Wounding their TarGET

Mobbing survivors experience emotional and mental abuse that leaves them psychologically traumatized. Once I recognized I was being mobbed (triangulation is what I called it), I felt helpless. My mobsters were intentional in their attacks, thoughtfully creating a situation that protected them so they looked good (i.e. supportive or anti-administration) or human (it was a communication error). I, meanwhile, was meant to look bad (i.e. angry, vindictive, paranoid, or unwilling to clear up any social ambiguity) and incompetent. I had seconds to process what was happening and respond in a way that best protected me. They had days to calculate and orchestrate their attack. I had to navigate the legal system on my personal time and as a novice. They had a company lawyer who gave them legal advice whenever they needed it.  I had to navigate my personal and social life alone. They had a public relation specialist to ensure the company looked caring and equitable. I had to manage the stress and psychological injury caused by workplace mobbing. They had no trauma impairing their judgement. I had no support from administration. They were protected and rewarded by administration.   

I wanted so desperately to stop my workplace mobbing but felt powerless to do so. I did not feel safe going to my colleagues or administration. I knew I could not falsely accuse anyone of something they did not do. I got that message loud and clear during the spring of 2018 (the exact same time I was filing my formal sexual harassment complaint). According to a trusted source, a district middle school principal was demoted for falsely accusing one of his superiors. Apparently, his superior and an administrative support staff were discussing a math teacher with him. He walked away from the conversation believing his colleague and supervisor did not believe the math teacher were competent. He, consequently, did not accept the math teacher’s request to transfer into his building. Somehow the math teacher found out about his perception and asked the supervisor about it. She then denied every saying anything negative about her. What may have been a miscommunication was interrupted as a false allegation, and the principal was consequently demoted. 

I was completely intimidated by this story. I trusted the person who told me this as she had 

fought for employee rights in her building. I also thought she had no reason to lie to me about it. (Looking back, she could have been manipulating me with this rumor as I was in the middle of my 2018 investigation.)  I learned from the situation was that the district took false allegations seriously—enough to where an employee could be reassigned if they claimed someone said something when they did not. I did not want to be reassigned to another position where I feared they could stack my classes. I had to avoid, therefore, any chance of falsely accusing someone of lying to me, manipulating me, or gas lighting me. Of course this boundary did not keep me safe. My mobsters still continued their attacks. And the more I recognized their mobbing and gas lighting, the more severe my psychological terror got.

I became what I later learned is called hypervigilant. I constantly scanned my environment whenever I interacted with my mobsters for any hint of mobbing or gas lighting. If I anticipated it mentally and emotionally, I reasoned, I would be ready internally. The major problem with this approach was I still had to determine what was mobbing and what was not. I had to recognize when my mobsters were trying to manipulate me and when they were not.  I had to know when I needed to keep myself safe and when I could relax as there was no perceived threat.

An example from my narrative illustrates this point. In May of 2018, one of my mobsters discussed with another teacher how mulch was messier than rock landscaping. In a healthy workplace environment (one free of workplace mobbing), this situation would have meant nothing but a pleasant side conversation. For me, I took it as gas lighting. Let me explain. The previous day, I had come home to discover our shed doors wide open. Naturally, I asked my husband if he forgot to lock it up. He told me no and stated he was not even in it. I then asked my children who also said they were not in it. I brushed it off and assumed we forgot to lock it and one of my children was lying. The next day, I heard my mobster complain how dirty mulch looked. We had mulch near our shed and it was completely overgrown, thin, and surrounded by torn, black paper. And then fear took over. 

Were my mobsters trying to intimidate me outside of the school walls now? I knew already my mobsters used shame, fear, and deception to manipulate people. I also know my administration was willing to break the law as they allowed me to go off record in 2011. It did not seem too big of a jump to conclude they could have intimidated me illegally by trespassing on my personal property. I had just told them I was going to go public with my story, a story we both knew included mishandled sexual harassment and corrupt workplace mobbing. This conclusion was strengthened even more when my therapist later told me I was not the only sexual harassment survivor my school district gas lit. 

Accepting this assumption moved me from the rational to the irrational. Suddenly any issue we encountered in our home had to be filtered through a mobbing lens: did the district cause this problem? I would like to say I was able to defuse this paranoia but I was not.  Rather than keep me safe, my over analyzation moved me from normal mental health to abnormal mental health. I spent part of my 2019 Thanksgiving break on the phone with Microsoft to ensure my personal email account was not hacked into. I also told them I was a sexual harassment survivor and wanted to know if they changed my work email search features or if my company did.   I repeatedly called my internet provider to document our wireless issues. I spent two hours with Apple Support to change completely my iTunes account. I even contacted the police to recommend detectives include my district in their investigation of two anonymous school shooting threats. When we discussed these threats at school, my mobster said, “there was no way to prove these things,” a comment I found interesting given I had just reached out to my state legislators about my story. 

While all this paranoia was occurring, I was completely aware my mind was deteriorating. I knew I was spiraling out of control into extreme anxiety, fear, isolation, and depression. Something would go missing from my classroom and I would conclude my mobsters took it. Then a few days later I would find it. My new van had engine issues when I started it in the school parking lot. I panicked and thought they had put something in my gasoline. Then I called my dad and he told me I had put it into third. I tested his theory and discovered he was right. I knew my thoughts were unhealthy but I could not seem to get them out of mind. 

Advocating to those who had the power to help me most certainly did not help. Legislators ignored my call for an investigation. My state’s Department of Education, education legislative committee, and governor did as well. I felt like everyone was either part of the corruption or wanted me to accept a legal system that disempowered survivors who fought workplace mobbing. The latter was a sad reality I was learning as I talked to the Department of Labor and various lawyers. I felt like the established power wanted me to accept a status quo that worked in their favor, not mine. They wanted evidence yet refused to assist me in collecting it. They implied my report was crazy yet failed to repair the system that caused that paranoia. 

To cope, I withdrew from every optional committee and job assignment I held. This meant I lost $200 a month and every visible leadership role in my profession. I limited contact with colleagues by eating lunch in my room and not the staff lounge. I recognized this strategy reduced my peer support and weakened my social network with teachers outside of my grade level. I felt like I had no choice though. I also stopped sharing my passions during team time. I knew if my mobsters were aware of what I cared about they would (and did) use it to trigger me. I accepted and even told some staff my motto regarding staff concerns: “there is nothing I can do about it.” I lost motivation to have open dialogue with my administration or to challenge staff to use best practices. I even tried three years in a row to find a new teaching job.     

My narrative, sadly, demonstrates  mobbing works. I, the employee, was left defenseless in the face of an organized, intentional attack. I was surrounded by multiple attacks that wounded my reputation, my career, and my psychological health. I felt alone and hopeless.  I knew out there, somewhere in my city, was another survivor. Like me, she was sexual harassed. Like me she was gas lit by my district. Like me, her trauma caused her to reach out for therapy. My company had done this before and after multiple failed legislative attempts, I knew they could do it again. To me. To my family. To my friends. To anyone. And that was traumatic enough for me to break my silence.