When someone tells you about institutional abuse, it's easy to think in abstractions. "Hostile work environment." "Communication issues." "Personality conflicts."
Let me make it concrete for you.
Picture sitting at a picnic table for over an hour while two supervisors take turns telling you that your emails are threatening, that your clarity is unprofessional, that you need to "chew glass and swallow it" to be a good worker. Picture them admitting they never gave you the benefit of the doubt from day one, while simultaneously demanding you extend positive intent to them. Picture the psychological pressure of being told repeatedly that you could "just leave" if you felt uncomfortable - not as support, but as coercion.
Now picture working alone, mid-clean, when a stranger approaches with no uniform, no ID, no introduction. He claims authority but offers no verification. He presses you with invasive personal questions about how leadership treats you, stepping closer when you don't respond as expected. You recognize it as a probe in real time - designed to elicit complaints or provoke a reaction. You're isolated, vulnerable, and being psychologically tested by someone whose identity and purpose remain deliberately unclear. I still don't know this man's name or where he came from, but the supervisor confirmed he's with the institution.
Picture the disorientation. The hypervigilance. The way your nervous system stays activated for hours afterward, questioning what just happened and why.
Picture being dismissed days before your scheduled completion, after two months of competent service, using a homeless man's journal as pretext. No paperwork. No formal process. Just the arbitrary exercise of power to ensure you don't leave on your own terms.
Picture talking to the state volunteer coordinator the next day, hoping for accountability or at least acknowledgment. Instead, you get institutional gaslighting - your documented experiences reframed as behavioral problems, your reflective communication pathologized as concerning, your sincere follow-up letter met with permanent dismissal and complete silence.
Picture writing a vulnerable, detailed letter explaining what happened, offering context and seeking understanding. Picture that letter disappearing into institutional silence, never acknowledged, while your dismissal becomes permanent less than 24 hours later.
This is what systematic institutional abuse actually feels like. Not policy disagreements or professional feedback, but deliberate psychological pressure designed to fragment someone who refused to absorb harm quietly.
Could you hold your shape under these conditions? For two months, like I did?
I documented everything. I recorded the meetings. I preserved the evidence. I built an archive that speaks for itself, with audio and video proof of what they said and did.
Because at the end of the day, there is literally nothing I did that could ever justify such treatment.