Hello Anita,
Sorry for the delayed response. Thank you so much again for your input and validation! Yes, I did see a therapist back then, but unfortunately, I couldn’t attend more than a couple of sessions due to my then circumstances. Those sessions did help a bit, and all the while I thought that I’ve healed, but I don’t know why, these memories have sudenly resurfaced after years now.
Regarding that company, it’s a well-established one, but the same rules of “team-culture” applied throughout all it’s branches. Though a few anti-bullying Laws existed, not everybody followed them well. What you shared regarding mobbing was exactly what I felt – it felt as a campaign of terrorism against me, for my unintentional mistakes or their percieved “mistakes”of mine, despite my constant apologies towards them everytime.
I hope I’m not bothering you too much and that it’s okay to share some more painful memories which I’m struggling with. Back then, I struggled with low-self esteem and had insecurities regarding my looks, and my colleagues deliberately picked on my insecurities repeatedly to hurt me more. They used to ask my other office friends(outside of my Project) about why they were even friends with “someone like me”, implying that I didn’t deserve to have any friends. Also, when I refused to share any personal info about my then boyfriend, they interrogated me like a criminal and made sarcastic, hurtful comments saying that I was “lying” about having a boyfriend. These interrogation sessions were traumatic and dehumanizing to say the least. This forced me to reveal all info about him. They went through his Facebook profile trying to find clues of our relationship and kept up with their “You are lying” taunts when they didn’t find any traces of it. When it was finally revealed that he was indeed my boyfriend, one of them, made a comment, “Your boyfriend really loves you”- which, to me then seemed sarcastic, and I percieved it as, “Your boyfriend must really like you to love someone like you”. We kept going back-and-forth and I finally lashed out at one of them, say X, saying, “My bf looks better than X”. X got angry, and I stated the reason why I said what I said. They said that they didn’t mean it in a negative way and they actually meant what they said. I immediately apologized sincerely to them for misunderstanding them and explained them that I didn’t really mean what I said, and that I was just emotionally hurt by their behaviour and lashed out. They refused to accept my apologies at first, and after apologizing a couple of times more, everybody else accepted, except for X. I felt unheard and hurt that they felt entitled to think about me the way they wanted and treated me less than human, but a single event of misunderstanding on my part was treated as a crime even after sincere apologies from my side.
Things started getting even worse after this incident. Though they said that they accepted my apologies, they still bullied me by making aggressive and sarcastic comments about my character and looks at every chance they got. All this intensified into other bullying events which I explained in above posts.
During my last days in that Project, I tried one last time to have a conversation with X to get some closure. I shared that I had insecurities and that their repeated verbal attacks on my insecurites has traumatized me. To which X replied, “I too have insecurities, you were mean to me too” referring to the one time I lashed out at him. I apologized again to him, but he said that I deserved all the bullying.
Now, I completely agree that I was in the wrong to have made a mean comment about him, but I feel that he was being very unfair in equating the magnitude of effects of a one-time occurence(to which apologies were already issued multiple times), to the magnitude of effects of repetitive harassment, and saying that I deserved it. Could you please your thoughts about this?