The Backlash to Fighting Back at Work

Trauma responses and the inevitable witch hunt to destroy you

I have been writing about the 10 stages of covert abuse at work.

Today’s installment is about reactions to a traumatic inflection point and the subsequent fallout where you get blamed for daring to fight back.

The Four Trauma Responses

Each of our reactions to trauma are different based on a variety of factors. Most research points to the following four reactions: Fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. I am not a psychology expert so please see resources like this one for what these terms mean.

Instead, I will share what happened to me and how it felt.

As I wrote about in the “devaluation and discard” stage, I was demoted very suddenly and without warning. It was done during a regularly scheduled check-in meeting so I was caught completely off-guard.

Like a moment frozen in time, I remember the exact words said, despite this meeting taking place more than four years ago. (That I cannot remember much about the meetings prior to this one shows the long-lasting imprinting effect that trauma can have on our memories.)

The board chair started by trying to soften the blow: he said “I have something to share that’s going to be difficult to hear; it’s even difficult for me to say”. That’s when I knew I better sit down so I did. He said the board decided that I should no longer the lead the organization that I founded, but that they wanted me to remain with the organization, just in a lesser role.

Sorry, what? I was truly stunned.

Nothing about this had ever been broached with me before, nobody floated this idea to see how I felt about it. This, in an organization that I had built from scratch and for the previous 6 years was deeply involved with and in charge of almost every decision made.

I was so taken aback I didn’t even know what to say in response. I think I said, “well that’s a shocker”. I don’t remember much of what was said after that. Considering what happens in the “freeze” response to trauma, this makes sense. I experienced:

• Feeling emotionally numb or confused

• Having trouble speaking or becoming non-verbal

• Not being able to take action or make a decision

• Lacking focus or having trouble concentrating.

Later of course, I kicked myself (I still do sometimes) for not fighting back even in that moment, for not asking all the questions I wanted to ask. But then I realize that my usual thought processes were shut down as my body was protecting me from this traumatic experience.

Later I regained my strength and did try to fight back, but it was way too late. I has been the victim of a 2-year long smear campaign happening behind my back. I did not realize this until weeks after my demotion, and in the meantime, I would wake up each morning with a new “plan” to try and get my job back. Of course, this was all in vain.

What happens when you try to fight back? You become the problem and the witch hunt begins. This phase can get very ugly.

The Backlash / Witch Hunt

At this stage, if you try to fight back, the company / organization’s board and/or lawyer gets involved. The scenario looks something like this:

Management has made a hasty decision to get rid of the founder, CEO, or other senior executive. Chaos ensues, because after all, they just completely destabilized the company or organization by suddenly removing its leader.

Now management realizes they have botched things, so they must now justify their bad decision-making. Instead of trying to course-correct, management engages in a witch hunt to “prove” they made the right decision. The original abuser who orchestrated the smear campaign is right there helping them dig up more dirt.

All kinds of crazy accusations can get made at this stage. Anything you do can be used against you. They will take a kernel of truth and blow it all out of proportion. Make a minor mistake? It becomes a federal offense. For example, twisting something you did innocently or with permission, which is then denied by the person in power who granted you permission. You could even be accused of stealing company property or sharing trade secrets, or other unethical or even potentially illegal activity.

Lawyers may be brought in to conduct a sham “investigation”. Make no mistake, this is not an impartial investigation in the usual sense of the word. It’s rigged. The common thread is assuming that you’re acting with bad intent. No one bothers to simply ask you about the issue to clear up any misunderstanding. Because at this stage, they are not interested in your “side of the story”, they just want to play a game of “gotcha”!

The goals of the witch hunt include to:

• Intimidate and scare you into backing down from fighting them

• Justify their hasty, incompetent, and cruel treatment of you

• Prove to other decision-makers who may still on the fence, or having second thoughts, that you really must go

• Stop these decision-makers from speaking with you as a human, to isolate you from anyone who might be helpful

• Mitigate their potential legal liability in a wrongful termination action

• Minimize any potential payout in severance or other settlement agreement.

All of this adds up to one singular goal: To weaken and destroy you. This can be extremely upsetting and destabilizing. I will write more about how to respond but the most important thing to do to save your sanity is to speak with friends and family members who know you well.

I will never forget speaking with a good friend (as I was being accused of something crazy) who said to me: “They really don’t know you very well.” That really pulled me through. No, they really did not know me at all. They chose not to.

Remember, this is not even about you. It’s about some fantasy world, unethical version of you. They have to pretend you’re an awful ogre to justify their bad treatment of you. They are not judging you, they are judging a made up version of you to suit their aims: to destroy you.

The only move left is to hire a good employment attorney and GTFO.