Combat Gaslighting By Writing Your Narrative

All individuals mentioned are under fake names to maintain anonymity.

This post is about bad behavior, gaslighting, and narratives that permit them.

In my book, I described a scenario at my previous workplace that left me feeling unsafe at work. I’ll briefly touch on it before moving forward.

At my previous job, I took a week off in order to take care of my mental health due to the prolonged stress I was experiencing at the time. On my return to work after having arrived in a good place mentally, ready to take on my role as a counselor. However, I was not permitted to maintain that sense of wellbeing.

On return to work, I was accosted by a coworker, Karen, who was pretending to be a supervisor to make me think she was in a position to do so. In that interaction, I was accused, yelled at, and my religious beliefs were discriminated against. After the incident, I was speaking to another coworker, Cynthia, who commented on how she could hear Karen from down the hall and identified how inappropriate her behavior was.

That event occurred 10 months ago. I had left that job shortly after the incident due to discomfort from Karen’s behavior, as it didn’t end there, and the behavior was allowed to continue.

Fast forward a month ago. My current employer and coworkers embody what it means to be mental health professionals, treating everyone around them with respect. At the time, my employer was seeking another full-time counselor and asked me about Cynthia, who had previously applied for the position, but they were unable to hire her at the time.

I had no hesitation in recommending her, and I was excited about the idea of working with her again. Taking my suggestions, they reached out to Cynthia. I did too, figuring that personally reaching out would be supportive.

What I got was far from what I expected.

Her response over text was that she had no interest in working with someone who raises their voice, being aggressive towards staff due to “a little stress.”

The stress I almost killed myself after experiencing, mind you. But I digress.

She said these things about me but described Karen’s behavior. This was the behavior Cynthia immediately called out after it occurred. I was left with wondering how the event became so twisted. How was the proverbial Uno reverse card played to seem that Karen’s bad behavior was something she experienced, with me being the perpetrator?

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter.

It hurt, don’t get me wrong, but what do I do about it? Try to argue, set the story straight, or pointlessly stew over it? None of this would accomplish anything, and it would simply allow the situation to occupy my mind more than it has any right to.

For one reason or another, that is the narrative they tell now that I am no longer present. The story warped in a way that protects the perpetrator. In the work I have recently done, I came to accept this is the story they will tell, despite a lack of veracity, and that I have no control over it.

Acceptance does not mean truth. I accept what has been said about me. I will not, however, absorb their behavior in the narrative of how I feel about myself.

In such situations, we all have the capability of acknowledging they are occurring but deciding not to let them write our stories for us. This ties back to the idea that we are not in control of what happens to us; we are in control of our attitude and how we address situations.

Despite what people say about us because we are not present, mindfulness of being means acting on our responsibility to rewrite our narratives into those of strength and capability. This is simply another trial on the journey for the Everyday Hero.