Betrayed at Work

How your co-workers can cause additional trauma post abuse

Whether you were discriminated against, sexually harassed, or endured any form of psychological violence or emotional abuse, workplace trauma can be devastating.

While the initial workplace abuse is hard enough to endure, often what happens in the aftermath can be even worse because of the betrayal of almost everyone you work with.

That was the case for me.

Betrayal is defined as “when someone you trust breaks that trust by doing something that hurts you.” It’s that broken trust that is especially painful. Working relationships inherently require people to trust each other. Trust is also required to create strong bonds. So a betrayal of trust immediately breaks those bonds, and that’s where the trauma comes in. When someone you thought you could trust betrays you, your connection is lost. And when it happens so suddenly, it can be traumatic. In that sense it’s very similar to sudden death. Except oddly, it’s as if you are the one who died.

I experienced at least four layers of betrayal and resulting trauma at work.

1.     The perpetrator

This was someone who pretended to be my friend but was instead plotting a smear campaign behind my back to steal my job. (I wrote about smear campaigns here.)

I had to come to terms with the realization that the entirety of our 2+ year relationship was a sham, a complete lie. I replayed many of our interactions in my head through an entirely different lens. It was very painful to realize that at every opportunity he was manipulating me to 1) extract my deep knowledge; 2) gain access to my numerous contacts; and 3) to learn my weaknesses to exploit them.

To quote my therapist: “He was gaslighting you the entire time”. Wow.

In my opinion, this person is sick. There is no other way to describe that level of evil, manipulation, exploitation, and utter disregard for human feelings. So, it has not been that hard to get over my feeling of betrayal; it has been replaced by disgust and anger. In contrast, it was the additional levels of betrayal by others that hurt far more. 

2.    Institutional

“Institutional betrayal” is defined as, “wrongdoings perpetrated by an institution upon individuals dependent on that institution, including failure to prevent or respond supportively to wrongdoings by individuals.”

In other words, when those in power don’t have your back. For example, when the organization’s executive team, HR department, attorneys, or some other institutional apparatus with investigative and decision-making authority does not act to protect you in the wake of your reporting your abuse; too often they protect the perpetrator instead, further traumatizing you in the process.

For me, the experience was not that “corporate”, rather the betrayal came from a small handful of individuals in power, which leads me to the next form of betrayal.

3.     Co-workers

Unfortunately, I am unable to share too many details because I am subject to an “effective NDA”. (I wrote about that trauma here.) But I can say that the betrayal I experienced by those in power was extremely painful. These were people I had worked with for several years and I considered trusted colleagues. Once that trust was violated because they turned on me, the relationships changed completely, causing me a lot of hurt and confusion.

Once I learned about the concept of “flying monkeys”, their behavior made more sense. Flying monkeys (a term from the Wizard of Oz) are people who get recruited into the perpetrator’s web of abuse. Here is how an article at Forbes describes it:

… a colleague might use others (the flying monkeys in question) to spy and spread malicious gossip while painting themselves, the true instigator, as a victim. These flying monkeys can be anyone in your workplace. They are third parties used by someone to control and manipulate you and your circumstances.”

This is exactly what happened to me. My abuser got access to those in power and spread lies about me and convinced them that I had to go. All of this happened without any opportunity to respond to the accusations leveled about me behind my back. The decision was made and that was that; it was extremely sudden and unexpected. That’s what makes it traumatic, when people just turn on you so quickly.

Even knowing that my abuser lied to the people in power and that his smear campaign caused their sudden action, it still hurt to realize the people I had trusted believed him.

These were people I trusted to have my back but didn’t. How could they turn on me so easily? I was highly successful in my role, with all stellar performance reviews. (Read my previous article about how sexism was at play.)

None of it made any sense. That was the source of the ongoing pain for me: trying to understand how others can be so hurtful. Because I could never treat anyone that way, it was impossible to understand and crazy making to keep trying.

The next level of betrayal from co-workers comes in the form of people either at your level or under your supervision within the organization. I was essentially abandoned by everyone I worked with. While it’s understandable that people want to protect themselves and their jobs (they may worry, “Am I next”?) it is still very painful to feel betrayed by those you worked with closely. Not one of them reached out to see how I was doing in the aftermath. Just stone cold silence.

As if all that betrayal were not hard enough, there is one more layer.

4.     Colleagues

These are people outside of the organization but with whom I still had close working relationships, including a few women I considered friends because we had socialized together. But somehow after my workplace abuse, they disappeared without any explanation. Just poof, gone, despite my efforts to reach out. Or maybe I disappeared? That’s how everyone made me feel.

While we have all experienced losing work friendships when we leave a job, this was different because of the abuse I experienced and how everyone decided to pretend like it didn’t happen.

It feels like they were all pretending that I died. Whether from inside or outside the organization, once I left, it felt like I died.

Is this what your death feels like when you are still alive?

That’s how betrayal feels to me. Like they all just decided I am dead. Because it’s easier for them to “move on”. Because to acknowledge me would remind them that something very wrong happened. And they want to pretend that nothing wrong happened.

But it did happen. And it was wrong, and it’s still wrong. And most importantly, I am very much NOT dead. To the contrary, I am still here and have been through a lot of pain. And I am still in pain. It never goes away completely. Just lessens some. I still get triggered by reminders. My recovery time has shortened but it still hurts.

Another part of the betrayal is the women who took part or looked the other way. While the originally abuser was a white man, and other white men became his flying monkeys, white women also assisted, swooped in to seize power, or looked the other way. I consider them all accomplices. Rarely do men succeed in toppling women in power without other women there to help them.

You would think that women would support each other at work. I have learned since my own experience that it’s sadly very common for women to turn on each other to order to stay close to the patriarchy, to promote their own interests.

The experience has made me question everything about these relationships. That’s the pain of betrayal: did I make these relationships up, especially the friendships? Were we ever really friends? What does it even mean to be friends? Did I not really know these people? They clearly did not know me. How do people discard others so easily?

It’s all still so beyond my comprehension.

Here is how to work with me for coaching services.