Months and months went by. We got a new employee on the team that I was responsible for training and mentoring. I was wary of her, sensing a pushiness under her eager, smiling exterior. I worried about her pushing me out, and my hard-won gains at the company would be…

Employee relations’ investigation proved fruitful enough that Mary was removed as my manager. She was given a new title, a new, slightly revised job in the company where she wouldn’t be my direct manager. I was not surprised — it seems like companies are reluctant to truly take the drastic…

The next year was extremely painful. We still worked remotely and Mary’s abuse towards me grew worse and worse after I reported her. Brad was cruel, distant, and took every chance to criticize everything I did and undermine my ability to work. He pretended the whole romantic-sexual relationship had never…

Fast forward some months to 2020. The onset of the pandemic sent all the employees into remote work and I couldn’t be happier. It was such a relief to not be in the office every day. But the reach of an abuser is long, and I wasn’t safe from Mary’s…

I am trying to listen to myself. To be present with myself. To acknowledge and feel my emotions instead of rejecting them, judging them, or condemning them. So often I feel scared, overwhelmed, and anxious. Helplessness used to go along with those emotions too, but that helpless feeling has gotten…

I realized something today about my striving for self-care and self-compassion. I’ve been preoccupied with accomplishing these self-care practices; I feel compelled to make checklists for self-care: get enough sleep, spend time meditating, make sure you take a walk, do some yoga, don’t forget to relax, put on a face…

They say be careful what you wish for, that you manifest your reality, that you attract what you put out into the universe. As someone with anxiety that thought terrifies me. I don’t find it comforting, or freeing. It just makes me more anxious. The sentiment that you create your…

Things got worse. The favored status I’d enjoyed initially had fallen away and Mary would aggressively challenge or demean what I said. She’d change her mind about things and attack me for not knowing something she had never told me about, or for not doing something she had never said…

At the time I didn’t call it abuse. I started working at a well-respected company several years ago after leaving an abusive working situation at a nonprofit. I felt lucky and grateful to be there, the money was far beyond what I’d been earning at my previous job. And most…