Field Notes: The Receding Pollution of a Storm

There is a difference between failing and being failed.

For a long time, I carried the weight of what happened at my old job as if it meant something about me.

I thought if I worked harder, stayed calmer, communicated better, kept more records, anticipated more problems, absorbed more pressure, or made myself smaller, then maybe things would have turned out differently.

But the truth is, I was working inside a system that was already unhealthy.

I was dealing with people who were reactive, political, avoidant, territorial, and sometimes cruel. I was expected to absorb confusion, poor communication, shifting expectations, missing information, and other people’s bad behavior without reacting to it.

When I struggled, there was no real support. No mentorship. No protection. No one stepping in to say, “This is not okay.”

Instead, I was left to carry the stress alone. Abandonment after extraction.

In hindsight, I can see that I was often being used to absorb, deflect, and buffer problems that were bigger than me and were not mine.

I had no shield. I wasn’t allowed to talk to anybody about it either.

I was left exposed to other people's moods, confusion, politics, and dysfunction, while being offered no protections.

I was blamed for feeling hurt.

I was teased, taunted, set up, and mocked.

I was given the wrong information. No training. No support. My job description never stabilized and no one cared how stressful that was.

I was given verbal compliments but written complaints. I was given sarcasm and snark instead of training.

I was expected to smile through contradictions that would have confused and hurt anyone.

I can see now that I was not weak because I was overwhelmed.

I was overwhelmed because too much was being put on me. I was the scapegoat in a dysfunctional family.

I was trying to survive in an environment where speaking up was made to feel dangerous, where I questioned myself instead of questioning the people around me, and where I kept hoping that if I just did enough, eventually I would be safe.

But safety never came. Not with cameras. Not with monitoring. They knew where the blind spots were.

The environment failed me.

I can regret stepping foot in there.

I can regret staying too long.

I can regret how much I blamed myself.

I can regret how long it took me to understand what was happening.

But I do not have to carry shame for surviving something that hurt me.

I know now that I deserved better.

I deserved support.

I deserved guidance.

I deserved managers and coworkers who acted with integrity. Who didn’t just perform ethics and values.

They were not mentors, leaders, or protectors. They were just frightened people protecting their own dysfunction and position.

They were like children fighting over dirt. Or breaking a toy while fighting over it.

I deserved a workplace where I did not have to abandon myself to keep the peace.

The story is not that I was not enough.

The story is that I kept trying inside a system that could not give me what I needed.

And now the loop is closed.

I do not have to keep proving what happened.

I do not have to keep defending myself.

I do not have to keep carrying people who did not carry me.

I can let them keep their dysfunction.

I can take myself forward instead.

I do not miss any of them. Not even a little. I endured them.

The time itself was a storm I survived.

But they were pollution worked up by a storm.

They were the sewage in the floodwater. The debris. The contamination. The rot that rises to the surface when systems overflow.

Now the storm is over.

The water is clearing.

The air is better.

They stayed in the mud.

Life is so much better now.