Note: Today’s discussion is about abusive workplaces, abusive relationships, and the common ground between the two. We will talk about high-control relationship models, power imbalances, and manipulation tactics. But we’re not telling any harrowing first-person stories, nor talking about physical or sexual violence. If those are topics you need help navigating, we have an article dedicated to workplace sexual harassment, and another on intimate partner financial abuse.
Earlier this year, Piggy and I delivered a speech on the subject of burnout. That there’s an appetite for advice on this subject among women’s professional associations will, perhaps, not shock you?
As I was researching the impact that burnout has on the body, I got an eerie feeling that the symptoms seemed familiar. I wondered if I’d already written something on this topic and forgotten. (We’ve written several hundred articles apiece, so it happens!)
But no! What was tripping my extremely faulty memory triggers wasn’t a past article about burnout.
It was a past article on domestic violence.
This really got me thinking about all the stories I’ve heard from you, our readers, about burnout. And I started noticing disturbing patterns in the ways those stories were told. As a result, I’ve come to a stronger opinion about the overlap between the psychology of abusive workplaces and abusive relationships.
… Which is that they’re functionally identical.
Shitty workplaces versus abusive workplaces
“Abusive” is a strong word with a specific meaning. So let’s start with an understanding of the difference between an abusive workplace, and one that merely sucks.
An abusive workplace is one that uses the tactics of coercive abuse to gain power over one or more employees. Those tactics include…
- Verbal abuse
- Emotional abuse
- Financial abuse
- Social abuse
- Intimidation
- Stalking
- Gaslighting
- Deprivation
- Neglect
- Blackmail
We have a long, long list of examples of differing degrees of these tactics here. Read them and enjoy your free 48-hour Depression™ debuff!
Almost all of these tactics are either the same as interpersonal abuse, or are easily adapted for the workplace. For example, an abusive parent might insult, demean, or shame you in front of other family members or friends. An abusive boss might do the same in front of customers or coworkers.
The pattern
Here’s the pattern I’ve noticed in burnout stories.
Whether it’s about tipped service work, white collar jobs, education, or charitable nonprofits, toxic workplaces can be found anywhere and everywhere. We’ve heard these stories from every corner of the labor market.
When people see I’m open to the topic, they start info-dumping. They have horror stories about being surveilled, lied to, punished. They describe awful levels of stress, exhaustion, confusion, and despair. And as they tell these stories, I can see in their eyes that their pain is not only real, but that they’re only articulating the tip of their feelings iceberg. A lot of these stories are told through tears, strained voices, and trembling hands the speaker cannot seem to control. I can see in their faces that they’re frustrated they can’t find the words to convey how seriously they’re suffering.
… Then, a really weird thing happens. After that flashpoint of honesty and vulnerability, they start to walk backwards.
- “It’s my fault; I’m being too sensitive.”
- “I shouldn’t have started out with such high expectations.”
- “Other people would love to have my job; I should feel lucky.”
- “I’m partially to blame too; I should’ve anticipated what would happen.”
- “Some people have real problems; I’m crying about a little work stress.”
- “I’m not ready to quit yet, but I will if it gets any worse.”
- “It’s just a job—I shouldn’t let it get to me like this.”
It’s not “just a job”
Anyone who’s familiar with intimate partner abuse will recognize these kinds of statements and the pattern they represent.
“I’m trapped in a system I can’t control… very bad things are happening to me… I’m not okay… I cannot seriously consider leaving because I’m stuck… and it’s not actually that bad.”
I don’t make this comparison lightly. Intimate parter abuse is a gravely serious issue. It’s clear our readers respect that. When we’ve written about this topic in the past, we’ve gotten a flood of amazingly compassionate and supportive comments.
Yet our readers have scared me when they’ve talked about their own experiences working in abusive workplaces. Through tears of stress and pain, I’ve heard person after person describe appallingly dehumanizing working experiences… only to follow up with the same sorts of self-blaming rationalizations we’re more accustomed to hearing from domestic violence survivors.
This is a troubling and widespread dynamic. But our culture hasn’t yet become receptive or sensitive to it.
The concept of burnout is fairly recent, and our culture is in the middle of a rapid evolution on the topic of mental health in general. Because I can see clearly the similarity of these trauma responses, I see the value in borrowing some of the frameworks from domestic abuse to help people escape from abusive situations outside the home.
Abusers need access to your life—and work has it in spades
… Not that your work isn’t already in your home.
If you’ve worked in an abusive environment, it almost certainly didn’t honor the boundaries of “outside work hours.” Abusive bosses usually feel entitled to call you, email you, text you at all hours. Technology has enabled them to dominate your time even when you’re at home.
When you think about it, workplaces sometimes have more access to you than an intimate partner does. If you simplify the average schedule, people sleep for a third of each day, work for a third of each day, and use the remaining third to do everything else they need to do. Especially when you consider the poor boundaries and overwork so common at abusive workplaces, that’s an amazing amount of access.
And it’s consistent enough that the toxicity can never dissipate. As your stress increases, unhappiness will creep into every other sector of your life. You can love your life outside of work, but if you’re being abused at work, the poison will eventually spread. You cannot walk on eggshells for your first, best hours of every day, then come home with a jaunty stroll and whistling a merry tune. That’s not how life works.
One of the biggest red flags for serious burnout is losing the energy to do the activities you love when you do have spare time. If you’ve reached this point, it’s time to bust out the seventh of the Twelve Holy Gifs most sacred to us here at BGR…
Although it’s been years, I still remember the well of dread that opened through my chest every night as I lay in the dark, fearing the sound of my own alarm clock. No one’s job should make them feel that kind of terror.
Control is the goal
The purpose of abuse is control. That’s true whether the entity trying to control you is a romantic partner, a parent, or an employer.
All the tactics of abuse are focused on diminishing the power of the victim.
- Community is powerful, so abusers want their victims isolated.
- Independence is powerful, so abusers want their victims dependent and subservient.
- Knowledge and perspective are powerful, so abusers want their victims isolated and ignorant.
- Money is powerful, so abusers want their victims poor.
In the context of an employer, “powerful” isn’t a trait most want in an employee.
Companies can claim their workers are a “team” or a “family” from dawn to dusk. But the reality is that companies vastly prefer employees who are isolated, dependent, subservient, and ignorant. These conditions keep their labor costs low and employee retention high. Workers can’t ask for more money (or leave for greener pastures) if they’re demoralized, run-down, and alone.
It goes without saying that employers who use these tactics may have “success” in the short term, in that they successfully enter into a high-control relationship with their victim. But they aren’t long-term strategies anyone could use to build a healthy, lasting relationship of any kind. Studies show that controlling bosses tend to drive away high-performing individuals resistant to their abusive tactics. Those who stay see their performance, self-esteem, happiness, and health deteriorate.
What sort of stress does each kind of abuse create?
A growing body of research suggests that the experience of being in a toxic workplace culture creates a kind of stress very similar to that of being in a toxic interpersonal relationship.
People in abusive interpersonal relationships suffer a lot of negative mental and physical health impacts. They report feeling confusion, isolation, shame, low self esteem, chronic stress, poor sleep, anxiety, depression, and depersonalization. They’re at greater risk for serious physical health challenges, including heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.
And people who are stuck working in abusive workplaces?
Well, they report feeling confusion, isolation, shame, low self esteem, chronic stress, poor sleep, anxiety, depression, and depersonalization. They’re at greater risk for serious physical health challenges, including heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.
… huh. Y’know, I was pretty good at those “spot the difference” games in grade school activity books, but this one has me stumped!
Abusive workplaces and abusive relationships differ in some ways (crucially, their potential deadliness is leagues apart). But they breed the same corrosive stress responses within the mind and body. That’s a serious issue that deserves serious support.
Why “just leave” isn’t enough for either group
Why do victims of abusive dynamics struggle to remove themselves from the situation? It’s an incredibly important yet infinitely complex question. Broadly, I think there are two groups of reasons.
The first is logistical. Can they afford to move out? Can they get a divorce lawyer without their abusive spouse finding out? Will they lose access to childcare, or even custody? If their abusive partner knows they’re planning on leaving, will the abuse escalate?
All of these logistical pressures apply to people trying to leave abusive workplaces as well. Without a steady paycheck, people can lose their cars, homes, and even children. Searching for a new job—especially in a small town or a tight-knit industry—could lead to retaliation.
The second pool of reasons is psychological. Abuse distorts thoughts. It makes the abused feel isolated, powerless, confused, ashamed, afraid, and unworthy of anything better. They may feel responsible for saving or changing their abuser. And again, all of these apply in the abusive workplace too.
Abusive workplaces teach us we can’t do anything right, that we need to learn our place, that we don’t care enough about the mission, that the team will suffer without us, that this is as good as it gets… I could go on and on with the shit I’ve heard. Under these conditions—emotionally drained, physically exhausted, financially dependent—is it any wonder that finding a new job feels like an unattainable goal?
Where is your locus of control?
Hang on to your butts, because we’re gonna get deep and fancy.
As I mentioned, I’ve often heard someone describe an abusive workplace, then immediately undercut the seriousness of their own assessment. “My boss screamed at me today because I forgot to do something. Well, maybe ‘screamed’ is too strong of a word. He raised his voice. Admittedly, it was my fault for forgetting—I just wish he’d talked to me quietly about it. But then again, you know I’m super sensitive to shouting because of my parents growing up…”
When I hear qualifications or walk-backs like that, I get massive chills because I know I’m watching the abuse work.
Why? Why do some people in abusive relationships downplay their own experiences? What makes them rationalize what happens to them—or scold themselves for their role in the dynamic?
There’s a useful concept in psychology called the locus of control. Verrrry basically, it measures how much control you feel you have over the outcomes in your life. Some people feel success and failure comes primarily from within themselves (an internal locus) based on their abilities and effort. Others feel that outside forces (an external locus) weigh more heavily, and attribute more control to uncontrollable variables like luck.
The locus of control shift illusion
People with a strong internal locus of control are easier for abusers to control, because they can be tricked into accepting partial (or full!) responsibility for the abuse. This is called a locus of control shift illusion.
“If I’d checked my email first thing when I woke up, my boss wouldn’t be so upset.”
“Damnit, HR would’ve thought my story was more credible if I hadn’t started crying.”
“If I were a better person, you wouldn’t treat me this way.”
In a way, this is the abused person seeking their own version of control. Unlike their abusers, they seek only to control themselves. But just like their abusers, they seek control from an unhealthy, potentially damaging position: within themselves, when it’s others who are to blame.
It’s rad to be gracious, fair, and objective. I applaud an impulse to give others the benefit of the doubt. But if you know you’re one of the many people who has a tendency to inappropriately shift blame for uncontrollable situations onto yourself, you need to be extra cautious. Abusive people can see this trait. And they will use it against you if it suits them.
How to get out
Ah. Now we’re in waters that have only just begun to get charted.
Disrupting the cycle of abuse in domestic settings is hard enough. Abuse distorts the victim’s thinking and warps their reality. An abused person is like a tangled pile of yarn. I wish you could just pick a spot and yank, and it would all be better. But if you pull roughly and recklessly, you’ll just end up making all the knots tighter. It requires an incredible amount of patience, knowledge, empathy, and delicacy to untangle.
Experience tells me that burnout recovery from an abusive workplace is just as complex, though it’s far less studied. Using some of the best ideas from abusive relationship theories might be the beginning of a helpful new framework.
Like abusive relationships, creating distance has to be the first major goal. It’s fundamentally impossible to change the terms of a relationship and heal from its damages while you are still trapped inside of it.
I think if you have an extraordinary amount of support and coordination, you can work together with coworkers to wield power collectively to change workplaces from within (#HotStrikeSummer). You may also decide to seek justice against your abusers by contacting a lawyer or your closest regional office of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). But the step that best preserves your health and sanity in the short term is usually to leave, so I’d suggest making that your primary goal.
Supporting victims of workplace abuse
I worked at an abusive workplace once. For six months.
Now, I consider myself to be among the most confident, multitalented, shiny-spine-having women in the workforce. (My hobby is blogging, for god’s sake. You can’t blog without hubris! That’s like cooking without salt!)
But even I needed the following things to leave…
- One tearful conversation with my manager where she begged me to quit
- Two tearful conversations with my significant other where he begged me to quit
- Six non-tearful, calm, and logical conversations with same about how to make quitting work
- Twenty or thirty conversations where friends made the horrified “that’s not normal” face when I told a work story
- Four of those friends following up and grilling me about a plan to leave
- Three offers from friends to connect me with their non-toxic companies
- Two offers to help update my resume and portfolio
- And a partridge in a pear tree
As you can see, getting out of an abusive situation isn’t a solo adventure. It requires three key things: a reliable outside perspective, emotional healing, and logistical support. People who’ve been abused have had their energy sapped, their creativity stunted, their perspectives warped, and their sense of self-worth diminished. It’s hard to envision a better future for yourself and put in the work to make it happen under those circumstances.
If you know a friend is stuck inside an abusive workplace dynamic, you can offer one or all of those forms of support.
If you are in that position yourself, I know it’s hard to ask for help. So to start, ask just one person to help you with just one thing. A therapist is a great choice for providing outside perspective. But if you can’t get one, I’ll give you a few words for free.
You have permission to free yourself
It is not okay for your job to be a source of anguish in your daily life.
No matter who you are and what you do, you deserve respect, dignity, and privacy. You get to have a pleasurable life outside of work, and you need to be paid enough money to achieve it. That’s the bare minimum of acceptable workplace balance, and you shouldn’t work anywhere that doesn’t meet that puny threshold.
Working shouldn’t leave you so exhausted that you can’t enjoy your own hobbies anymore.
Working shouldn’t make you want to come home and drink a bottle of wine by yourself.
There is no industry in which abuse is acceptable. Having coworkers who suffer just as much as you doesn’t make that suffering normal. It means you’re all stuck in a culture that’s harming you, and you’re harming each other by pretending it’s fine.
You were put on this earth to do great things. Not to suffer unnecessarily and bend yourself into knots to become a cog in someone else’s broken machine.
Know someone who needs to hear this?
I hope today’s post gave you some fresh insights about the insidious nature of burnout and escaping abusive workplaces. I desperately want our readers to recognize when they’re in an untenable situation, and to know how to get out of it.
If you find this article helpful, please consider sharing it with a friend. In my experience, people can rarely get out of these situations without a ton of encouragement and support from people they trust.
A big, big, big, huge, big thank you to our Patreon donors. This blog is reader-supported. If we’ve helped you make a positive change in your life, please consider joining our Patreon for a few months. That support is incredibly important, as it directly enables us to write more articles like these.
Readers—have you ever found yourself in an abusive workplace? Did you recognize it right away, or did you need time to understand it? How did you finally get out? What helped you most or held you back the longest? Tell us your stories in the comments below.
YES YES YES
Once I realised what was happening at work I could recognise it everywhere, all around me.
I’ve had amazing experiences at work. Ones that taught me what healthy functional dynamics were. I’m so grateful for that.
And I’ve also had a few (not many) that taught me about the opposite.
And all that has translated into my personal life.
Recognizing the problem is often extremely freeing. We’re so glad it worked out for you!!!
I am reading this as I am taking leave while weighing the decision to resign from a toxic workplace. One way our boss has exercised control on us is actually by money. In a recent staff meeting, boss said they knew for a fact each of us at that table was making more at this job than at our previous positions. They didn’t reveal that 7 people have left under them since they started less than two years ago. Hmmm…
I landed my first “Big Girl Job” in which I was using my degree at 24 (yay for graduating during the Great Recession!) and it was horribly toxic. The first red flag should have been how prevalent company-sponsored drinking was and how frequently my entire department went out for post-work happy hours to bitch and bond over how fucked the company was, and how many of us got DRUNK at those un-happy hours trying to blur out the day. But I was super proud to finally be working in my field and the pay jump from my previous $12/hour retail bakery job to $24/hour at Toxic Company afforded me the ability to move out of a shared apartment and into a studio of my own, plus pay all my bills without worry and still be able to afford things I never had been able to before, so I was pretty blinded by the paycheck.
It took awhile for me to realize how much bullshit I was putting up with at Toxic Company; after my first six months, I received the first raise of my life (though it wasn’t much), and then I was promoted (and successfully negotiated for a higher salary than initially offered). The promotion came with more responsibility and more stress, and that’s when the cracks in the company culture and performance really became glaringly obvious. We’d bring easily-solvable issues to leadership (customers not honoring contracts) and HR (not staffing appropriately after someone quit/was fired) that never got addressed and it was evident nothing was going to change. It got to the point where I was dry-heaving in the morning because the thought of going to work stressed me out so much. I’m a high performer and kept getting more and more work dumped on me, keeping me so busy during the (long) workdays that I didn’t have time to take/eat lunch, so I was only able to eat one meal a day, if that. When it got really, really bad, I lost eight pounds in a month and then my hair started falling out.
That was pretty much it for me–I LOVE my long hair–and I called my mom in hysterics one morning literally still dripping wet after having a mental breakdown in the shower. I had enough money in my emergency fund to keep me afloat for a couple months and talking to her basically gave me the “permission” I was seeking to leave when she confirmed my thinking that this workplace wasn’t normal, I needed to leave, and I would be able to find something else quickly. I wrote up my two-week notice (I was such a nice sucker; I would not give that much notice today) that day and gave a copy to my manager and HR, and in my exit interview with HR, told them their inaction on properly staffing was a main reason I was leaving, referred them back to my original complaint 6 months beforehand, and warned they wouldn’t retain their remaining good talent for much longer if they kept up the bullshit. I’d never felt relief like I did walking out those doors for the last time.
I’m still frustrated at myself for not leaving sooner, but I was so scared that I wouldn’t be able to make that kind of money again that I kept hanging on despite all the bad behavior going on. But you know what? Because I had lodged complaints with HR well in advance of my leaving, and ended up leaving because those complaints weren’t addressed, I was able to apply for and receive unemployment benefits even though I had quit (the technical terminology is “Good reason caused by the employer (one that would compel an average reasonable worker to quit).”). Within two months of leaving Toxic Company, I started working for one of the biggest and best companies in my field with global name recognition AND was making $36/hour.
The silver-lining of going through all that…mess…is that I’m now an EXPERT at spotting red-flag behavior from companies and am smart enough to “nope” out from them quickly, because I know my skillset and experience are highly-valued and I’ll be able to find another job in short time. (Added benefit: Big, big salary increases anytime I’ve moved from one job to another. I wouldn’t even be making a THIRD as much as I am now if I had clung on by my fingernails at Toxic Company.) And I really try hard to maintain a cushion in my emergency fund solely for keeping me afloat for a couple months if I leave a job (and don’t get unemployment) because as I learned, that “F*** You” money can literally make the difference between if not life and death, than peace-of-mind and a whole bucket of trouble.
Wow, thank you. I’m going through a very similar situation and this helped me a lot.
Thanks for sharing the “Good reason caused by the employer (one that would compel an average reasonable worker to quit).”).
I saved a screenshot of your articulate comment because it’s going to help me.
Thanks for helping Carissa.
Please tell us that that presentation on burnout will be shared at some point?
*smiles so wide it’s hard to read my emotional state*
It’s a speech we give in person! So, uh… convince your local college or professional organization to hire us?
My boss is abbusive and takes my ideas and uses it then says it was his idea. Yells at me treats me like I am a lier. Denies things he says and tells me to do. Shit gets real. I stay for job stability, and because i will not let him rob me of a job that I really like! He is not gonna win. He robs me of my happiness because he does not like my strength and my inteligence. I am very smart he is gonna lose
Thank you for this post, I hope it reaches everyone who needs it. I often reflect after a doctor’s appointment that I’m never asked if I feel safe at work. I don’t and after 7 years, I’ve finally found a new position that won’t cost me to lose my bare minimum financial security. I’ve been manipulated by family and conditioned since birth to tolerate the unthinkable. This post has helped me realize why I should never look back or feel guilty for not helping the family owned business I work for (grew up with and love) in the future.
I am also having issues with my job I am a caregiver i take care of the elderly and my boss has Thai power trip thing where she will work me to the point of exhaustion no weekends off always getting called in on my days off switching my schedule around at the last minute and not telling me what my schedule is till the last minute and only giving me a few days to go by and sometimes changing it around again and if someone in the client family doesn’t like me she removes me from that client and causes me to be removed from the schedule or what I am dealing with right now is my new client is 98 and confused and she told her daughter I was rough with her after she told me I am gentle and my bosses daughter works for the company and bruises the client and the client complained to me that she is rough on her now because she is the bosses daughter she has no dicipline actions but me I am removed from the schedule and I only worked one day this week causing me so much anxiety and financial distress I am literally skipping meals because I am afraid she told me she’s gona talk to me but never did and I’m still off the schedule for something I didn’t do
I am also having issues with my job I am a caregiver i take care of the elderly and my boss has Thai power trip thing where she will work me to the point of exhaustion no weekends off always getting called in on my days off switching my schedule around at the last minute and not telling me what my schedule is till the last minute and only giving me a few days to go by and sometimes changing it around again and if someone in the client family doesn’t like me she removes me from that client and causes me to be removed from the schedule or what I am dealing with right now is my new client is 98 and confused and she told her daughter I was rough with her after she told me I am gentle and my bosses daughter works for the company and bruises the client and the client complained to me that she is rough on her now because she is the bosses daughter she has no dicipline actions but me I am removed from the schedule and I only worked one day this week causing me so much anxiety and financial distress I am literally skipping meals because I am afraid I won’t be able to make it through the next months . she told me she’s gona talk to me but never did and I’m still off the schedule for something I didn’t do I’m so stressed out I can’t take it it’s affecting my body and my health and I’m depressed now
Thank you. I left an abusive work environment. Gas lighting. Racism. Sexism. Pounding on the door of my home at 10:00 at night demanding to talk right then. More and more work piled on me beyond what most people were being asked to do. Not taking no for an answer for extra assignments being piled on while I was going through a miscarriage. I was making 6 figures, but it wasn’t worth it. Haven’t been able to find a good paying job since, and we live in a high cost of living area. Now feel gun shy and afraid that most workplaces are toxic. I hear of so many other people talking about toxic work environments. Where are the healthy work environments?