft skills needed to lead a team effectively. Most leaders got their positions because they played the game well, not necessarily because they are skilled.
My recovery
In my 15 year corporate career before transitioning to entrepreneurship, I worked for nine different companies. I job hopped a lot in my 20s to increase my earnings with each move. And looking back on those nine companies, three were toxic environments.
Those three environments had the same thing in common: insecure “leadership”.
Leadership is in quotes because a leadership title doesn’t make you a leader. You can have a leadership title and be a micromanager. And one thing that micromanagers have in common is they are insecure. They mask their insecurities by trying to exert some type of power over their team. It’s all a mask.
I’ve been told that I carry myself with a level of self-assuredness that either empowers others or intimidates them depending on their own self-confidence. And in my experience working in toxic environments, it was because my manager felt threatened by me. That is my opinion.
In one of those environments, I stayed while I created an exit strategy and did what I needed to do to preserve my energy and mental health in the meantime. I remember saying to myself, “I don’t think I will realize the negative impact this environment has had on me until after I leave”.
I was right.
The reality is that once you leave a toxic work environment, the effects stay with you – until you start the recovery process.
4 Things I Experienced While Recovering from a Toxic Work Environment
Recovery takes time, and everyone’s process will be different. I know some people who lost confidence in themselves after leaving toxic jobs and needed time to rebuild it. I know others who often felt on edge in their new roles after escaping a toxic environment.
Here are 4 things I have experienced:
1) Grief
I worked in an environment so toxic that I had to consult two attorneys by the end of my time there. And once I separated from that company, I grieved what I thought that experience would have been when I accepted the offer and first started the role.
Grief isn’t linear, but I experienced the five stages of grief:
Shock: I could not believe the way it ended
Denial: It took me a while to call label the environment: toxic
Anger: I didn’t deserve the way I was treated
Sadness: I missed my predictable paycheck
Acceptance: I did the best I could with the information I had at the time
As I said previously, I stayed because I was working on my exit strategy and was in the middle of following the plan when my exit was accelerated and no longer my choice.
I grieved the future I thought I was moving toward.
I grieved the money that was never meant to sustain me in the present, but in my future.
I grieved the unfair treatment.
2) Rumination
I’m usually a forward thinking person. I try not to stay stuck in the past but I will look back at times to see what lessons I’ve learned or how far I’ve evolved.
In my recovery from a toxic environment, I found myself ruminating more.
Maybe I should have done this/said that instead
Could I have trusted HR despite not trusting those systems?
Is there someone else who could have helped me?
Why didn’t the paper trail work for me?
That’s not like me. That’s how I knew it was an effect of being in a toxic environment. It was my brain trying to process what I went through and protecting me from feeling pain. I was trying to intellectualize my experience.
At the end of the day, I cannot control other people’s actions or if they choose to be manipulative. I got caught in the crossfire of someone who needed healing.
3) Isolation
I would go as far as saying that the toxic environment I worked in was psychological warfare. Seriously, if I ever write a book loosely based on the experience, it would be a psychological thriller.
And during my final weeks there, friends and family seemed to be in just as much shock as me and didn’t know what to say. Because it was WILD.
In recovering from that experience, I often felt alone. Isolated. People meant well but couldn’t understand that what I went through isn’t something you just “get over”.
That experience is why I will not return to corporate if I can help it.
4) Nervous system regulation
The most important thing I’ve experienced while recovering is regulating my nervous system. This is an ongoing process.
I didn’t realize while I was still in that work environment that I was operating in fight mode. Surviving but not thriving. In a state of chronic stress.
In recovery, my body became very sensitive to stress. I couldn’t handle warm temperatures. My motion sickness got worse. The bright lights were too bright.
And as I discovered somatic movements and exercises, I learned when my body was storing stress (my hips and jaw mostly.)
It is a daily practice to regulate my nervous system and manage stress more effectively. But I am no longer in fight mode all the time.
Recovery is a process
Ultimately, you’re responsible for healing after leaving a toxic work environment. Because when you don’t, then you become the person in the office who creates toxicity.
But it’s a process, and it’s not always easy.