It's Not Always You, It's Your Environment

It blow my mind how it is normalized to be in a toxic work environment. Hustle culture, focus on productivity, and navigating fragile egos is just expected even though it can lead to so much pain and misery.

Personal story time: I remember when I used to work with community mental health and had to meet productivity in order to be in good ranking in my position. As a case manager, my productivity was measured in how many hours I can bill Medi-Cal which means I had to see a lot of people or document a lot of progress notes a week in order to meet my goal. As a former perfectionist AND people pleaser, it was hard not meeting productivity on a monthly basis. It was hard being given feedback on how I wasn’t enough. What I was doing wasn’t enough. How I didn’t write enough in my notes. It was a very a demoralizing job and I felt like I came to work to just fail.

I know my experience is not unique to just me or to the field of community mental health. You might be able to recall work experiences or volunteer experiences where you felt you were not enough, regardless of what you do. It’s a pretty shitty way of being in the world.

Your struggles are not always on you, but on the environment

One of the things that I like to talk about in therapy with my clients is focusing where my clients have to take responsibility and where they do not. Toxic work environments is not something to take responsibility for.

When you are working in an environment that does not build you up, but rather, focuses on your short comings it can fuck with your feelings of self-worth and self-esteem. It can be easy to fall into the trap of basing your value and worth on the things you can accomplish. When trying to embrace your inherent self-worth, it can even feel like it is your fault that you value yourself in such a way, but it’s not.

Think about it: if you spend 40 hours every week with individuals who are constantly telling you are to blame for not doing more and for not sacrificing your human needs to get more things done, it’s hard to tune that message out. That message gets internalized. It’s hard to feel good about yourself when you are constantly treated poorly.

Where can you find environments that support you?

It truly can make a difference when you’re working or spending time in an environment that is supportive. In fact, for individuals who are used to being put down and criticized constantly, it may feel uncomfortable to be in a working environment where you’re treated with respect.

Back to story time: There was one team I worked for in community mental health where my supervisor was amazing. She provided constructive criticism, gave support, and advocated for our needs. In fact, I had many colleagues and mentors on this team and it felt good. It felt relieving to not feel like a failure. It was easier to go about my day and work better when I felt supported.

Again, my experience is not unique just to me or my field. Where can you find people who are going to provide support? Is it friends and family? Is it joining an online or in-person community?

This is really important because if you want to feel good about yourself, you need to have people in your day to day life to also contribute to your well-being. What does that look like? For me, it was being heard, having my opinions respected instead of dismissed, and being challenged in a way that supported my professional needs. For you, it might be different. It might look like being given feedback on the things you do well. It might look like brainstorming ideas on how to relieve the pressure from being perfect.

How and where will you find your environment that will support you?