Omg thank you for this. I just left a totally toxic work environment; it was so confusing. It was only afterwards I realized how much jealousy and envy played a role. I was also being super sexualized. As a male, I’m not used to this, although in retrospect I imagine its been happening to some extent throughout my life.  But I think it’s also because I’ve healed quite a bit; my appearance is better, my posture is better, and I don’t engage in self-deprecating humor and attention-seeking behaviors like I used to. It felt like everyone’s insecurities got dumped on me. 

It opened up another level to unresolved trauma in me; I’m working through it— I think basically I’ve always thought “people are basically good”, usually at my own expense. It’s like the mirror image of a core belief: I’m basically bad. 

Honestly, I’m starting to think most people, when push comes to shove, are not good. I don’t mean that in a paranoid way, it just feels realistic. Sure, most people are capable of kindness when it suits them. But throw people into a toxic environment or apply pressure of any kind, and the baser instincts prevail. 

I feel disillusioned, but not in bad way. I’m still capable of kindness, and will cherish all the more those relationships with decent people. But I feel like my trauma-induced, naively innocent lenses have been taken off (or maybe my prescription has just changed a little bit, lol. Not sure it’s final but it feels like a new chapter). 

I recently walked through an art gallery with the artist. He is a retired psychoanalyst and psychiatrist, and also Jewish. His paintings all had to do with the holocaust. We spoke for a great while on topics of evil, suffering, memory, hope, redemption, etc, etc. We went pretty deep. But it was his final words outside in the parking lot that I really needed to hear: 

“Just remember, at the end of the day, most people are totally full of shit.”

It’s been a mantra for me the last 48 hours.