That’s the sentence I used to excuse someone abusing their power.

Last spring I got a lesson from a queer person 15 years younger than me. We both attended an educational group. We just witnessed emotional violence from a person in power. In my head, a usual “At least it wasn’t me she shouted at” popped up. As a group we started talking (people process complex feelings by talking). Very familiar phrases were heard:
🗣️ They are just tired. That’s why they behaved that way.
🗣️ It must be hard for them to be both a leader and a host.

Our 20-something-years-old ‘teacher’ stopped us all:
Stop it. What you do is find excuses for someone’s violence. It doesn’t matter why it happened. What matters is that they are in power and they have chosen to behave violently.  

Wow… A world ran in front of my eyes and I’ve seen all of the situations where I was under attack.

What happens is that instead of seeing black as black, we try to protect our feelings. Instead of seeing the truth, we use a wide range of ways to “secure” ourselves: “oh, but they didn’t shout at me”, “at least I follow the rules, and shouldn’t get into trouble”, “they must have deserved it”.

The exact same story unfolds at many work places. People in power overuse their power. They are living out their stress on subordinates. They compensate for their anxiety by control and micromanagement.

For our psyche, admitting that black is black is very hard, because once seen, we have to deal with the problem. Thus, we colour black into pink and blue and keep lying to ourselves.

To start seeing black as black, one needs tons of support from peers, and solid confidence. Those two are ruined with experienced abuse.

Emotional abuse at work. What’s the phrase you used to protect yourself from seeing it clearly?