I’ll never forget when an investor told me about his workplace abuse. I was practicing a pitch to prepare for an early-stage financing round. I’d done the research and the planning with the hope of raising between $150k and $300k for Velamentis. At this point, I was taking many opportunities to practice my pitch. During my earlier practice rounds, I had already started getting used to skepticism from potential investors, so I was no longer shocked to hear investors’ commentary on whether workplace mistreatment and abuse was really a big enough problem to be tackled through an endeavor like Velamentis.
One investor, a tech veteran who’d spent the last few of his twenty-plus years at one of the biggest tech companies in the world as a vice president of his division, shared his thoughts (paraphrased here): “You know, I was treated horribly day after day by a manager several years ago. She was pretty abusive, and I didn’t need a platform or anything to resolve it. Let me think … what did I do to help myself? Well, I’d get through a miserable day, then, let’s see … I’d head to the bar, have a few drinks … kick back with my friends … have a few laughs. Then I’d go home and get ready for another day. I knew that if I could slog through it day by day, I’d eventually get promoted and move on. So, yeah, I mean, I was able to hang on by myself.”
I was stunned. It occurred to me that he probably had zero awareness of the mental health damage he willingly submitted himself to in the hopes of his next promotion. The two thoughts I immediately had were:
- Given that this person never addressed the abuse, what bad habits had he learned and passed on to his team once he was promoted?
- How much of that experience (and any subsequent experiences) led him to believe that a service like Velamentis would be unnecessary?
When I next met with our advisor and workplace trauma specialist, Master of Social Work (MSW) Gary Whitmer, I explained what I had heard with a sense of disbelief – how could someone so thoroughly disregard the mental health impacts of their workplace abuse? Gary broke it down for me succinctly: “Jen, in his own way, he dealt with his mental health. Let me tell you what he actually said: He is hurt every day that he goes to work. After work, he heads to the bar – his equivalent of a doctor’s office. He takes some medicine (alcohol), and his friends (therapists) reinforce that he’s a good guy. They help him take his mind off the pain. Then he goes home and prepares to go through it again the next day.”
I was once again stunned, this time by Gary’s insight. He was absolutely correct; it wasn’t that this investor didn’t care what was happening to him, it’s that he dealt with it in a way that was comfortable for him at the time. This investor felt that the safest outlet for releasing his pain was spending time at the bar with his friends. I couldn’t help but think that he clearly didn’t get through it “by himself,” given that he needed the company of friends to shake off the abuse. When emotional pain rears its head, it is natural for us to find ways of self-soothing to take care of those feelings. Alcohol is certainly one of the substances commonly used to self-soothe and manage pain. In some cultures, even doctors prescribe alcohol to manage stress!
It’s important to note here that some forms of self-soothing are safer than others. The challenge with alcohol as a self-soothing substance is the potential for unhealthy physical results from weight gain to – worst case scenario – alcoholism, or an addiction to alcohol. When we are deeply stressed, it becomes easier to fall into destructive self-soothing habits. We have an echo chamber in our head telling us, “It’s OK. We can handle this. We’ll be fine. We don’t need help.” As this investor learned, he did, in fact, need help. Fortunately for him, hanging out with friends seemed to provide him with the help he needed. What I’ve always wondered, though, is if he ever told his friends what was going on at work, or if meeting with friends was mainly a way to quietly escape the pain.
One observation we made during our early research is that we had a particularly difficult time getting male employees to talk to us about their workplace mistreatment or trauma. Based on discussions with the few willing to chat, it was often stated that American culture is hyper-masculine, giving men a sense of shame for openly discussing or even just acknowledging this topic. The sad part is that most executive positions are still held by men, according to U.S. Department of Labor statistics. When we experience workplace abuse and/or trauma without any resolution or awareness of the behaviors and triggers, it becomes easy to pass down bad behaviors to the next set of managers. Over time, we hope to help change that reluctance to openness by creating safe spaces for men to discuss these topics.
Getting through or recovering from workplace abuse by yourself can be a painful, seemingly unending task. Like Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill only to have it come crashing back down, it is often difficult to gauge our level of pain by ourselves. It is equally challenging to determine what you need to do to manage or resolve it. Sometimes therapy is key, but other times it’s not. As an example, some people may find communications coaching to be more effective in helping you deal with day-to-day abuse whereas therapy is most effective for overcoming workplace trauma. Avery, cofounder at Velamentis, provides a deeper look at three very popular forms of support for employees: psychotherapy, counseling, and coaching. As someone who has many years of therapy to thank for my sanity, I can easily recommend (and hope) that you consider reaching out for help if your gut tells you you’re in pain.