Nov 27, 2022·edited Nov 27, 2022Liked by Karlyn Borysenko
Dr. Karlyn, My heart hurts for you. The reason your experience rings true to me is because I've been through something similar. Back in my early 30s, I started a new job that I was excited about at the same time as my co-worker, let's call her Hope. We essentially figured out the job together and supported each other in making professional reports. I considered her a close friend and invited her to my daughter's first birthday party.
Unfortunately, Hope had been on anti-depressants since she was a teenager and after researching on the internet decided to go off of them cold turkey. This caused her to have ongoing severe panic attacks and uncontrollable ticks. She ended up in the hospital one afternoon and I visited her there and met her dad and her boyfriend. The whole thing was awful and scary.
Hope pulled me into a dark office one day and told me she was scared that she was going crazy and asked me for my help. And of course, I vowed to do whatever I could to help her through this. I asked her if she was suicidal and she admitted she'd been thinking of driving her car into a tree. I demanded that she call up either her Dad or her boyfriend and tell one of them what was going on so she could have support outside of work, and she did. A few days later, Hope thanked me and said that was the right thing to do.
At the same time, I'd started taking Master's level classes and would be out of the office for an hour a day a few days a week. Hope told me that while I was out of the office, she found herself gripping her desk in panic, just trying to breath until I got back into the office.
I was naïve and stupid. I went to our mutual boss, (let's call her Anne) who was our age and someone we both considered a friend. I asked Anne to check in on Hope while I was in class, to make sure she was ok. Our boss demanded that I tell her what was going on and I told her it was private and not my place to say. But she continued to insist.
I told Anne that our friend was going through a health crisis and feeling suicidal and I was scared for her. I didn't elaborate, just that one sentence.
Anne agreed to check in on our friend and I thought that was the end of it.
Yes, I did consider at the time that this was a huge breach of privacy and trust, but I believed that Hope needed to have someone in the office keeping an eye on her because of how severely the panic was hitting her when I wasn't there. And at the time, I was still very inclined to bow to authority and do what my boss told me without questioning it.
Well our boss apparently went to Hope, told her what I had said and demanded to know if it was true. Of course, Hope felt hurt, betrayed, and was angry with me. She had a lot of pride and while I knew that, I didn't realize how important her pride was to her identity.
I truly had no idea what was going on and kept reaching out, in confusion, trying to salvage our friendship. Hope didn't explain that Anne and confronted her, and just kept telling me she was "fine." I believe that Hope felt I'd blabbed her secrets, probably just to gossip or something.
Things got worse over time, because I was an idiot and did stupid things. I kept pushing her, trying my best to save both our friendship and work relationship. I told mutual co-workers that she was mad at me, that I didn't know why, and I asked them for advice. (This was absolutely stupid on my part. I was still so young and looked to others to tell me what to do.) Of course this got back to her and made things worse, cementing the idea that I was gossiping about her, trying to hurt her. Again, I wasn't trying to hurt her, I was confused and stupid and young and didn't know what else to do.
To be clear, the only people I EVER told (until now) that Hope was having a health crisis and was feeling suicidal was Anne and the HR guy, as you'll see in a second.
It got so bad that our boss's boss (let's call him Tom) sent us to HR, who met with us privately and I explained everything to him and after his session with her, he had us sit down to talk.
During that discussion, he asked me about telling Anne about Hope's health crisis. At that point, was when I first realized Anne had confronted Hope and that had been the start of the end of our friendship. The HR guy demanded, "Didn't you know this was a massive breach of trust?"
I turned to Hope and looked her directly in the eye as I sadly explained that I'd rather have her hate me and still alive, than have not said anything at all and risk Hope committing suicide. I apologized to her and told her I hadn't meant to hurt her.
She just glared at me coldly and the HR guy nodded knowingly, understanding my viewpoint. He met with Tom after that and I'm not sure if he said anything about me, but apparently he told Tom that Hope had an anger management issue.
I thought that once she understood my reasons, things would ease up between us and they only got worse. I continued to reach out to her and try to salvage our friendship.
We both had access to Tom's calendar, so that we could add appointments as needed. One day, I noticed there was a new message alert. I'd not seen any messages connected to the calendar before so felt like I should check it. I knew Tom's emails weren't accessible via that calendar.
A glitch in the program allowed me to see all of Hope's emails. I got nosy because a great many of them were about me. The level of hatred and daily complaining over every little thing I did, from the sound of me walking past her office, to the smell of my lunch when I ate at my desk, was shocking. I realized at that point that there was nothing to salvage and stopped reaching out to Hope. She'd gone on a scorched-earth campaign and there was no turning back.
I deleted access to Tom's calendar, after asking my husband who works in IT, if there was a way to disconnect Hope's email. He said his best theory was that it was a glitch in Outlook and couldn't be fixed by us.
I reached out to Tom and told him that no matter what I did, it made things worse. I asked him what I should do, thinking he'd tell me to start looking for another job. He told me to "keep your eyes on your own knitting." I don't knit, Dr. Karlyn, but this felt like the life-raft I'd been searching for and from then on, I kept my head down and my mouth shut.
He arranged for our offices to be moved and we were placed on opposite sides of the building. I was put in an office next to him and she was placed into a different department's suite.
Things continued to slide downhill, despite my keeping my head down and mouth shut.
One example was when we were supposed to meet with Anne and another colleague, we met in a tiny office with only 4 chairs. Hope came in late to the meeting, saw that there was only one chair left, next to me. She loudly dragged the chair away from me to sit as far away from me as possible. She was angry throughout the entire meeting and any time we had meetings together, no matter who else was present. This continued for months.
Ultimately, Tom gave her a performance eval that gave her a "needs improvement" for her interaction with co-workers. She rage-quit and that was that.
I know that I screwed up massively and have learned a lot of painful lessons. I apologized to Hope again, years later after she visited our building.
Dr. Karlyn's attempts to keep her head down and not make things worse with Keri, don't matter. Sometimes the other person goes on a "scorched-earth" campaign and they simply won't stop. My theory is that they think they are fighting a righteous fight for justice.
Dr. Karlyn, I wish I knew how to end this situation. I've seen you own up for your own mistakes and be authentic in the things you say and the emotions you express. I understand the confusion and the need to look around and ask for help from other people to put a stop to it.
I think your intuition that someone/something else is involved behind the scenes is correct.
Dr. Karlyn, My heart hurts for you. The reason your experience rings true to me is because I've been through something similar. Back in my early 30s, I started a new job that I was excited about at the same time as my co-worker, let's call her Hope. We essentially figured out the job together and supported each other in making professional reports. I considered her a close friend and invited her to my daughter's first birthday party.
Unfortunately, Hope had been on anti-depressants since she was a teenager and after researching on the internet decided to go off of them cold turkey. This caused her to have ongoing severe panic attacks and uncontrollable ticks. She ended up in the hospital one afternoon and I visited her there and met her dad and her boyfriend. The whole thing was awful and scary.
Hope pulled me into a dark office one day and told me she was scared that she was going crazy and asked me for my help. And of course, I vowed to do whatever I could to help her through this. I asked her if she was suicidal and she admitted she'd been thinking of driving her car into a tree. I demanded that she call up either her Dad or her boyfriend and tell one of them what was going on so she could have support outside of work, and she did. A few days later, Hope thanked me and said that was the right thing to do.
At the same time, I'd started taking Master's level classes and would be out of the office for an hour a day a few days a week. Hope told me that while I was out of the office, she found herself gripping her desk in panic, just trying to breath until I got back into the office.
I was naïve and stupid. I went to our mutual boss, (let's call her Anne) who was our age and someone we both considered a friend. I asked Anne to check in on Hope while I was in class, to make sure she was ok. Our boss demanded that I tell her what was going on and I told her it was private and not my place to say. But she continued to insist.
I told Anne that our friend was going through a health crisis and feeling suicidal and I was scared for her. I didn't elaborate, just that one sentence.
Anne agreed to check in on our friend and I thought that was the end of it.
Yes, I did consider at the time that this was a huge breach of privacy and trust, but I believed that Hope needed to have someone in the office keeping an eye on her because of how severely the panic was hitting her when I wasn't there. And at the time, I was still very inclined to bow to authority and do what my boss told me without questioning it.
Well our boss apparently went to Hope, told her what I had said and demanded to know if it was true. Of course, Hope felt hurt, betrayed, and was angry with me. She had a lot of pride and while I knew that, I didn't realize how important her pride was to her identity.
I truly had no idea what was going on and kept reaching out, in confusion, trying to salvage our friendship. Hope didn't explain that Anne and confronted her, and just kept telling me she was "fine." I believe that Hope felt I'd blabbed her secrets, probably just to gossip or something.
Things got worse over time, because I was an idiot and did stupid things. I kept pushing her, trying my best to save both our friendship and work relationship. I told mutual co-workers that she was mad at me, that I didn't know why, and I asked them for advice. (This was absolutely stupid on my part. I was still so young and looked to others to tell me what to do.) Of course this got back to her and made things worse, cementing the idea that I was gossiping about her, trying to hurt her. Again, I wasn't trying to hurt her, I was confused and stupid and young and didn't know what else to do.
To be clear, the only people I EVER told (until now) that Hope was having a health crisis and was feeling suicidal was Anne and the HR guy, as you'll see in a second.
It got so bad that our boss's boss (let's call him Tom) sent us to HR, who met with us privately and I explained everything to him and after his session with her, he had us sit down to talk.
During that discussion, he asked me about telling Anne about Hope's health crisis. At that point, was when I first realized Anne had confronted Hope and that had been the start of the end of our friendship. The HR guy demanded, "Didn't you know this was a massive breach of trust?"
I turned to Hope and looked her directly in the eye as I sadly explained that I'd rather have her hate me and still alive, than have not said anything at all and risk Hope committing suicide. I apologized to her and told her I hadn't meant to hurt her.
She just glared at me coldly and the HR guy nodded knowingly, understanding my viewpoint. He met with Tom after that and I'm not sure if he said anything about me, but apparently he told Tom that Hope had an anger management issue.
I thought that once she understood my reasons, things would ease up between us and they only got worse. I continued to reach out to her and try to salvage our friendship.
We both had access to Tom's calendar, so that we could add appointments as needed. One day, I noticed there was a new message alert. I'd not seen any messages connected to the calendar before so felt like I should check it. I knew Tom's emails weren't accessible via that calendar.
A glitch in the program allowed me to see all of Hope's emails. I got nosy because a great many of them were about me. The level of hatred and daily complaining over every little thing I did, from the sound of me walking past her office, to the smell of my lunch when I ate at my desk, was shocking. I realized at that point that there was nothing to salvage and stopped reaching out to Hope. She'd gone on a scorched-earth campaign and there was no turning back.
I deleted access to Tom's calendar, after asking my husband who works in IT, if there was a way to disconnect Hope's email. He said his best theory was that it was a glitch in Outlook and couldn't be fixed by us.
I reached out to Tom and told him that no matter what I did, it made things worse. I asked him what I should do, thinking he'd tell me to start looking for another job. He told me to "keep your eyes on your own knitting." I don't knit, Dr. Karlyn, but this felt like the life-raft I'd been searching for and from then on, I kept my head down and my mouth shut.
He arranged for our offices to be moved and we were placed on opposite sides of the building. I was put in an office next to him and she was placed into a different department's suite.
Things continued to slide downhill, despite my keeping my head down and mouth shut.
One example was when we were supposed to meet with Anne and another colleague, we met in a tiny office with only 4 chairs. Hope came in late to the meeting, saw that there was only one chair left, next to me. She loudly dragged the chair away from me to sit as far away from me as possible. She was angry throughout the entire meeting and any time we had meetings together, no matter who else was present. This continued for months.
Ultimately, Tom gave her a performance eval that gave her a "needs improvement" for her interaction with co-workers. She rage-quit and that was that.
I know that I screwed up massively and have learned a lot of painful lessons. I apologized to Hope again, years later after she visited our building.
Dr. Karlyn's attempts to keep her head down and not make things worse with Keri, don't matter. Sometimes the other person goes on a "scorched-earth" campaign and they simply won't stop. My theory is that they think they are fighting a righteous fight for justice.
Dr. Karlyn, I wish I knew how to end this situation. I've seen you own up for your own mistakes and be authentic in the things you say and the emotions you express. I understand the confusion and the need to look around and ask for help from other people to put a stop to it.
I think your intuition that someone/something else is involved behind the scenes is correct.