When you’ve already been through it — and you’re still carrying it

You may have already left. Been pushed out. Gone off sick. Reached the point where you simply couldn’t take one more step. Maybe it was a formal process used against you, a competency procedure, a smear campaign, or the moment you realised nobody was going to protect you.

You got through it. But the damage doesn’t stop when you walk out the door.

The self-doubt. The gaps you can’t explain on your CV. The opportunities that disappeared. The exhaustion of not being believed — or worse, being told it was you.

This happens in workplaces, schools, institutions, and just as often in charities and voluntary organisations — places where people give everything, and where the abuse is even harder to name because everyone is supposed to be doing good.

Some of what you may recognise

• I dread going in. Every single day.
• I never knew where I stood — the goalposts kept moving.
• Someone else got the credit for work I did.
• I was accused of things I never said or did.
• I was being scheduled, moved and managed around — behind my back.
• I was excluded from conversations, emails and decisions I should have been part of.
• I raised a concern and became the problem for raising it.
• HR didn’t help. The union got involved. It got worse.
• There was a smear campaign — and it went further than just that workplace.
• I can’t put what I built there on my CV.
• I’m frightened someone will find out I’ve left it off.
• I went off sick. I was placed under a competency procedure. I couldn’t take anymore.
• I didn’t know whether to stay or go. Both felt impossible. I threw it all in.

The trap you are in

The pressure was immense — and it worked in multiple directions at once. There may have been one line manager for one part of your role and a more senior person for another, with no clear line between what was your responsibility and what wasn’t. Someone was managing the narrative about you. You weren’t allowed to speak to the people who might have supported you. The organisation closed ranks.

And underneath all of that — the tribunal fear. The weight of what it would take to challenge it formally. What it would cost. What it would expose. Who would believe you.

This is not weakness. This is what it is designed to feel like.

This applies to the voluntary sector too

If you are a volunteer, a trustee, a sessional worker or a paid member of staff in a charity or community organisation — what you are experiencing is just as real as any corporate workplace abuse. The power dynamics are the same. The patterns are the same. The damage is the same.

The fact that the people around you were doing good work, or that the cause mattered, does not make what was done to you acceptable. It makes it harder to name. That is not the same as it not being real.

In the UK, workers have protections under the Equality Act 2010 and Employment Rights Act 1996. For free advice on your rights, ACAS is the place to start.

Volunteers are not covered by employment law — but charities have a duty of care under health and safety legislation, and the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 applies regardless of employment status. NCVO guidance also requires charities to have a complaints procedure for volunteers. If you are a volunteer and things have gone wrong, the Charity Commission can be contacted where governance failures are involved.

You are not imagining it

The confusion you feel is part of the dynamic — not a sign that you are wrong. People who use power and control in organisations are skilled at making targets doubt themselves.

Naming what is happening is the first step to being able to respond to it — on your terms, in your time.

What you can do right now

You do not need to have a clear story yet. You do not need to know exactly what is happening or have decided what to do about it. You just need to have noticed that something is wrong.

For practical employment rights support, ACAS offers free, confidential advice — including on grievance procedures, constructive dismissal and your rights at work.

A 30-minute clarity call with Kevin is a space to put it all out — the confusion, the fear, the detail — and have someone who understands these patterns help you begin to see it clearly. No forms. No waiting list. No pressure.

Nobody who hasn’t been inside this understands the pressure.

The tribunal fear. The CV gap. The smear. The silence. Between a rock and a hard place.