How Power, Personality, and Manipulation Create Workplace Abuse

Workplace abuse rarely starts loudly — it begins in the shadows. Subtle shifts in tone, changed expectations, strained dynamics, and confusing interactions slowly intensify until the target is isolated, destabilized, or blamed.

In this session, survivors share what these early moments looked like, how abusers weaponized personality, hierarchy, and “professionalism,” and how tactics like gaslighting, DARVO, mobbing, and reputation sabotage quietly unfold over time.

Together, we’ll explore how power dynamics and culture make abuse possible and why it often goes unseen by everyone except the target.

This session exposes:

• The earliest signs something is “off”

• How abusers hide behind charm, authority, or manufactured narratives

• Why targets don’t speak up sooner — and why it’s not their fault

• How silence, complicity, and culture allow abuse to spread

This is the foundational session of the series — naming the patterns so others can finally recognize what’s happening to them.