Shunning My Old Life

Shunning My Old Life

I was on a delivery run when I decided to take an order from a restaurant that I normally avoid going to because of previous order mishaps. When I entered the restaurant, I found that the order was not ready. The restaurant was extremely crowded, noisy, and busy. The sea of people created an imbalance within me, and a tidal wave of anxiety rushed over me. To regain my balance, I looked around the restaurant and counted things to ground myself.

As I looked about the restaurant, I steadied my gaze upon things and faces. I immediately saw a face that I recognized among the crowd. Once I saw the face I knew, I saw the recognizable faces of two other people. I scanned them over quickly and turned my head hoping not to be seen. They were all former colleagues. They appeared to be waiting on service. Their facial expressions showed great concern. I could tell that they were involved in a heavy discussion. I could only imagine that it was about work. The work environment was a common source of stress. I recall former colleagues leaving work together to grab some downtime to discuss their common frustrations.

Inside of myself while standing in the restaurant, I felt the anxiety within me growing ever unsteady. I needed to sit down. I was the only one in the restaurant besides the waitresses and servers who was standing up. So I took a seat directly two tables across from my former colleagues. It was the only available place to sit. I do not believe either of the colleagues recognized me. They never really looked at me. Despite the fact that I was standing up for a while, I might have appeared as just another patron coming into a restaurant to pick up a carryout of food. Like so many other people in the restaurant, the former colleagues really seemed deeply engulfed in conversational silence. Their faces actually had anguished looks on them.

After I resigned from our mutual place of employment, I learned that all three of these women had resigned almost year later within succession of each other. I could only imagine that they may have been discussing how it all ended since the very last of them has only recently resigned her position. Our former place of employment was a toxic environment on so many levels. It was a beast – a machine even – that took employees in, chewed them up, and then spit them out. One of the best modes of survival was to find a tribe and become a part of that tribe for support. I recall them being a tribe. They worked on the same team. Two of them were newly hired just after I was moved into a new position out of their department.

As I sat waiting on the food order, I thought about this group of women in the restaurant. I was not a part of their tribe. I was really not a part of any tribe. The one tribe that I did feel affiliated with turned out to be a tribe that I was unknowingly excommunicated from because the leader of the tribe – the one I dubbed The Professional Gaslighting Narcissist (PGN) – had it in for me, and I did not even know it. The PGN masqueraded as my friend, but she surely was not as I would painfully learn. She smeared me enough that others in my former department were cautious enough around me not to talk to me.

Under the PGN’s influence, others within the department often treated me as if I did not exist. I always knew from their shared looks with each other that often masked their hidden smiles that there had been things said about me. So, at work, I simply greeted them kindly but kept myself moving about my day. They were all likable women though. I think I was just seen as an anomaly. Once one is not a part of a former department, one is no longer considered a member of the tribe.

Needless to say, that work environment had cliques, and that always reminded me of my life in high school. Just like in high school, I also traveled solo at work. I am an introvert. Being solo works for me, and I do not need to be in a group. I fit in where I could with those who were likeminded with me. Finding support in a toxic work environment was often hard because people there could really be backstabbers. It was really hard to trust anyone. So once I found someone I could mesh with and vice versa, we generally stuck together for support. It was the only way of life for work survival while working within that beastly machine. I do not miss it at all.

While sitting in the restaurant waiting anxiously for the food order, I thought with great sadness how much better work might have been if there was not so much destructive drama. Then I thought about how I walked away to free myself so that I would never have to deal with that destructive drama ever again. I do not want to go back there – not physically, not emotionally, not psychologically. I am done. I was done long ago. When I cut off the last former narcissist-frenemy from my life, I cut her off with the intention of never having to hear about that toxic work environment again. That meant that some things would have to change even whenever I encountered ex-colleagues.

I now found myself in that position again. It was only a week prior to this situation that I ran into another former colleague who was also a former friend to the PGN. I realized then that the door to my old life was closed for a reason, and it needed to remain closed. Despite my love for former colleagues, clients, and the work I did, that is now all in the past. There are truths from that I cannot escape nor sweep underneath a rug. The one truth is: that work culture was extremely toxic. I do not miss the toxicity at all. In fact, I miss so little of that place that when I encounter reminders of it, I am instantly triggered. I immediately feel waves of anxiety crash all over me to the point that I feel frozen in place. For this very reason, I know that I do not ever wish to return to the past. Are those frozen moments in time residual effects of post traumatic stress?

Anyway … when the food order I was waiting for finally came, I picked it up and briskly walked away. I did not turn to speak to the former colleagues. I do not believe I was recognized anyway. Even if I was recognized, I did not hear my name as if someone called out to me. I do not believe either of them would have called out to me anyway. Unfortunately, they were among the types to sit, watch, and wait for me to speak to them with me knowing that as I walked away they would have begun their whispering chatters of gossip about me. Yet, at the same time, I was also never a part of their clique. So, it would have made sense for us not to have any conversation. What would there be to talk about anyway? Outside of a shared experience of the workplace, we did not know each other.

Yet, as I made my way out of the restaurant while looking straight ahead, I could not help but think how I once “knew” these women as people I had worked with even if not in a very close capacity. Our supervisors had deemed us employees as a collective, close-knit family. On some level, we were familial in the sense that we worked for the same cause and purpose. In most cases, we all had the same common goal. It is possible that had I been recognized by them, I might have been invited to their table to simply reconnect about those times at work. We might have laughed about how none of us are at that toxic workplace anymore.

Equally, we might have shared experiences we faced within that toxic network, but then I would remember. I would remember that even though we shared similar experiences, we might have been equally responsible for each other’s pain in some way based on all that happened within that beastly system of toxicity. Thinking upon this made me realize just how much I did not want to do that. I did not want to go there. That is no longer my life anymore. I do not want to rehash, and I do not want to reconnect. It is over for me. I said my goodbyes long ago. Those goodbyes were a part of my closure to that toxic workplace. I want to move on. I have closed that chapter in my life. In fact, that part of my life was a different book that I no longer want to read.

When I got into my car to leave, I felt great emotion come over me, but I could not cry. I felt anxiety mixed with elements of shame and sadness. I felt shame for having walked away and not acknowledging them even though I was highly doubtful that they even recognized me. I could only wonder what has become of these women and hoped for them some semblance of peace in the same way that I desire peace for me. That work beast could suck the life right out of its victims only for the victims to get up each day again and again and give their all to the work’s purpose. It was a never-ending cycle, but we all exited the wheel in exchange for new lives. I can definitely say that my new life is nothing at all like my old life.

Sometimes people step into their new lives but hold onto their familiar support system from the old lives. For many people, that is okay. For these women, that might very well be needed since they all just recently left that workplace. Besides, they, both individually and collectively, are the only ones who would understand the craziness they experienced while working there, and sometimes it is helpful to talk about it in an effort to process it all. I had to process after I left too. I had to talk it over with others that were also connected in some way but also left. However, after a while, no one wants to rehash it because it is toxic stuff. No one wants to continue to relive what is no longer a part of their lives. It becomes clear that it is better to let go and move on.

Sometimes we have to let go of the past, and that often includes letting go of the people who were a part of that past as well. There is no harm in reconnecting from time to time, but for me, I cannot go back to the old life. I cannot go back ever. When I realize how much toxicity existed in that old environment, I recoil from anything that is a reminder. It often feels like I need to run when confronted with the memories. In fact, after seeing those ex-colleagues, I wanted to disappear. The anxiety was so strong because I did not want to be seen or even recognized. I figured that if I kept my back turned while standing, I would not be noticed, but then I needed to sit down because I felt so overwhelmed by the anxiety. Why was I so anxious?

I realized that despite how much the old work environment had been like a family, they were like a dysfunctional family. That work place thrived on toxicity. The place was so overrun with narcissists. Those narcissists and their flying monkeys presented the perfect concoction of destruction to the very lives of the people who willingly gave their all for the good of it everyday. In those moments that I was in that restaurant attempting to melt away into oblivion, I was faced with the truth that those particular women had never even been my friends. We were merely acquaintances that shared the same space. We were friendly, but that was just about it. I made no connections with them. So that meant that I was also irrelevant to their circle of connection. Realizing this made it easier to drive away even though I was left with the residual effects of my emotions.

There is a cost in shunning the old life, but the cost is worth it when the old life presented with so much emotional pain. I am better off simply walking away. I am better off with a no-contact type of attitude towards the people of the past. Had I been recognized and called out, I would have definitely spoken to the women, but I would have had the excuse of delivering an order as my reason for choosing not to indulge with them. I do not know for sure, but I could tell by the looks on their faces that they were most likely sharing their combined war stories about being in the work trenches. I just did not want to go there. I want no parts of that life anymore even though I empathize with them. They got out. So they are free to shun that old life as well, but it definitely takes time, and it surely takes a strong mindset.

It’s goodbye all over again.