“I had to make a decision. A hard, life altering, pivotal decision. Stay quiet and unhappy in a career that seemed to be filled with the parts of professionalism that were broken. Or, leave for this new adventure of a lifetime. One in which I knew I couldn’t go back. I can’t go back.
Once this is out there, I’m out there.
Staying quiet was not built into my DNA. This is my calling.
Advocating for people who are suffering is not easy work. I know it means that I had to put an end to any job search. I knew it meant risking the connections I had along the path I was on. I knew, still know, that once I picked up this fight, I would be on my own.
Alone is the place I’ve spent for the past decade after my own workplace abuse experience got to be too much.
I also knew I couldn’t choose to say no.
‘Enough’ was the word whispered to me while thinking about the two years I spent deep diving into the abyss of the world of workplace abuse.
- Enough with the way people were being treated was only the beginning.
- Enough with the level of widespread acceptance of the mindset from employers.
- Enough with the way people are to this day being told they have no choice.
They have a choice.
It’s not an easy one.
Enough.
We, the people, have had enough.
I made the decision to reach out to End Workplace Abuse to ask how I could help. This post is my first real contribution in a professional manner. To help get the stories out there.
I’m Karen Henry, a lifelong survivor of workplace bullying as well as a trauma-informed transformational life coach with twenty five years in the field of psychology. I’ve worked in several industries, from teaching eight different courses I designed for the State University of New York and two private colleges to mental health counseling and workshop presentations on thriving. Today, I’m a writer, content creator, and mental health practitioner.
We don’t thrive until everyone feels as if they have a place to feel safe. The psychological safety act was the first glimmer of hope I’d seen in a long time.
When you stay quiet to keep the peace with them, you start a war within yourself.
That war has nearly ended me a few times in the sector of society that should be coveting a safe space for people to grow. Instead, it was filled with landmines ripe with dissent. Toxic dissent where only a few will benefit while millions of others will suffer is not a way for us to live as a society.
My decision to move forward is my declaration of knowing that to pursue our calling, we must also take a stand. The stand I’m taking from here on forward is to professionally identify with those who want the world to be a better place for all.
Nobody has the right to interfere with the health and well-being of anyone else, and yet it’s a wildly accepted way to do business.
Nobody has the right to interfere with the health and well-being of anyone else, and yet it’s a wildly accepted way to do business. It’s not just competition or dissatisfaction with how we work. It’s a gut punch to the breakdown of society itself. We have heard story after story of tragedy, death, despair all interwoven with people giving up. People are trying to live their lives, while someone is blindly abusing them for sport, and others simply do not care about the emotional health of their employees or co-workers.
This isn’t about only civility. It’s about a nurturing of a preventable problem.”