Toni Peters – Author

Most people don’t realize they’re experiencing workplace trauma until they’re already in the ashes.  We’re taught to push through and be grateful that we have a job. A remnant from the Depression Era perhaps.  We’re expected to be “professional” and even normalize dysfunction because everyone else seems to be surviving it.

For me, workplace trauma slipped in quietly — day by day — until one day I woke up and realized I was in an unhealthy relationship with my job, and I didn’t recognize myself anymore.  This is how I spotted the trauma, barely before it broke me.

My nervous system was doing the job my boss should have been doing.  I knew something was wrong when my body started managing my environment for me:

I would become tense before opening my email or my heart rate would spike when a certain name popped up.  I would find myself rehashing conversations from the day in my head and found that I absolutely could not relax on Sundays because Monday was looming. Looking back, I recognize that I found myself quietly scanning for tone, subtext and danger.  This wasn’t simple “stress”.  This was my nervous system trying to keep me safe in a place that wasn’t.

 At this juncture of my life, I would recognize that I was abandoning myself to survive the culture.  For me, workplace trauma showed up as saying yes when I meant no or shrinking my voice. Not speaking up in conference calls or meetings. Staying silent to avoid being a target.  The thing that really stings now? I was tolerating behavior I’d never accept in any other part of my life.

When I began editing myself to stay employed, the job was no longer just a job — it was a threat.

I found that one of the most insidious signs was that I was being told that I was “a team player” or “so reliable” or even “the one we can always count on”. PTO? What was that?

But what they really meant was that I didn’t push back, I absorbed dysfunction and I was willing to sacrifice myself for the system. Obviously, being rewarded for self-abandonment is a hallmark of a harmful workplace.

I’m embarrassed to admit this now, but I couldn’t even tell the difference between my value and my output. Workplace trauma can blur the line between “I didn’t finish the task” and “I am failing as a human”. In my own experience, I started believing untruths. My worth was tied to my productivity, resting was being lazy and mistakes were moral failures. I worked for years in an environment where burnout was a badge of honor.

I learned the hard way, at the cost of my health, that this wasn’t ambition, it was conditioning.

Just like in an unhealthy relationship, I felt the hypervigilance humming through my body.  When nothing was happening (aka there wasn’t a metaphorical fire to put out) I was on edge and hyper-alert.  I always felt like I was waiting for something to go wrong – to the extent that sometimes I was just unable to exhale.

This was my body telling me the environment was unsafe — even though my mind was still trying to rationalize it.

Subtle but devastating, I stopped dreaming. I stopped imaging a future. A different job. A different life. I stopped dreaming of a version of myself who felt alive.

Workplace trauma didn’t just drain my energy – it drained my imagination and with it my creativity.  I couldn’t picture anything beyond survival, I felt trapped.

I was failing to recognize myself.  This is the moment most people finally wake up, but not me. For years, I continued to look at myself in the mirror and think that “I used to be confident”, “I used to be creative”, “I used to feel like me”.  Workplace trauma didn’t just harm my career; it caused harm to my identity.

If any of this feels familiar, you’re not being dramatic – you’re in danger.

Workplace trauma is real. It’s pervasive and it’s often invisible until you name it. Recognizing trauma early is not weakness, it’s wisdom.  The moment you stop abandoning yourself and start listening to your body you start to reclaim your voice, your boundaries and your future.

Everyone deserves a workplace that doesn’t require sacrifice to our health, our dignity, or our humanity.

And if you’re reading this thinking, “This is me,” I want you to know:

You’re not broken.
You’re not imagining it.
You’re not alone.
And you’re allowed to choose yourself.