Those of us who experienced workplace abuse firsthand remember a specific period of time: the window of time after the abuse pattern started when we felt most isolated and before we knew the term "workplace abuse."

Think about that time for a moment.

Remember when you discovered the term. You may have searched online for help and stumbled into the term. You may have read what workplace abuse is and what its effects are on your health. You may even remember exactly where you were when you found the term.

You suddenly felt less alone. You suddenly felt as though you weren't crazy, you weren't imagining what was happening to you, and you were and should have been just as shocked by your experience as your friends and family when you described it to them.

There are thousands of people out there just like you who feel isolated today — people who have no idea that what's happening to them at work isn't their fault. These are the people who would join our base of supporters and...

Abuse causes pain, and targets look to both positive and negative vices to offset it:

Negative vices

• Social isolation. Along with job control, social support is crucial for a healthy work environment. While mobbing creates social isolation, and abuse creates shame and depression that lead to isolation, human connection and validation can help targets of workplace abuse realize they aren't alone and they aren't the problem.
• Self-destruction. Drinking, overeating, and undereating are all destructive coping mechanisms for abuse.
• Abuse. Some targets use abuse to cope with abuse, taking their pain out on family and friends.

Positive vices
Human connection, exercise in moderation, spirituality, and focusing on activities that bring us joy and take us out of laser-focusing on the abuse can all help offset the pain and lead to recovery. Once the initial shock and stress wear off, targets tend to look more to positive vices to aid in healing.

Take Your Dignity Back
If you feel...

Researcher Loraleigh Keashly coined the term “emotional abuse at work, which leads to stress and at times trauma, which in turn lead to a host of health issues. 

Targets can reverse emotional abuse through social support, especially validation, and remove themselves from the damaging effects of isolation. If a target hasn't experienced abuse before, it may take longer to recognize the signs of confusion, fear, and stress, prolonging the time it takes to begin to heal.

Targets can find support through spouses, other family, friends, websites, social media, professionals, and sometimes coworkers — even though this issue can often show targets who their true supporters are, dominate their thoughts, and misunderstood by therapists.

The best medicine: face-to-face human connection.

Join us for a free weekly peer support group on Zoom.

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Take Your Dignity Back
If you feel like you’re stuck in a big rut that’s...

I work for a large telecommunications company. In 2013, offshoring hit my office hard, and I jumped ship, leaving my office job to go to a field position. Because of the contract under which I work, with no experience under my belt, I was able to skip to the highest level of field tech, which generated hard feelings amongst techs who had been in the field longer than myself who were trying to attain the level at which I was automatically placed.

Little did I know what drama this was to incur.

I am also female in my senior years. I was first put under the best supervisor in the field, which gave me a false sense of security because he shielded me from the situation I had unknowingly placed myself. He moved on, and I had another great supervisor who moved on as well.

Then I was placed under a rookie supervisor who 1) did everything his boss told him to do — including bullying me — and 2) did not know how to train a new person so resorted to bullying techniques to protect...

We’ve all seen our Facebook feeds flood with #metoo after the Harvey Weinstein allegations spread, showing the sad culture of sexual harassment and sexual assault far too many women (and some men) have endured. It’s a culture most of these sufferers have had to tolerate to succeed “because this entire town [culture] is built on the ugly principals that Harvey takes to a horrific extreme,” says Krista Vernoff, who co-runs ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy (HollywoodReporter.com).

“If I didn’t work with people whose behavior I find reprehensible, I wouldn’t have a career…. We work within this culture so we can amass some power so we can have a voice. And those who don’t do that — those who shout and scream ‘this is not OK’ when they feel threatened or belittled (those women who DID speak out against Harvey BEFORE the New York Times piece) — they largely live on the fringes of...