The Things Nobody Warns You About: Workplace Harassment Gets Weird

⚠️ Trigger Warning

This post discusses workplace retaliation, psychological harm, racialized workplace dynamics, and PTSD. Please take care while reading.

I’ve been open about a lot on this page.

The retaliation.

The patient safety complaints.

The lawsuits.

The federal investigations.

The fabricated termination pretexts.

The suspended privileges mailed to defunct addresses.

I’ve written about suicidal ideation, medication escalation, and what it means to be a Black woman physician who raises safety concerns and gets told the relationship is “broken.”

But there’s one thing I never talked about publicly because, honestly, it embarrassed me.

I was afraid people would laugh.

Or dismiss it.

Or say:

“It’s just a bathroom, doctor.”

I privately called it:

The Poop Wars. 

Yes, Really. The Bathroom.

Let me set the scene.

I was:

• A neurologist

• Top 15% nationally in patient satisfaction within six months

• Top RVU producer in the clinic

• EEG Medical Director

• The physician who cut new-patient wait times from nine months down to two

And every single day, my practice manager would walk past multiple empty staff bathrooms to use the one directly adjacent to my office and clinical space.

Not occasionally.

Consistently.

Strategically timed.

Usually right before my busiest clinic hours.

I would sit in patient visits trying to maintain clinical focus while my immediate workspace became physically unpleasant and psychologically distracting.

It sounds petty.

That was the point.

Why I Stayed Quiet About It

For a long time, I didn’t say anything because I worried no one would believe it was intentional.

Honestly, part of me questioned myself too.

Maybe I was reading into it.

Maybe I was already so psychologically worn down by:

• Scheduling chaos

• Communication blockades

• Dismissive leadership

• Ongoing retaliation

…that I was starting to see patterns everywhere.

That second-guessing is not accidental.

It is part of how this kind of harassment works.

The absurdity is the strategy.

Because when behavior sounds too small or too weird to describe out loud, targets silence themselves before anyone else has to.

The Science of Petty

The more I’ve spoken with other professionals who survived toxic workplaces, the more I realized something:

Workplace harassment often becomes bizarre.

Not because it’s random.

Because deniability is the mechanism.

Targeted harassment migrates away from obvious misconduct and into the ambient environment — the sensory layer of daily life.

Examples include:

• Thermostat manipulation

• Loud conversations timed outside someone’s office

• Being quietly removed from meetings

• Chairs repeatedly moved or altered

• Delayed acknowledgment in group conversations designed to create social exclusion

Each act alone sounds trivial.

Together, they become psychologically corrosive.

Ambient Harassment Is Real

What happened with the bathroom wasn’t really about the bathroom.

It was territorial behavior.

A physical, environmental message:

“You are not safe here.”

Organizational psychologists sometimes describe this as ambient harassment — environmental conduct designed to undermine psychological safety without producing clear evidence.

That’s why it’s so destabilizing.

You know something is happening.

But you struggle to prove it.

And the gap between what you feel and what you can document becomes its own form of psychological harm.

I had testified in court.

Handled over a thousand expert witness cases.

Managed highly complex neurological conditions.

And still, I found myself sitting in my office questioning my own reality over a bathroom.

That is how effective this type of behavior can be.

The “Angry Black Woman” Trap

There was another layer to this.

The people doing this understood exactly what they were creating.

If I reacted emotionally — if I raised my voice, complained forcefully, or visibly expressed frustration — I risked becoming:

• “Difficult”

• “Disruptive”

• “Unable to work with staff”

• “Complaining”

That word was actually used to my face by leadership after I raised safety concerns.

This dynamic is deeply familiar to many Black women professionals.

The ambient harassment is engineered to provoke a reaction.

Then the reaction becomes the documented problem.

The original conduct disappears.

I refused to take the bait.

But the cost of restraint was swallowing things that never should have been swallowed.

Why I’m Saying This Now

Because nearly every retaliation survivor I’ve spoken with has some version of:

“The thing I was too embarrassed to tell anyone.”

The thing that sounded:

• Too petty

• Too strange

• Too insignificant

• Too unbelievable

But those things matter.

They are part of the pattern.

Workplace abuse is not always screaming or slurs or overt threats.

Sometimes it looks like someone clicking down a hallway in heels at the exact same time every day to remind you, without ever saying it directly:

“This space is not yours.” 

And if something happened to you that felt “too weird” to explain —

I believe you.

Call to Action

If you’ve experienced workplace harassment that made you question your own perception:

👉 Document it

👉 Trust your instincts

👉 Talk to someone safe

👉 Know that psychological harassment often works through ambiguity and deniability

And if you are in leadership:

Understand that toxic workplace culture is not always loud.

Sometimes the most damaging behavior is subtle, persistent, and intentionally difficult to prove.

But employees feel it anyway.

And eventually, patients, teams, and institutions feel the consequences too.

🩺 Resources & Support

If you are struggling with workplace trauma, retaliation, or psychological distress:

• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — Call or text 988

• Physician Support Line — 1-888-409-0141

• Visit Phoenix Advocacy Network for additional resources and advocacy support

Because surviving a toxic workplace should not require losing your sense of reality first.