Brazil toxic workplace crushed my self-worth

For years, a woman blamed herself for the anxiety she felt at work. She believed she was simply bad at coping with stress.

Every Sunday evening, she felt anxious about the week ahead. Her chest would tighten when certain emails appeared in her inbox. Before meetings, she would rehearse what she wanted to say, trying to avoid saying the wrong thing.

She told herself she needed to be tougher, calmer, and more resilient. Everyone else seemed to be managing, so she assumed the problem was her. What she did not understand then was how deeply a toxic workplace can affect a person’s sense of self.

From the outside, everything looked fine. The organization was respected. The leadership team was seen as successful. The person at the center of most of her stress was charismatic and highly regarded by others. That made it even harder for her to trust her own experience.

There was no obvious bullying or shouting. There were no dramatic incidents she could point to. Instead, it was a slow accumulation of smaller things. There were conversations that left her feeling ashamed. There was criticism disguised as advice. There were moments where she walked away confused, wondering if she had misunderstood what had just happened.

Sometimes she was praised warmly. Other times she was ignored or subtly undermined. Team dynamics left her feeling paranoid and excluded. The inconsistency kept her constantly trying to prove herself. She became more careful, more accommodating, and more self-critical. She thought if she communicated perfectly and performed well enough, things would improve.

Eventually, she realized she had started losing trust in herself. She second-guessed simple decisions. She apologized constantly. She became emotionally exhausted from monitoring other people’s moods and trying to avoid conflict.

Then one day in a team meeting, she had a moment of clarity. She realized her work environment replicated her home environment growing up. The characters were different, but the dynamics were the same. She saw the charismatic boss as a narcissist, surrounded by enablers who minimized, justified, or excused the toxic behavior. In that moment, she recognized it as narcissistic abuse in the workplace.

Looking back, she can see how unhealthy environments condition people to disconnect from their own instincts. People become so focused on keeping the peace, pleasing others, or avoiding criticism that they stop noticing what their mind and body are trying to tell them.

The turning point came when a friend asked her, “Do you actually feel safe there?” She felt surprised by the question because she had never thought about emotional safety at work before. She had assumed professionalism meant tolerating discomfort, pushing through, and adapting. She did not feel able to speak openly without consequences. She did not feel comfortable making mistakes. She did not feel calm or secure anymore. Everyone competed for the approval of the boss, which she now sees was used strategically.

Admitting that was painful, but it was the beginning of something important. For the first time, she stopped seeing her anxiety as a personal failure and started recognizing it as information. Her body was responding to an environment that kept her in a state of self-doubt.

Healing did not happen overnight. It took time to rebuild confidence and reconnect with her own voice. But slowly, she stopped minimizing what she had experienced. She stopped blaming herself for being affected by it.

She believes many people carry workplace experiences they have not fully acknowledged because the harm does not always look dramatic from the outside. Sometimes it simply looks like slowly becoming smaller, quieter, and more uncertain. Professional experience should increase confidence, not diminish it.

After she left that job, she felt almost instant relief. Her confidence and self-trust quickly returned. It renewed her sense that it was not her fault. She was having an understandable response to being in a toxic situation with toxic, narcissistic dynamics. The experience helped her recognize these patterns later on and speak to others who feel the same way at work.

She notes that it is not uncommon for people to find themselves in familiar dynamics, even at work. But what feels familiar is not necessarily healthy. She says people are not weak for being affected by an unhealthy environment. Humans are deeply impacted by the spaces and relationships they spend their lives in. Sometimes the first step toward healing is simply allowing yourself to tell the truth about what those spaces or situations have done to you.

The author is Dr. Sarah Davies, a chartered counseling psychologist and trauma therapist based in London, UK. She is the author of three practical self-help guides for recovery from narcissistic abuse and toxic relationships, including “How to Leave A Narcissist… For Good,” “Raised By Narcissists,” and “Narcissists At Work.”