Overcoming Character Assassination
You’re not rotten; they need you to be rotten.
Workplace Mobbing: Belinda reclaims herself
Belinda is healing from a classic case of workplace mobbing, and like Peeta in The Hunger Games, trying to disentangle “real” from “not real”; trying to parse what is truly hers to own and what is not.
There were so many things said about her—vicious, vile, go-for-the jugular attacks on her character and integrity—which the more she protested, the more was used as proof that she is the one who was difficult, lacking in self-awareness and unable to take constructive feedback.
And this is just what happens, when the accusations just keep coming, and coming and coming, and people back away from you: you start to think there really must be some truth to them, otherwise how could this be happening?
In a recent coaching session, she opened with “What if I’m rotten at the core?”
This is rough approximation of where we went with that.
Dismantle one narrative, write a new one
Belinda: What if I'm rotten at the core?
Sue: What makes you think that?
Belinda: People keep treating me badly. They seem to see something fundamentally wrong with me. So it seems like there's got to be something I'm doing that I'm not seeing.
Sue: Shall we play a game?
Belinda: Okay. (slowly, hesitantly)
Sue: Imagine someone acting like a complete shit. Really badly and harmfully. What would that justify or excuse in your own behavior?
Belinda: (Long silence) Nothing.
Sue: Say more…?
Belinda: Even if someone is being a, in your words, shit, that doesn't justify me being a shit. I'm still responsible for my own actions.
Sue: Very adult of you! So, what does that reveal about their behavior towards you?
Belinda: (Another long silence, thinking it through) If someone else's shitty behavior doesn't excuse or justify me being a shit, then maybe their shitty behavior to me says more about them than me?
Sue: And what might it say about them?
Belinda: That they're the shits, not me?
Sue: Maybe! What else? Play with the idea that "every action is an attempt to meet a need." A tragic attempt, maybe, but that there's still some underlying, valid need that they're trying to meet. In a really shitty way, yes. What might their underlying needs in "behaving like a shit" towards you be?
Belinda: (Thinking) That they're trying to protect something? That they feeling threatened by something?
Sue: And what might they be trying to protect? Or what might they be feeling threatened by?
Belinda: Well, clearly me!
Sue: Ok, but what about you would be threatening to them?
Belinda: Oh, um. That I'm competent. That I have opinions of my own and speak my mind. That I'm not just a 'Yes, girl' who does only as I'm told. That I'm an independent thinker. That I ask questions. That I challenge things. That I was insisting that they do things the right way, listen to stakeholders, partner with the community.
Sue: That's quite the list! And if that's threatening to them, what does it tell you about them?
Belinda: (pausing, thinking) That they're easily threatened. Oh wow. And if they're that easily threatened…then they can't feel very secure about themselves, can they?
Sue: Seems like you just had a big perspective shift there?
Belinda: Yeah. I mean…when you step back and look it that way, it's just actually really funny. And sad. That even though they have the power and the title and the authority, inside they're actually just insecure. And so they tear me down, to make themselves feel better.
Sue: It is interesting to think of it that way, isn’t it? Let's come back to your original question. If every action is an attempt to meet a need, what needs might drive someone to make you out as 'rotten to the core' in your words?
Belinda: The need to feel powerful. The need to feel that they're better than I am. And…(reflecting) maybe also the need to feel justified in their behavior towards me? To feel blameless? Like if I'm rotten, then that justifies their actions, and they don't need to look at their own insecurities and what it's driving.
Sue: Which we established doesn't. That, as you said, regardless of how badly someone else is behaving, it doesn't justify us behaving badly. Here's a trickier question for you. When you internalize their view of you, that you're the problem and 'rotten to the core', what needs of yours are you meeting?
Belinda: (long pause, voice getting smaller) Oh wow. That’s a hard one. I guess... my need to belong? If I accept that I'm the problem, then maybe they'll accept me? (bitter laugh) Which makes no sense when I say it out loud. Or maybe... maybe I'm meeting my need to make sense of why they're treating me this way. If I'm rotten, then at least their behavior makes sense. (She pauses) But that means I'm sacrificing my own self-worth to maintain a story that protects them from accountability for their own behavior. And that's just kind of crazy now, isn't it?
Sue: You asked, 'What if I'm rotten at the core?' What's your answer to that now?
Belinda: That them making me think I'm rotten is just sad..Like, they needed to make me rotten, in order for them to feel OK about what they were doing…which says so much about them, not me. And then me believing that I'm rotten…I'm just making myself responsible for their shitty behavior. Which is just crazy. I'm not responsible for their behavior, I'm only responsible for my own behaviour.
Sue: And what does your own behavior tell you about your 'rottenness'?
Belinda: That I'm as capable as the next person as behaving like a shit when I'm feeling scared and threatened. It still doesn't excuse it, though.
Sue: So did they actually make you feel rotten?
Belinda: Yes, of course they did! (Pausing) But that's not the complete picture, is it? Yeah, what they were doing was shitty and horrible and by the way they made it all about me, they absolutely made me feel rotten. But I also made myself feel rotten. I told myself this must be happening for a reason, and so I took on all the responsibility of their behavior towards me. And that's just kind of dumb. I mean, yes, it was happening for a reason—but I wasn't the sole reason. Their own insecurities, or something else, were likely also a part of what was driving their behavior too. And I'm not responsible for that. I can only be responsible for my own relationship with myself.
Sue: So, once more, are you rotten?
Belinda: No, I'm only as rotten as I allow myself to believe. Others can call me rotten, but that's on them. How I behave…what I believe—particularly what I believe about myself— is on me. What they believe, about me, about themselves, and how they behave is on them.
Sue: Can I invite you to try a gentle rephrase? Experiment with “I’m no more rotten than any other human. I’m only as rotten as I allow myself to be,” versus “I’m not rotten, but I can sometimes do rotten things?” Can I invite you to try out both of those out loud? What difference, if any, do you notice in your body as you say each of them.
Belinda: (Tries them each out) The first one, it just feels heavy. Like this heavy, heavy blanket just wrapped around me. And I can’t move underneath that blanket. I’m just invisible and immobilized. But the second one, it feels so much lighter. Like I‘m standing up straighter, and I can breathe. I’m not under the blanket, unable to move. I’ve been holding the blanket around myself, but I can also choose to just let go of the blanket. I’m not burdened with this impossible weight I am doomed to carry, forever and always.
Sue: So what do you want to tell yourself now about your rottenness…or otherwise?
Belinda: (voice sounding more hopeful ): Whenever I’m in a bad place, I tend to go for my blanket and wrap it around myself. I think it will make me feel better. And it does in a weird way…like, oh yeah, if I’m rotten, then all this makes sense. But when I keep myself under the blanket….that’s when I get really stuck. I forget that just as I put the blanket on, I can take the blanket off. I’m not the blanket. The blanket is just something I reach for from time to time. I’m not rotten. I just sometimes do rotten stuff. And I can do something about that.
Sue: You sound much more hopeful now.
Belinda: I am, yes. I mean even saying to myself, “I’m rotten”...I’m telling myself that’s who I am. Case closed. But…“I’m not rotten, but I can sometimes do rotten stuff”....I can I do something about that.
Other articles you may enjoy reading:
Disrupting toxicity: The true story of how a manager got a "bully" to change
It’s behaviour, not personality: If my younger brother can do it, so can we all.
The Tragedy of the Fundamental Attribution Error: It's why so much of the feedback we receive just feels wrong.
The art of giving and receiving feedback: How to give real feedback that doesn't suck. How to take it when it does.
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