It’s not enough to feel tolerated
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About tolerance, emotional reactions, and learning to trust (Part 2: Working while traumatized)
Perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of work — frankly, of life — is establishing and maintaining positive interpersonal relationships.
This is a huge topic that is not limited to those dealing with trauma. Today, I’ll focus on how the concepts of tolerance and emotional reactions show up in my relationships at work.
Tolerance
Most of the time, I feel tolerated: not wanted or valued, but instead, as if I should be grateful to be allowed to exist. If you know me personally, this might be hard to read, but I promise it is true.
I’ve been told this isn’t the case more times than I can count and by many different people; I believe some of them — at least intellectually.
Unfortunately, as my therapist tells me, it doesn’t matter how much I cognitively understand something when my core foundation was built on this concept of tolerance, of being a burden, of being simultaneously too much and not enough.
Most colleagues would have no idea that this is my reality. As long as we discuss work, I’ve been told that I come off as friendly and confident. The irony is that the confidence they detect is rooted in the same concept of tolerance. If I don’t go above and beyond to prove my worth, they’ll discover that I am a burden on the team or that the net cost of employing me as a disabled person does not balance in their favor.
Additionally, if the conversation turns personal, I freeze. There wasn’t room for that part of me for a long time. School and sports, sure — but not other personal interests and passions and plans. My emotional core is convinced to this day, however erroneously, that sharing personal details is burdensome for the listener, and that I, intrinsically, am not worth it. Despite the intellectual understanding that this is false, I still feel that I am at best someone to be tolerated.
Emotional reactions
One danger of this core belief of tolerance in my lived experience is the probability of having disproportionate emotional reactions. Before starting therapy for complex trauma, my reactions impacted working relationships, broke trust, and even risked jobs.*
While I have several examples to choose from, I’ll share one that is all too pertinent in our digital world. This wasn’t my first difficult experience with online communication, just the most poignant.
The Slack fiasco
A previous employer hired me as the first person in a new role. There were quite a few roadblocks to overcome to do what I was hired to do, and I was trying to establish, however clumsily, my aptitude and leadership.
One such effort was following up with folks who had agreed to implement needed changes. In response to my Slack post for accountability, a coworker threw their weight around without any follow-through (my interpretation, anyway). I called them out rather untactfully — I definitely owed them an apology. Their response, though, was also disproportionate. The situation escalated in private messages; they got more heated and my response got even more pointed and emotional. All in all, it was an extremely unpleasant exchange for everyone involved. I requested a mediation session facilitated by someone we both respected and, thankfully, the rather tenuous call left us in a better place.
It took me a while to recognize that the entirety of my share of the conflict was an emotional trauma response. I remember looking back on the public and private parts of the conflict a few months after the fact and realizing how awful both of our reactions had been.
Personal awareness
I’ll never forget this experience, but why in the world would I share it publicly? While it shows that I’m capable of deep self-reflection, apologizing, and course correction, it doesn’t paint me in the most positive light — especially as someone who works remotely. Given that I don’t know who is reading this and it’s the type of experience that could create doubt for future collaborators and employers, I share cautiously with the hope that we can learn together.* Here’s why:
With more and more of our communication happening online, it was incredibly important for me to learn to recognize when I am reacting emotionally and to step away from my computer in these complicated and vulnerable situations.
If I had realized at the time that I was prone to emotional responses on Slack and stepped away for a few minutes, my response might have been better and the entire conflict could have been avoided. The same goes for my co-conspirator, but I am only capable of changing my behavior.
I have two takeaways to share with you:
- If you feel yourself typing with disproportionate emotion, step away — don’t send it immediately. Rare is a situation where we cannot wait an extra five minutes to an hour, sometimes even a day or two, to respond to a message or an email.
- If someone responds to you with what seems like a disproportionate emotional reaction, take a moment to reflect on why that might be. Then, instead of assuming bad intent, check in with the person if your relationship allows, or ask someone closer to them to do so.
Conclusion
I hinted at the concept of trust in the story’s subtitle. Trust is incredibly difficult for folks living with complex trauma. I’m honestly not sure if it’s harder for me to trust others or to trust myself.
Thanks to therapy, my capacity for interpersonal relationships is growing, as is my ability to name my triggers. A few months ago, I would not have been able to name the feeling of being tolerated, the perpetual need to prove myself, and these big reactions as trauma responses — but I can today.
I’m learning to trust people. Though I still feel tolerated, this is expected — the difference is that I recognize it and am giving myself every chance to recalibrate my emotional core. I am also still prone to big, emotional reactions, but I recognize them much earlier now and I step away, both online and in real life.
I haven’t been able to test my growth in the professional sphere yet, but if the progress in my personal relationships is an indicator, I think I’ll be okay. As I write this, I am hopeful that one day I will feel more than tolerated and that trust will come more naturally. I am worthy of that, and I am also the only one who can make it a reality for me in all aspects of my life.
*NOTE ON PRIVILEGE: I addressed this in the series introduction and will do so in every story if needed. I benefit from privilege (white, college educated, “gifted”) that saved me in these situations. This same privilege allows me to publish intensely personal experiences like this one with minimal fear of repercussions.
To those reading this who benefit from privilege, how are you using yours to make the world a safer place?
My goal for this series is to foster open dialogue about mental health and disability in the workplace so that we can create safer places for all of us.
Are you interested in reading more? Here’s my Medium list of all the stories I’ve published in the series, Working while traumatized. Thanks for being here.
