Toxic systems are everywhere. People come from toxic families, endure toxic workplaces, and find themselves in toxic relationships. In her book “Too Much and Never Enough,” Mary Trump writes about how traumatic and heartbreaking it was for her to watch the toxic dynamics from the family she grew up in play out on a national political stage when her uncle was elected president 4 years ago. And worse, these dynamics seemed to resonate with so many American voters.
I’m very fortunate to have come from a healthy family of origin. For our clients – and there are many – who came from toxic, oppressive families, and have worked themselves to the bone to try to grow beyond that through therapy, boundary setting, and learning about healthy relationships, the news cycle of the last 4 years has been intensely triggering.
Coming from a family where kindness was emphasized over “winning”, though, did not prevent me from finding myself in an extremely toxic workplace. I’ve been thinking a lot about my first job after graduate school. It’s the most chaotic system I’ve ever been part of – at least until 4 years ago. I’d like to tell you about this system, because I think there’s a lot to be learned here, including:
- How the Trump administration is triggering for people who have come from families that have similar dynamics
- How microcosms of this dynamic exist across our life experiences
- How people who grew up in families like this may feel “comfortable” amid the chaos
My First “Therapy” Job
My first job after graduate school was a “clinical coordinator” position at a short-term group home for teenage girls who had been removed from their homes by the Department of Children and Families.
The job was inherently stressful. I was responsible for countless meetings and paperwork, as well as regular crisis intervention.
The systems I worked with were inherently flawed, because my assigned duties were in direct opposition to each other:
- Duty #1: Be a trustworthy therapist who the kids can safely open up to. “Tell me how you’re feeling, tell me about your family, tell me about your trauma, this is a safe space.”
- Duty #2: Make recommendations for whether these kids will reunite with their parents or be sent into foster care. “Well, social worker, based on what Lizzie told me in her allegedly confidential therapy sessions, I don’t think reunification is an option right now.”
And on top of this, as everyone knows, teenage girls have, like, a lot of feelings.
But none of those things were the reason this job was toxic.
The reason this job was toxic was “Darci”.
Darci (name changed) was the program director at the group home. She was charismatic, loud, unfiltered, and a bit rough around the edges. The hallmark characteristics of Darci’s leadership style – which may feel familiar if you’ve watching the news for the last 4 years – were as follows:
Divisiveness
Darci found a sense of power in stirring up conflict. She created wedges between people, and leaned hard into them until any sense of camaraderie and teamwork was impossible. She demanded loyalty. You were with her, or you were against her.
The clinical staff was not allowed to be friends with the caretaking staff. That assistant we just hired was falling down on the job, and didn’t I think she was a lazy slob? I could hire an intern to relieve some of my responsibilities, but I wasn’t allowed to delegate anything to her, so I felt incompetent and she felt useless. Had I heard what my coworker said about me behind my back?
Wedge. Wedge. Wedge.
Once, she had 7 people crowd into her tiny office, and tasked them with backing her up as she accused a long-term employee of stealing bed sheets. The employee denied having done it, but Darci’s “Greek chorus” disagreed or, like me, sat there, complicit, in flabbergasted silence. When your livelihood is on the line, how do you opt out of a toxic system as your boss perpetuates it?
Unpredictability
Darci showed up at my office door at 3 PM one Friday afternoon. “Hey, girl!” she said, big grin on her face. “What the heck are you still doing here? It’s Friday, get outta here!”
“Oh, um… I still have to finish writing Susie’s biopsychosocial report, and Carolyn’s 14-day status update isn’t finished yet.”
“It’ll still be here on Monday! Go home, have fun, enjoy yourself!”
Tentatively, I collected my belongings and left.
Monday morning, I arrived at work to find Darci waiting for me, looking furious. “Why isn’t Susie’s biopsychosocial finished yet? And do I need to call Carolyn’s social worker to explain why our incompetent clinical coordinator hasn’t finished her 14-day status update yet? If you can’t handle this job, I’ll find someone else who can. You need to step it up, Jennie.”
“I… you said… but on Friday, I told you… um… I’m sorry, I’ll get to work on those right now.”
“I’m so damn tired of your apologies. It’s always I’m sorry this, I’m sorry that. Sorry doesn’t help me justify our funding to the board. Completed reports do. Stop apologizing, and get your ass to work. I want those on my desk before you go to lunch. Also, I need you to meet with two of the girls this morning – they both had school refusal – and write up a safety plan for one of them, because she keeps threatening to run away. Figure out how to make it work – you only have yourself to blame for the backlog.”
This example, which is a true story, was characteristic of an ongoing dynamic. When I arrived at work, I never knew which Darci I’d encounter: happy, warm Darci who wanted to overshare about her weekend and treat me like her best friend, or angry, punitive Darcy who wanted to jump down my throat and slay me with her cruel wit.
Racism
Darci was Dominican, but this did not inoculate her from being racist towards other groups. I won’t repeat the horrible things she said, but her racist epithets were delivered with confidence, gusto, and glee. She would smile and hold court – “best friend mode” rather than “angry despot”.
Unlike the Great Disappearing Sheet Caper of 2010, I did not sit silently when she said these things. “Darci,” I said, “that’s terrible. You can’t say that, you’re talking about huge groups of actual people.”
Instead of examining her biases or keeping her horrible thoughts to herself, she responded to these protests by mocking me, or highlighting me as a special snowflake who would take exception to what she was going to say, and then saying it anyway. “I know Jennie is going to get ‘offended’ by this, but ___. It’s just how I feel. I’m just being honest.”
Which brings us to:
”Tells It Like It Is”
I’ve learned over the years that people who value brutal honesty above all else seem more focused on the “brutal” than the “honest”. In order for honesty to be anything more than guff, you have to balance it with kindness, consider other people’s perspectives, and deliver it with deliberate wording.
Most of the teens at the group home LOVED Darci. They had come from extremely toxic family systems, so Darci’s unfettered vitriol felt like home. (I’ve written before about how shitty families of origin make other abusive relationships feel “comfortable”.) But Darci’s “tell it like it is” style did real damage, not only to her employees, but also to the teen residents who adored her and clamored for her approval.
One Monday morning, I arrived at work to find that “Tanya,” one of our older residents, had thrown a chair down the stairs over the weekend. Tanya had been at the group home before, twice, and now she was 17, about to age out of the system. I talked to her for about half an hour, and she opened up to me about her abusive family, her inability to manage her feelings of rage, and her desire for change.
I highlighted strengths: “You threw a chair down the stairs, not at the girl you were mad at. So that shows me that somewhere deep down, you actually do have some ability to control how you act.” And, “The fact that you want to change is the first step.”
She breathed a sigh of relief and told me she wanted to learn more. Tears poured from her eyes.
And then Darci arrived. Someone must have briefed her on the weekend’s events, because she stormed upstairs and into the office where I was meeting with Tanya. Darci walked right up to Tanya and pointed a finger at her, two inches from her face. “YOU!” She growled. “You DISGUST me. You have not changed in the last 3 years, and you will NEVER change. Do NOT darken my doorstep today.”
I watched the hope and optimism drain out of Tanya’s eyes.
That’s the day I started looking for a new job.
Finding the strength to escape
As I said, I grew up in a family with healthy dynamics, which did not protect me from finding myself in a toxic workplace. But it did give me a sense of what is healthy and what is not. My sense of decency, of what to expect from authority figures, is grounded in healthy values:
- Kindness matters.
- Feelings are real.
- Empathy is a thing.
- Other people are people.
- Relationships aren’t zero sum.
Part of me felt like leaving the job was “failing”. How could I leave when I hadn’t yet figured out how to meet Darci’s expectations? What did that say about me?
Ultimately, nothing. And deep down, I knew this.
So after a few months of job searching, I moved onto the best job I’ve ever had working for someone else. My colleagues were supportive, my supervisors were collaborative, and the role was a lot closer to what I’d gone to school for.
But for more than a year, every time my supervisor said, “hey Jennie, do you have a minute?” my heart rate skyrocketed. I was sure I was going to get reamed for something. I never did. And this residual trauma from everything I experienced with Darci has grand implications for what it means to “move on”.
Because Trumpian politics are triggering
I worked for Darci for a year and a half. But imagine growing up in a family where these same characteristics – divisiveness, unpredictability, untethered racism, and brutal honesty – were the stuff of every day. Imagine having to vie so hard for approval, being pitted against siblings, not knowing if you were going to find a loving, understanding parent, or an angry, arbitrarily punitive one. Imagine being drawn to your parent’s charismatic, larger-than-life persona, and feeling that nothing mattered more than the glow of their affection… and dedicating your whole life to hustling for that glow, only to find, time and time again, that no hustle could ever be enough.
Maybe you don’t have to imagine it. A lot of our clients don’t.
So let’s say you grew up in a toxic system like that, and then 5 years ago, Donald Trump declares that he is running for president of the United States. He has the same pseudo-“strongman” characteristics that you grew up immersed in. Depending on who you are, what you value, and the work that you’ve done, you’d be likely to have one of two reactions:
- Total horror that this is happening. To hearken back to Mary Trump, when you’ve had to work so hard to recontextualize your childhood, recognize your parents’ fallibility, and learn to love yourself unconditionally, it’s devastating to watch what has played out on a national stage.
- A deep sense of home. “Someone understands me,” you think, “he reminds me of Dad.”
People from all kinds of families voted for Donald Trump for all kinds of reasons, so perhaps this is reductive. But I have to imagine that some of the people who did found that his way of relating to others struck a deep, resonant chord. It felt like what they’ve always believed “strength” is.
Now, with Joe Biden as president-elect, a lot of us can finally start to breathe again. “Hope” is a word I’m hearing a lot. Also, “relief”.
But just like my excellent job after the group home, it’s going to take a while to trust it. It might be hard to shake the habit of doomscrolling, and the habit of waking up in cold terror every morning.
In short, if you find it hard to feel calm again, be gentle with yourself. You’re about to leave an abusive relationship. There’s a grief process happening. You’re recovering from a collective trauma.
I am here to help.
If you’ve felt triggered by this process, it might help to recontextualize your experiences. Politics absolutely belongs in therapy, because the political is personal, and the news can be triggering.
Don’t hesitate to reach out. I’d love to support you if you’re trying to make meaning of the last five years.