Mobbing Resources

Today I'm talking about resources for those who are recovering.

There are all kinds of situations where a person can be mobbed by a group. There’s workplace mobbing that I've been talking about the last several episodes and there's mobbing in a family, which we call scapegoating, there's also mobbing in a school, most often called group bullying. I spent probably an insane amount of time trying to figure out the distinctions between all these different terms when I was going through my own nightmare scenario with being mobbed at work. And what I found was there were many online resources that helped me: YouTube channels, websites, and blog posts. I would like to share what I have found to be the most useful, the most interesting, and the most trauma-informed resources first, when I was in hostile work situation attempting to get out. And second, as I was leaving that situation and attempting to heal.

YouTube.

The most useful YouTube video I found was released about two years ago. It was the best video I could find to help me put things in perspective in terms of what was happening to me. It’s called Scapegoating In the Workplace. The presenter is Dr. Vanessa Avery. This video is almost an hour long. It’s a video of a conference where she's talking specifically about how people are driven out of the workplace and how it is a scapegoating phenomenon. Usually there are real problems in the organization, but the people in charge don't want to fix those problems, so they will focus on an individual or small-group to target, then drive them out of the workplace. She goes over real life examples where this has happened. She has a PowerPoint. You can't always read the PowerPoint and it’s kind of academic the way it is presented, but for me it was the most insightful and helpful YouTube video I could find while in the midst of being mobbed out of my own job. 

A second group of helpful YouTube videos were put out by Meredith Miller of Inner Integration. I found these helpful, not because they applied directly to mobbing in the workplace but rather due to the in-depth coverage of the psychological abuses that were used in my workplace, abuses such as gaslighting, minimization, and  isolation. Turns out the tactics of narcissistic individuals and the tactics of narcissistic organizations are really similar. So much so, it is uncanny. Meredith Miller comes from a family that was dysfunctional herself, and she talks about a lot of these things from a personal perspective. I would highly recommend anything from Meredith Miller of Inner Integration.

Websites.

I have distinguished websites from blogs, because they are not the same thing. There were two websites I found to have invaluable resources on them. The first was www.workplacebullying.org which is the website for the Workplace Bullying Institute run by Gary and Ruth Namie. There’s a lot of useful stuff here and resources for those being bullied at work. My only complaint is that bullying is a really big umbrella. And mobbing, despite being the equivalent of bullying on steroids, doesn’t seem to receive any special distinction or recommendations.

Another website, which I found helpful, is the one maintained by The American Psychological Association. It has lots of articles about bullying in general and workplace bullying in particular. They have some useful resources, including tips on how to select a psychotherapist that is right for you.  

Blogs.

There were two blogs that I found to be useful and relevant. Both of them dealt specifically with workplace mobbing, and neither called the phenomenon something else entirely, such as scapegoating or bullying. The first blog was Minding the Workplace written by David Yamada. Much like the first YouTube video I referenced, it’s more scholarly in tone, but since the author references everything, it's well worth the read. 

The blog helped me maintain perspective. It is about human dignity at work. My three favorite blog posts written by David Yamada are: (1) Workplace bullying, DARVO, and aggressors claiming victim status, (2)  Slow retaliation: When workplace payback is subtle, nuanced, and Drawn-out, and (3) Workplace bullying and mobbing: Toxic systems and the eliminationist mindset.

Through the work of David Yamada, I found another helpful blog called Free-Spirited Me hosted by Dr. Sophie Henshaw, which is geared towards entrepreneurs, but on this blog there is a guest series by Janice Gilligan White, who was mobbed out of her job as a pilot.

This series of five blog posts is well-written and insightful. My two favorites are (1) Workplace Mobbing In Aviation: A Survivor's Story and (2) Workplace Aggression: Why “Let Go” Is Bad Advice. That one is  absolutely my hands-down favorite, because when you're going through hell and when you're trying to get out of it, the last thing you want to hear is, “Just let it go. Can you just not let it get to you?”

It’s typically the same people who think they could withstand anything, that they are an island unto themselves, and that no matter what anyone does to them they would be fine because they're tough. Except that's not how human are wired. 

You can't just have someone hold a gun to your head and not be afraid you're going to die. 

You might be able to stay cool by deep breathing and trying to keep your head clear. You might be able to act like you're not afraid, but deep down, if someone's holding a gun to your head, you're going to be terrified. 

Similarly, if you're being mobbed out of your job, you're going to feel bad. You’re not going to be able to just go home and forget about it, because that is not how human nature works.

It’s not how life works.

Books.

One book that has really helped me is The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., which talks about how we hold trauma in our bodies. To sum up, the body keeps the score of anything that happens to you that’s traumatic. You may not be aware of how trauma is stored in your body, but it doesn't just go away. Once there, it remains and will likely effect you in some way. A second book that helped me was Blind To Betrayal by Jennifer Freyd, who came up with the acronym DARVO.  

DARVO is short for Deny, Accuse, Reverse Victim and Offender. It’s shorthand for how perpetrators of abuse turn things around when they're confronted. Basically, instead of taking responsibility or apologizing to the target, they will Deny what they did, and then Accuse the target with an ad hominem attack, thereby Reversing Victim and Offender.

Jennifer Freyd is also a pioneer in writing about betrayal trauma. 

Betrayal trauma is a little bit different than regular trauma, because it's the trauma of being betrayed by someone that you deeply trust. When a child is mistreated and abused by a parent, that would be a form of betrayal trauma. Being cheated on by a spouse would be betrayal trauma. It is psychologically harder to process and deal with betrayal trauma than a one-event non-personal trauma like being in a car accident, for instance. That’s because with betrayal trauma, you're dealing with two traumas. The first is the traumatic event itself and the second is that this person who was supposed to love and support you, this person who was supposed to have your back, has just essentially done something cruel to hurt you. 

That’s a very deep wound.

I hope these resources help those who are getting out of hostile workplaces and other toxic relationships. Did you read a different book, blog, or website that helped you recover?

Share it in the comments below.