Yup, let me be the 25th person to confirm that this is a normal trauma response. Your old boss was an ahole. I’m sure you would find that whoever replaces you has the same experience, but somehow these asshes get promoted. Good on you for leaving. It may take a while to shake off the feeling, but I hope you truly enjoy your new job. I know you’ll rock it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That’s so normal. I had a similar feeling after starting a new job and leaving a toxic situation. It was like my system was at an elevated heightened state and needed time to come back down and stop feeling anxiety.

Thank you - this really helps. I hope your new situation is better.

It is 100% and I have filed a federal EEO against the toxic bosses. I hope my career moves forward the way it has for other people in this thread!

Anonymous wrote:Same and it really made me question why she hated me so much. This has only ever happened to me with older female managers. The last female manager hated me from the day she met me. I was hands down the best and most liked employee on the entire team. Despite having worked there for over 10 years, HR completely sided with her on every issue. The final straw was she kicked me out of my cubicle during an unnecessary work move. The movers said I’d been warned and they tossed all my belongings into boxes when I was on annual leave, but she was the only one who had been informed about the move. She’d “forgotten” to tell me I was moving.

Took a few years to get over. But I think it’s made me a better manager. I immediately recognize toxic people now. I’m also unfailingly kind and nice to my employees. I focus only on work product.

Don't worry, PLENTY of men are like this and they add a creepy sexual element to it too. Ask me how I know!!!

Anonymous wrote:I have also gone through this. My toxic boss shattered my confidence and the longer I stayed at that position, the worse things became. She also took away work from me and essentially pushed me out of the job until I quit. She also made the work environment increasingly uncomfortable. She was over-hiring and took away offices. Then we had to see clients in whatever room we could find that was available. Sometimes I'd be the one without a room to see someone in and had to see them in a break room or something. It felt so unprofessional.

I left 7 months ago and I still feel like I'm not fully myself yet. It is reassuring that others in this thread have stated that they are thriving now, but it took some people about the same amount of time to recover as the time they were in the position. I've been wondering why I STILL don't feel like myself yet. But I do stop thinking about working there a little less as time passes. And I think it will pass for you too. It's also reassuring that others in this thread state they are doing much better and thriving.

It takes a while to get past the situation once you leave. I even spoke with a counselor because the stress was so bad. I had been close to getting out and moving to a better job but Covid hit and the job was pulled, so I got stuck with the bad boss for another whole year. Dreadful experience, and she just got worse over the last several months. Several years later, I’ve moved on to a new employer and doubled my salary. It’s all now just an awful memory. I fought back though, so she did not walk away unscathed by her shitty behavior.

It can take up to three years to recover. It sounds oversimplified, but if you know who you are and what you're about - that can help your recovery. But it also can make you a target of an insecure leader. Hopefully, the confidence will propel folks to address the issue

Anonymous wrote:Clearly you are not alone! This also happened to me. I had been pre-warned that this boss was “difficult” but I brushed it aside thinking I had worked for challenging people before. How wrong I was. I only stayed in the position for 11 months but it took YEARS for my confidence to recover. Deep down inside I knew this boss was the one with the problems, but even so I started doubting everything about my abilities. It was such an awful experience that I took a new position elsewhere making $60,000 less! That decision however set me on the right path and I’ve never looked back. The boss btw was asked to leave by management soon after my departure.

Ugh! It is so frustrating when the boss is asked to leave AFTER you leave. That happened to me. Three of us resigned the same day without coordinating it. She was more dumb than toxic but still toxic.

Yes. It is normal to feel that way. I worked for a sociopath and he really sucked up the energy and also got people fired for dumb reasons and got another to resign.

I waited for the higher ups to figure out the employees were disappearing but they were riding a government contracting gravy train.

This happened to me. I went to work for a guy who was an amazing recruiter, charismatic, seemed awesome. I got in there and within days it was clear I had made a horrible mistake. It was a Jekyll and Hyde thing. He and the another exec would team up on people in meetings, to make them cry--just sadistic cruelty. HR was a joke. Everyone knew he was psychotic but he was untouchable. I developed insomnia and had to see a Psychiatrist. I ended up going on medication, but the Doctor told me that I just had to leave to recover. I needed the income, though, so I had to last for a year. After I left, I dealt with what can only be described as PTSD for at least a year. I'll just say I feel for you, and it'll get better, but it'll take time. One silver lining: I've gotten better at sniffing out psychopaths and have avoided another situation thus far.

Anonymous wrote:^i will add, it’s concerning how many truly rotten people are able to not just succeed, but thrive, in the workplace

PP here. This person did not have any amazing qualification or educational background, just a good network and from what I understood, the right family contacts (people who were probably donating a whole lotta money to political campaigns). She had discrimination complaints filed against her and still, wow, the b*&ch was untouchable and continues to be so. She got in close with the top officials, so she had plenty of protection. It's mindblowing; there were other people on the team with more seniority who should have moved up the chain, but alas, management picked her. She'll be named head of the org in a few years, I bet.

^i will add, it’s concerning how many truly rotten people are able to not just succeed, but thrive, in the workplace

I’ve had this happen multiple times and it’s very unfortunate. I think being a high performer ironically makes you an easy target, as does having visible roles. I went from one toxic workplace to another within the span of two years, and was laid off last fall. I was unemployed for four months but I finally had the time to process and grieve for myself.

These environments ARE abusive and it’s a disservice to downplay that impact. Luckily I am now in a workplace which has its dysfunctions, like everywhere, but is very relationship-based and high-trust. My boss is methodical, reliable, and supportive and I feel like I finally have the capacity to heal from my previous two jobs.

My former toxic boss was fired unceremoniously which was a bit of poetic justice.

Anonymous wrote:Why are women managers so toxic it seems to be a pattern

Went through this at a previous job. Had to request a transfer because she just wouldn't stop trying to intimidate me, cut me out of meetings, play games with Zoom (babysitting meetings and trying to record one-on-one meetings with me me without disclosing, as if I wouldn't notice the "recording" function turned on) and make empty threats. She knew I was highly qualified and also highly qualified for her job and threatened. At one point during a meeting she suggested I move into a whole other section that had absolutely no connection with my education and experience, think "why don't you move into IT or accounting" from the marketing or research teams. She just wanted me out of the way so she could hire her own people. She was a political/friend hire and poached by someone who wanted her in this role for a specific reason. Years later, she's still there, moving up the chain. Not one bit surprised. Rotten people like this are always promoted.

Why are women managers so toxic it seems to be a pattern

I have also gone through this. My toxic boss shattered my confidence and the longer I stayed at that position, the worse things became. She also took away work from me and essentially pushed me out of the job until I quit. She also made the work environment increasingly uncomfortable. She was over-hiring and took away offices. Then we had to see clients in whatever room we could find that was available. Sometimes I'd be the one without a room to see someone in and had to see them in a break room or something. It felt so unprofessional.

I left 7 months ago and I still feel like I'm not fully myself yet. It is reassuring that others in this thread have stated that they are thriving now, but it took some people about the same amount of time to recover as the time they were in the position. I've been wondering why I STILL don't feel like myself yet. But I do stop thinking about working there a little less as time passes. And I think it will pass for you too. It's also reassuring that others in this thread state they are doing much better and thriving.

When this happened to me, I found that I needed a LOT of validation afterward that things were either "not like at XYZ" or that they WERE like that and I was seeing things correctly. I did not want to telegraph neediness to my new company so I tried to get better at validating myself rather than needing external validation. Like, telling myself directly, "It's totally understandable that your first thought would be that someone is undermining you since that happened all the time at XYZ" rather than bugging my husband or friends with those sorts of things.

I also tried really hard to remember that the people at New Company just think I'm awesome. They don't know about any of the difficulties from XYZ other than the surface-level bulletpoints I've mentioned. I try to do my best to be the version of me that they know rather than the version of me that had to leave XYZ.

And to be perfectly clear, it wasn't the manager at XYZ that was the problem. He was great. The company itself was bad, but the dynamic is similar in that I really had internalized the insecurity and chaos and weirdness of it.