September 4, 2024
One of the biggest stressors life can throw at you is toxic behaviour from people you spend a lot of time with, either in your paid or unpaid work. Here's a quick overview of what toxic behaviour is, why it's so stressful, and what to do about it.
What is toxic behaviour?
Toxic behaviour is any behaviour that makes you feel unsafe. It can range from overt behaviours that make you feel physically unsafe, including harassment and bullying, through to more subtle behaviours that make you feel excluded, like being ignored in discussions or left out of social events.
When you bring diversity to a social group, you may also encounter casual and often unintentional behaviours that compromise your feeling of belonging to the group. This could include casually racist or sexist jokes, or the assumption that everyone can manage stairs or will drink alcohol at a social event, for example.
How does toxic behaviour cause stress?
When we call out toxic behaviour, the response is often defensive ("It was just a joke") or aggressive ("Don't be so sensitive"). However, feeling safe among the people we spend a large proportion of our time with is a basic human need. Unlike many mammals, we evolved in tight-knit social groups, and each individual's survival depended on their ability to stay connected with their group. While that may no longer be physically true, the way our brains scan for threat is still strongly attuned to the social environment. They're still looking for signs of danger that we might end up on our own.
What can I do about it?
If you're feeling physically unsafe, the first thing to do is find somewhere you can seek help without putting yourself in further danger. At work, reach out directly to the person you feel safest with, who has authority to help. This may be your line manager, their line manager, someone from the Health and Safety team, or a union representative. At home, call 1800RESPECT - 1800 737 732.
Even if the behaviour is less threatening, the sooner you can address it, the better. Excusing minor instances of toxic behaviour as "not that big a deal", or "just part of life" allows them to continue, which means there's a good chance their impact will build up over time. It's much easier to deal early with a small issue than later with a larger, much more emotionally loaded one.
Identifying toxic behaviour and understanding how it causes stress is a great starting point. This gives you a better opportunity to name the behaviour, give examples, describe how they affected you, and suggest alternatives. Knowing how the behaviour causes stress, you have a better chance of staying calm and confident that you're raising a legitimate issue. It may also help to bear in mind that toxic behaviour more often comes from ignorance than from malice: once it's pointed out, calmly and kindly, it often disappears very quickly.
If you don't feel safe to address the problem directly with the person responsible, look for allies. Teammates may be able to draw attention to the behaviour without putting you in the spotlight, by naming it in real time, or by talking to the person in private.
In a minority of cases, even polite requests for change don't work, and you'll need to choose whether to escalate or withdraw. Escalation means raising the issue with a line manager, Health and Safety officer, or union representative. Small issues can usually be dealt with quickly - another reason to act early. For more persistent or long-running issues, a formal complaint may be worthwhile if you think there's a good chance of preventing harm to yourself and others in the future. However, this will almost certainly bring more stress in the short term. Make sure you're well supported before going down this path.
If you think your chances of success are low, and/or you don't have the right support, withdrawing may be a better option. That might mean finding a new team to work with; more commonly, it will mean recognising that while you can't change the other person's behaviour, you can usually limit your exposure, and control your own response to it.
Controlling your response can be helpful on two timescales. In the moment, remaining calm will buffer the negative impact the behaviour will have on your health. Remind yourself that this person isn't really a threat to your survival, whatever your danger-detecting brain might think. After the interaction, give yourself extra time to recover, and try not to lose too much time to ruminating or worry: don't let their behaviour ruin your downtime as well.
