Reply to I just learned about tribe gaslighting and more people should know about it!

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Reply to "I just learned about tribe gaslighting and more people should know about it!"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I guess I would just say it’s not your coworkers’ job to validate your experiences. GO TO HR or your boss’ boss or whatever. Or leave the organization if nothing is done. It’s just not gaslighting if your coworkers, who also have their own and different experiences, don’t see/hear what you’re seeing or hearing, or think you’re blowing something out of proportion when you think it’s valid. It’s just not their job.

I say this as someone who worked on a lot of internal matters and a LOT of it was people being uniquely sensitive, or airing personal grievances with managers to coworkers who then felt stuck in the middle. I think that is inappropriate. [/quote]

OP here.

I think it's important to point out that the article is explicitly about dealing with narcissists, and how a group might facilitate a narcissist. I'm not sure the average work environment is a good metric for this. But in an abusive work environment, tribe gaslighting (or flying monkey syndrome, or whatever you want to call it) can make the abuse worse.

I'm not arguing that my coworkers should have validated my experiences in that job. I'm simply saying that I wish I had understood the dynamics described in this article at the time, which would have helped me to understand that my colleagues' refusal to acknowledge what was happening did not mean that it wasn't happening. I was a newer employee so when our boss started acting inappropriate with me, I felt unsure about it. There were several things that happened early on, right in the middle of meetings or in interactions with customers that sent up red flags, and I mentioned them to colleagues because I thought they were weird. But I was reassured that they were normal and not a problem. So instead of reporting the issue up the chain or looking for ways to leave the company, I stayed and the situation escalated until I was miserable. I did eventually report the problems up the chain and got some resolution, but it was too late for me to ever feel comfortable in that workplace again.

So I wish I'd been more aware of how these dynamics work because I think I might have been less likely to rely on my coworker's opinions and more likely to do just what you suggest -- report it up or leave. I should note that this workplace had neither an HR department nor an in-house legal department, so my options for reporting the behavior were really limited.

Anyway, I didn't post this so people could say "yes, gaslighting coworkers are terrible, get the pitchforks." I posted it because it was a really helpful description of an abusive work environment and I think if I'd read something like this around the time I was working at this place, I could have saved myself a lot of grief. I hope it's helpful to others.[/quote]

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