"Too Nice" at work, I am told.

[TonyM_Guest]

Thanks for the update, Oak. I feel you on the job stuff. My company has been going through some stuff where we've had to have some pretty deep layoffs recently and it's certainly stressful!! I like your attitude -- continue to take care of yourself.

[oak]

Thanks, TonyM! I appreciate your encouragement.

It is great having you in the forum.

[Heatherwantspeace]

We're here for you Oak, whatever happens know you have others thinking about you and willing to listen.
Hoping for the best.
Heather

[oak]

Advice requested, my dear friends!

How do I forgive the bully?

It is interfering with me moving on professionally:

I am associating the content of my new career with his bullying.

This guy had nothing to do with the content of my new career, and was at a different function. While he was a wizard at operations, I was white collar.

The problem is that, due to a small sample size of a new career, I am associating his abuse with the content of my new career. I am confusing causation with correlation. This hurt is preventing me from moving forward. I can easily imagine grave professional and personal consequences if I don't give this new career another good try. There are real stakes in this forgiveness. Help!

Please advise what specific things I can do to forgive! Please!

Here are two ideas I have already:

1. While I am not much of a Bible scholar, I do know it says to pray for those who curse me.

2. I can write a letter to him, never to be sent, of course! It can detail specific hurtful things he did, my feelings resulting, the consequences/outcomes, and maybe I can offer him forgiveness in the letter.

Any other ideas??? I open to anything.

btw, of the three people who were giving me a hard time at this previous job (I was laid due to COVID), I have easily forgiven the other two. I'd be glad to work with them again, but were they to try a single word of further abuse I'd quickly use my words to stand up for myself. If they still persisted with bullying for even ten seconds, I'd walk out the door. But yeah, as it is, all is forgiven and forgotten for the other two.

[Heatherwantspeace]

Well here I am, Oak, having the same issue. At the risk of making your thread about me, may I explain? Perhaps you can see mine more clearly than your own, or we can both benefit from our friends here.

Last year, we finally got rid of the bully in our department. It's been grand ever since. Due to some reorganization, another department that we have always done favours back and forth with now has a greater role in helping us out (management decision, not ours). The first time I needed them, 2 of them ranted and raved at me about having to help me out. I acknowledged that it was likely not a well thought out decision, but still, I needed to know if they were going to help me or not. They begrudgingly agreed to help. I followed up with an email to their supervisor asking if they were as sure everyone one was on board as they thought they were due to the reaction I received. Now, I am very wary about asking for their help again, even though I have every right to ask for it.

For me, it ties very heavily into having parents that would ignore pleas for help, so my thought is, work on that issue, it will help me here? Because don't all these things go back to that helpless child? I don't know how much that applies to you.
Heather

[Beany Boo]

I’ll take a swing.

When you say, “I forgive you”, it does not mean, “I concede to excuse and ignore your disgusting behaviors.”

How about this instead, it is:

“You are not the source of my survival. I thought you were vital to it. In a rational, logical world you would continue to seem to be necessary. But you are not. I let you go, to continue, albeit within view. Except now you are no longer the source of my survival. You never were.”

I don’t really say that. I just remind myself of the key phrase, “you are not the source of my survival.” And then there’s no discernible difference in the relationship. Except there’s all the difference. And sometimes it’s easier, or my feeling about it right-sizes as they say, and I just feel annoyance, with room to respond freely, gradually, unpredictably.

Parents, partners, children and coworkers, especially those with seniority, seem, in very important ways, sources of our survival. So, to decide that they are not and then, continue to rely on them is kind of paradoxical. But allowing that paradox is key. It shifts the balance.

Me forgiving, goes like this, “You are not the source of my survival. I still need you, but I don’t need you for that. And also, I am not, nor was I ever, the source of your survival either.”

But I can help. If I do. By just being. Me.

[brownblob]

Forgiveness is a hard thing. Beany is on point as always. You are not condoning bad behavior or abuse that has gone on. You are saying I am moving on and you're abuse and power over me is gone. Easier said than done. I am not religious but praying for the perpetrator I think could be a way of doing this.
I can relate to Heather's situation. My work situation is different because I am blue collar, but we have issues with our maintenance department. Their job is to maintain and repair the equipment, etc. However, when we call them with a problem they can be cranky at times. They blame us for mechanical issues that we have nothing to do with and try to tell us how to do our jobs that they don't know anything about. It creates an atmosphere where nobody wants to deal with them. I have no wisdom just sympathy.

[Beany Boo]

Heather, it doesn’t sound like you were helpless. It sounds like you were neglected.

In my workplace men will often require a medal of bravery for thinking about and then helping a woman with a task. It sounds like a joke but it’s a bias that is pervasive. It’s frustrating and a bit creepy.

I can tell you what I’ve learnt about asking for help. You might be able to use it.

I have to frame the request in such a way that the recipient is free to refuse, to your face. The more this is apparent in the wording, the more likely they are to consent to help. It doesn’t really make sense. I guess they’re just less defensive.

I try to frame requests for help in a when/what/why/where/how/who question. It can take some gymnastics. It turns it into a problem you’re both looking at. You’re not heaping a demand on them then; you’re including them.

A neglected child will become a virtuoso at pretending everything is alright. They learn, the hard way, that while a parent is in a helpless state, say panic, that child is in danger, of starving, getting sick, lost, frightened, eaten by monsters, of losing their mind. If you pretend you’re fine, the parent believes you and goes to make dinner.

As an adult now, feeling fear is a lot easier when you’re not also struggling to pretend everything is alright. Pretending takes a lot of work. Feeling fear on its own can feel pretty productive. You don’t need to protect other adults from fear; model it for them; share in it with them. “Stop. Something is wrong.”

The risk that you’re coworkers - given the choice, by you - will refuse to help you, is worth taking the time for; time to word your request so that, they can (refuse). I hope that sentence makes sense. The risk is worth it for what you learn and for the emotional labor you no longer have to heft.

[oak]

@Heather and Brownblob: Thank you for your posts. I continue to turn your insight and advice over in my head (see below). And yes, with all of our posts, the breakdown seems to happen when one demographic needs something from another demographic just to do their job (white collar and blue collar, blue collar with trades, women with men).

And yes, Heather, this does get back to my father not defending me as a child. I'll have more to say about this later, but for now: yes, you are right on.

@Beany Boo: You are such a treasure. Such a gem. It is so great to have you here, and I always appreciate when you generously share of your insight.

Since posting: Usually I'll only pray for someone to get sober or to get a job.

Next steps:

1. Continue to sleep on the excellent advice you, my friends, have given me in this thread.

2. I am going to ask this same "how to forgive?" question to three men I respect, all of whom were at the receiving end of bullying.

3. I googled Wikihow (I know, I know. But I love it!) for "How to write a forgiveness letter". While I still intend to write the bully a letter, explaining the outcomes of what he did to me, I've also decided to imagine a letter he'd write to me, asking for my forgiveness.

Updates soon!

[Beany Boo]

Thank you Oak,

My biggest fear is of individuals who have an undiagnosed issue, who don’t seek treatment and then justify their acting out as an entitlement or a necessary step, regardless of the damage to their own or others’ lives.

Particularly because my compassion for them, makes me vulnerable to them (vulnerable, not in a good way).

Stay safe; emotionally. Psychological safety in the work place.