When they’d taken all of my self worth, energy and keeping you down, leaving seems like the only option.
The quiet suffering
Interviewers ask me about the work-life journey that changed three-ish years ago. I pause before I answer, sipping air into my lungs warming up my throat. Stopping longer than necessary, hoping no one notices that I am petrified to share I left emotionally long before I resigned.
From podcasts or new introductions in the Wellness world, my ability to skirt the real story is maverick-like. Like the flame in my firepit, I dance around the topic, blaming illness, Stress and Caregiving, falling out of Love with Operations or Finance.
I speak about having a stressful job with an ill mother and two toddlers being newly married. I mention the commuting, the traveling and get audible gasps when I share about my Managing Director’s murder at the hands of her husband as I returned from my second maternity leave.
Sharing the hourly battles in a culture that had a culture of management by fear. Mentioning how I showed up, hoping it would get better. I wanted to be helpful, productive and show up every day.
I was the:
“fly across the country for 24 hours” exec
‘work on weekend and ignore your small school aged children’
‘act as if all was normal in Covid’ for a team that would never hold up their part of the bargain
I realized when my year end review document said that I was imperfect and therefore not allowed to get a promotion which was later given to someone else, I would never ever get the hours of my life back. The cost of my nervous system, by the hour, was no longer worth my efforts.
In part one of this series, I wrote that if work was a boyfriend, everyone would have told me to dump him 10 years ago. I thought I could fix the boyfriend, so I stayed. I read this recently— ‘you can never change a culture that does not want to be changed.’ I thought I could rise above the drama through hard work, checking boxes, but no one cared.
Leaving didn’t mean leaping but solidified a date for departure. That date was five years before I resigned.
The work culture at the end of Merrill, was more than anyone should endure. The CEO of Merrill, for the last part of my stay, has since gone to Citi, his ‘tirades’ were being investigated by an external law firm. The NY Post article that flew around former colleagues text chains developed a confluence of rage and upset in my body. The details of the Citi investigation haven’t been released yet I can imagine what was said behind closed doors. The Citi CEO has since stated she isn’t worried about the claims of intense work culture, so like many of these bullies, the truth will stay buried.
Leaning into my own favorite quote, “the door to hell is locked from the inside”, it was time to move from toxicity towards fun – loving – creative – impactful work.
In hindsight, I realize I had been living in fight or flight hourly. When the work day ended as I started to prepared dinner, my short fuse created Family firecrackers, ensuing fights with everyone I ran into, including my sweet toddlers. No one lived up to my standards. Frustrated at everything and everyone, my personality was just plain miserable.
Absorbing the culture felt like a badge of honor but unwinding the conditioning of criticism has taken me three years with so much internal work.
I’m incredibly lucky to have been able to pivot from a high stress, angry culture. It is a blessing to have had space to heal my two surgeries and spend time with the kids and at the kids’ school. Staying was not an option, I knew I’d get sick if I stayed, the weekly schedule almost pushing me to the brink of despair many times.
What Living in a Toxic Culture Felt Like:
I felt stupid every day despite solving complex business problems.
Fuck, Shit, hell were commonplace but it was times I was singled out and cursed at in group settings that made my heart ache.
I cried, a lot. In closets. In cabs. On airplanes. I cried to friends. I was so debilitated some nights.
Constantly questioning my own abilities, I was told I was imperfect and in order to get ahead I had to be perfect. I graduated cum laude from a great university and had experiences at work they create MBA case studies about but yet, I felt like I knew nothing.
I was afraid to be truthful and transparent. People call it work politics, I call it manipulation and avoidance.
I questioned every thought I had to the point of exhaustion, knowing full well that I had experience to create efficiencies or build new processes. The mental load made me crazy.
Anxiety reached an all time high when I knew I could get berated during meetings with my peers. This was shocking to the point that it continued long enough to seek legal advice.
I yelled at everyone because I was being screamed at. My 9-5 normalized conflict and unleashing.
Never feeling enough.
I felt so alone.
This was all I knew, the job was a prize to many, I must be the wone making up the stress. The behaviors were so normal, I thought I was the weak one.
The Results:
I detached from work. This isn’t the natural ‘slow down’ a week before vacation mentally checking out, this is the revenge quitting I never wanted. Leaving my industry of 25 years was not anything I did lightly or really craved, I love the complexities of finance, communication and change management.
There is tough, detailed, harsh leadership and then there is workplace humiliation. I experienced the behind the back ridicule. I left after many tense conversations with my husband, planning to drop salary and benefits is big work for a family.
Wall Street culture I experienced under the last ten years was walled-in-infection. Pitting leaders against each other, favoritism inflating egos, weekly micromanaging of adults with decades of experience took its toll.
We all have bad days. We all have bad moods. But there’s something unnatural about daily screaming matches or passive aggressive undertones that were slung at us, not just around us.
I did not believe in myself. The equation I had been taught- work hard, be truthful, be kind – was no longer working.
Externally I was bold, rough and angry.
Your wife is a “ball buster” was the unflattering commentary my husband received.
If I removed my hard shell, what would happen at work if I shared my true thoughts on how to improve or be more efficient?
The Healing:
It has taken me 3.5 years to unwind from the masculine culture of manipulation and bulldozing. I’ll share more soon, here are a few ways I was able to find peace to move into my femininity and true self.
My Ego was demolished from the needling. After questioning if I am worthy of a new life, I realized I could co-create a life with my husband and the universe that meets me where I am, not where others are. I love my work, my writing and most importantly, I love myself again.
Western help: My first stop was my Primary Care Physician, I’ve seen therapists and surgeons at UPenn when my body gave out right after I retired. Supplements and hormones as my perimenopause wreaked havoc. Now I work with my Health coach Beth and my Nurse @ Joi Wellness to do bloodwork and supplements.
Eastern help: Reiki healers, cord cutting, IFS Therapy, solo trips, a coach when I left and another coach when I leveled up.
Learning in a new way: IFS Certification, Yoga 200 + 300 certifications, Coaching classes, writing courses
Regrouping socially: I’ve pruned friends, I’ve added new ones who aren’t up for small talk, found Growth mindset girls and those who are healthy and well or striving for it.
Movement of the mind & body: writing, daily meditations, yoga, walking, PT, oracle card pulls, reading, researching and tennis. I just learned mahjong, too.
I feel like my 25 year old self again, the world is my oyster, I’m excited about work and life and family. I love where we live and the life we created. The girls are so interested and fun, I can’t wait to hang out with them more each week to support their dreams (within reason!) and health, too.
