I’m about to have a new coworker who I have a traumatic past with

A reader writes:

I’m at a loss here.

I have a coworker I’ll call Riley from a different department in my organization. Riley and I were becoming pretty good work friends, when they experienced a psychotic break and tried to end their own life. I didn’t want someone I cared about to die, so I stepped up as a support person. I learned that Riley had been hospitalized before for the same reason before we met. I thought I was equipped to absorb some of their pain while they worked through mental health treatment and stabilized.

Riley was better for a few months, then spiraled and went back to the hospital. This cycle never stopped. I don’t even remember how many times they came back from the brink, both with and without hospitalization. We were constantly in touch. Avoiding my phone for an evening meant coming back to a bunch of scary texts, and then I’d spend hours talking them back to safety. It was terrifying and exhausting.

After about two years of this dynamic, they went off their meds again and I snapped. I told them I needed a break and not to contact me for a while.

This happened years ago and we haven’t spoken since. They did send a long email owning how manipulative they’ve been (even without always meaning to be) and apologizing for their behavior. Their condition isn’t their fault, but I’m still struggling with the after-effects of this friendship. They weren’t the only stressor in my life, but the stress of experiencing a constant cycle of life-or-death situations broke something in me. I’ve been less able to cope with more normal stressors than I used to be, let alone major ones. I keep people at a greater distance than I used to. Some physical symptoms I’d been having on-and-off became constant, until I was finally diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder. I can’t put full responsibility for these issues on one person, but I often wonder what life would be like if I’d set a really firm boundary earlier.

I never responded to their apology email, which I’m not proud of because it took real courage to admit wrong, but I feel so used and it’s very painful. They have texted me occasionally outside of work, and I’ve never responded to those either. Working in different departments has mostly let us organically avoid each other at work. Seeing their name on my text notifications or Zoom roster gives me instant panic symptoms. And when I think about what to even say in a response, I draw a blank. Even writing this out is giving me nervous sweats!

Our workplace is going through a reorg. Naturally, Riley has been reassigned to my team and we’ll have overlapping project work that we’ll have to collaborate on. Riley sent me an email acknowledging that this is awkward and they want to have a positive professional relationship. (Of course, I haven’t responded to that either.)

I want to be professional and take the high road, but I also just want to keep as much distance as I possibly can. I feel emotionally immature for reacting this way, but I feel like I’m being exiled from a safe space. Because the circumstances are so wrapped up in private, sensitive medical information, I don’t think talking to anyone at work is an option (plus our HR is not trustworthy).

Take the opportunity to respond to their email and lay out what you need in terms of boundaries.

For example: “I appreciate your note, and I’m sorry I didn’t respond to your previous ones. I’ve struggled with the aftermath of our friendship, and I’m continuing to process some of the stresses of that time. While I’ll of course be professional and cordial when we need to work together, I prefer not to have a relationship outside of work conversations. Thank you for understanding.”

It’s possible that once Riley moves on to your team and you have daily exposure to them, your reactions to them will necessarily recalibrate — that they’ll become a more routine and mundane part of the background than the stressful memories of them that currently loom in your head.

But if that doesn’t happen, and given the intensity of your stress response to even thinking about them right now, is there any opportunity in this reorg for you to change teams too — or at least to talk with your boss about being assigned projects that wouldn’t have you working closely with Riley (framing it as “we have a fraught history that I can of course be professional about but I would prefer not to work closely with them if there are alternatives”)?

Or, if not, is Riley’s presence going to be disruptive enough to you that it would make sense to actively work on leaving the organization altogether? You might think, “I shouldn’t have to leave an organization I’ve been at for years” — but there’s no shame in deciding that the new composition of your team isn’t one that works well for you and choosing to move away from it. (Plus, you’ve been there for years, which means professionally you might benefit from tackling something new anyway.)

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