Last week I wrote about what a toxic job does to your mental health. In this article I want to go further — into what happens when the job doesn’t just drain you, but slowly asks you to become someone you’re not and into the physical toll it takes on your body. This week I’m sharing an excerpt from my book You Don’t Have to Stay — Chapter 3. If any of this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.
You can read part 1 of The Toll a Toxic Job Takes on You here.
The following is an excerpt from Chapter 3: Toxic Workplace:
When the Job Asks You to Compromise Yourself
One of the most damaging aspects of a toxic workplace is how it slowly asks you to become someone you’re not. You’re told to follow orders that conflict with your instincts, values, and your sense of fairness. You tell yourself it’s just part of the job, that you don’t have a choice. But each compromise takes you a little further away from who you are.
I found myself participating in systems I didn’t respect and going along with decisions that didn’t align with my values. I wasn’t just doing work I didn’t love anymore — I was slowly becoming someone I didn’t recognize. I began to trade authenticity for self-preservation.
The first compromise came when a coworker was struggling with health issues. Wanting to support her, I adjusted her workload temporarily so she could manage without burning out. When my boss found out, I was told that she either needed to handle a full workload or go on sick leave — no flexibility, no compassion, no middle ground. I wanted to defend her, but I knew that would be futile. She went out on leave and the rest of the team suffered with a heavier workload. It was the first time I truly saw how little humanity there was in the system I was a part of.
The second compromise came when the department needed another senior team member. The strongest person on the team was selected and given the senior responsibilities — but with a catch. There would be no official promotion, no title change, and no pay raise. Just increased responsibility and more work.
I was tasked with delivering the news and expected to frame it as a positive. I didn’t believe it was right to place additional demands on a capable, willing employee without proper recognition or compensation. It felt like exploitation, plain and simple. But once again, I felt I had no real choice. Open discussion wasn’t encouraged in my department, and disagreeing with leadership led to feeling cut down. And so, I proceeded with delivering the “good news,” all while betraying my own sense of fairness.
The hardest moment, though, was being instructed to fire someone I didn’t believe deserved it. He wasn’t failing because of a lack of effort or ability — he was failing because the system itself was impossible to succeed in. I knew he was a victim of the same dysfunction that had been grinding all of us down. Carrying out that decision left me sick to my stomach.
My inner life was being corroded day by day, compromise after compromise. This eventually led to me crying on a plane back from Paris, my psyche crying out — I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to participate in things that feel wrong. After repeatedly ignoring my moral compass, my body was rebelling. This kind of compromise was costing me far more than a paycheck.
“Your body keeps the score.”
— Bessel van der Kolk
The Damage a Toxic Workplace Does to Your Health
At one point during my corporate tenure, a colleague confided in me that she had started taking anti-anxiety medication because of the lack of support and the condescending way she was treated at work. She shared this with me in a rare moment of openness — most of us stayed tight-lipped about the dysfunction around us. That moment stayed with me because it revealed just how deep the sense of entrapment can run. Rather than feeling able to look for something better, she felt she had to change herself to survive in an environment that was harming her.
This is what toxic workplaces do. They don’t just affect your performance. They begin to affect your identity. They make you question your worth, your abilities, even your work ethic. Gradually, they convince you that you are the one who needs to change — through medication, self-blame, or emotional numbing — when in reality, you’ve simply stretched yourself too thin trying to survive an impossible situation.
Not all corporate workplaces are toxic, of course, and mine was certainly an extreme case. But if you find yourself working among dysfunction that has you questioning your sanity, let me tell you what that does to your nervous system.
When you spend day after day in an unpredictable, high-stress environment, your nervous system never gets a chance to power down. It stays on high alert, like a smoke alarm that never stops blaring. You’re constantly bracing for the next urgent email, the next shifting expectation, the next moment where you’re made to feel unprepared or inadequate. Your body begins to operate as if it’s in danger.
And that’s where the real harm begins.
Chronic stress floods your system with cortisol and adrenaline — chemicals meant to protect you in moments of crisis, not sustain you through months or years of pressure. When they never dial back down, everything starts to wear out. Your sleep suffers. Your digestion falters. Your focus and memory decline. Your mood shifts in ways that don’t feel like you. You’re not being dramatic — your body is sounding an alarm.
People talk about burnout like it’s just “being tired,” but it’s far more complex than that. A toxic workplace can disrupt your hormones, spike your anxiety, flatten your motivation, and chip away at your self-esteem until you start doubting your abilities altogether. It can show up in headaches, insomnia, digestive issues, chronic fatigue, even high blood pressure. The longer you stay in survival mode, the more your body pays the price.
And emotionally? The toll is just as steep. Your confidence shrinks. Your creativity shuts down. Your sense of possibility collapses to the size of whatever problem is in front of you. You begin to believe that exhaustion is normal, that anxiety is part of adulthood, that the heaviness you feel is just “how life is.”
It’s not. Or at least, it shouldn’t be.
This is what happens when the human nervous system is asked to operate inside an environment it was never designed for. We’re built for connection, clarity, and manageable challenges — not for chaos, shifting demands, or unreasonable expectations. A toxic workplace doesn’t just drain your energy — it rewires your baseline for what you tolerate.
And if this is happening to you, I want you to hear this clearly:
It’s not your lack of resilience. It’s the environment you’re in.
Your body has been trying to get your attention. Your symptoms aren’t failures — they’re signals. Signals that something is deeply out of alignment. Signals that your system is carrying more than it was ever meant to hold. Signals that your soul is asking for a different kind of life.
If this excerpt resonated with you, there’s a full book waiting.
📖 You Don’t Have to Stay goes deeper — exploring why walking away feels so difficult, how to recognize what your unhappiness is trying to tell you, and how to find your way toward work that actually lights you up.
Get your copy here.
And if you’re not yet sure whether your job has crossed the line, I’ve written an article to help:
How to Know if Your Job is Toxic
If you’re working in a job that drains you and you keep wondering whether it’s really that bad—or just something you need to push through—this article is for you.