Either it’s not shit they’re taking, or it’s not fine.

The mismatch between respectful treatment and non-respectful treatment will cause a constant drain on energy and health, and it will recalibrate one’s own sense of self worth via the mechanism called “cognitive dissonance”.

How does cognitive dissonance come into play here? If a person says their being treated in an unacceptable manner, but they behave as if it’s okay for people to treat them that way, the difference between these will cause cognitive dissonance. Given the brain works to reduce cognitive dissonance over time, if the person doesn’t quit then it will alter their sense of boundaries and what is acceptable. In short their self image as to their level of dignity will fall. They will come to view themselves as someone to whom it is acceptable yo act abusively.

And a person it’s “okay” to abuse is a low thing indeed.

It will manifest in some way. Likely there will be a reduction in self-care (why take care of someone not worthy of being taken care of?). It can manifest as resentment and hatred toward others. A person can become really touchy and self-righteous, as a compensation for the creeping subconscious belief that they are worthless.

Because the cognitive dissonance operates on other levels too. If they try to maintain their self worth, sometimes they’ll try by tearing down others. They’ll distract from the feeling of unworthiness by seeking to establish that others aren’t worthy. This can be attacks on others’s character, arbitrary abuse of others.

It can manifest in a desperate attempt to gain respect through people pleasing. That can lead to overpromising, which eventually becomes broken promises, low performance reviews, and termination.

And the cognitive dissonance operates in the mind of the manager as well. Let’s say a manager is exhibiting two conflicting beliefs:

• I’m a good person who treats people fairly (mental thought), VS
• I’m treating this person poorly.

How does the manager’s mind resolve this conflict to reduce cognitive dissonance? One way is it finds excuses to punish the person. In order to create congruence between “I’m a good a manager” and “I’m treating this person poorly”, one way to bridge that gap is to add in “They did something wrong”.

Generally speaking, abuse transforms the abused person for as long as they acquiesce to it. It also transforms the abuser. Neither person benefits in terms of mental health. Both may be engaging in the pattern out of a mistaken belief it will bring them financial benefit. But long term, abuser and victim are both poisoned psychologically by their two, independent, decisions to allow the abuse to exist.

One might even go so far as to say groups of people have cognitive dissonance acting at the collective level (individually occurring in each mind, but interacting in complementary ways to enable and support each other). At a collective level, a society might proclaim “All people are inherently valuable”, but if that society allows abuse to continue, embedded into its institutions, that conflicts with the stated societal value, and it starts to produce a new unconscious (and therefore harder to grapple with and control) belief that “People are shit”.

I am not kidding, at all, when I say that my health was fine when I was homeless, but my health suffered massively when I put up with abuse at work. These findings are backed up by scientific studies on heart attacks: turns out if you compare heavy workload vs lack of respect, the lack of respect is a better predictor of heart attacks than is the heavy workload.

And in my case I didn’t even keep the job. Those mechanisms I described led to my status within the company falling and falling. I got overloaded with work and not listened to when I had issues. I eventually got fired. So for me at least, trying to sacrifice my dignity for money just straight up failed.

I now make $47k, and my finances are more stable than when I was making $105k.

I don’t know about others, but for me money doesn’t even work right for me if I’m not acting according to my conscience. I saved nothing during that time I tried to sacrifice my dignity.

It’s a real life example of a “deal with the devil”. He promises you great things, but ultimately the terms of the deal are that you lose your soul.

In the words of one of my favorite psychology professors:

If you ignore that thing that’s calling you forth, you will pay for it like you cannot possibly imagine.

That sentence echoed in my head as I wallowed in abuse (a relationship this time, not a job). I was trying to accept it. But a little voice inside me would not accept it. It said “this is wrong. It can be better”, and that quote scared me.

Because abuse isn’t level. It gets worse and worse the longer you put up with it. It only feels level because as the abuse gets worse, your ability to perceive it as abuse is getting worse at the same time.

It’s a pathway to ruin. And there are forms of ruin worse than having to sleep in a homeless shelter, having to carry a knife to defend against psychos, worse than extreme hunger, sleep deprivation.

That’s what I would say, if I thought there was any chance they’d listen.

ACCEPTING ABUSE DOES NOT WORK