When you finally decide to leave a toxic workplace, you may expect instant relief. You might picture walking out for the last time feeling lighter, happier, and ready to take on the world. But many people feel something more complicated: sadness, anger, guilt, disorientation, or regret. If you recently left a hostile work environment and feel worse instead of better, you may be experiencing workplace grief.
Toxic job recovery
Work identity
Nervous system support
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Key insight: workplace grief is not proof that leaving was a mistake. It can be the mind and body finally having enough quiet space to feel the losses that were hidden by constant stress.
Understanding why people grieve a job they hated is a crucial step in healing. The goal is not to force yourself into gratitude or deny that the workplace was harmful. It is to make room for the loss, the exhaustion, and the identity shift so you can move forward with more self-compassion.
How Workplace Grief Starts: The Crash After the Adrenaline
To understand workplace grief, it helps to look at what a toxic job can do to the brain and body. Working in a hostile environment may keep your nervous system on high alert. You may be bracing for the next harsh email, unrealistic demand, public criticism, or conflict with a difficult boss. The body can start living as if another threat is always about to arrive.
The CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health describes job stress as harmful physical and emotional responses that can happen when job demands do not match a worker’s needs, resources, or abilities. In a toxic workplace, this mismatch may feel relentless, especially when a person has little control or support.
When you finally leave, the constant threat disappears. The nervous system that has been running on adrenaline and stress hormones may suddenly crash. Without the daily crisis to manage, your mind finally has room to process the emotional toll the job took on you. That quiet space is often where grief begins to surface.
Why Workplace Grief Can Follow a Toxic Job
Grief is often associated with the death of a loved one, but grief can also follow other significant losses. A GoodTherapy article on grieving when nobody died names losses of career, role, health, closeness, and identity as experiences that may carry real pain. Another GoodTherapy resource on workplace grief and loss notes how much emotional life can be held inside work relationships. Research on job loss has also found that grief can be distinct from depression and anxiety, especially when employment is tied to identity and self-esteem (Papa & Maitoza, 2013). A related NIH/PMC article on job loss grief discusses grief reactions that can follow involuntary work loss.
Leaving a toxic job can involve multiple hidden losses. The workplace may have been harmful, but it still held hopes, relationships, daily rhythms, and parts of your professional self.
The Loss of Potential and Hope
When you accepted the job, you may have had high hopes. You might have imagined a long career, supportive mentors, and exciting projects. Workplace grief is often about mourning the loss of what the job was supposed to be. A related GoodTherapy reflection on mourning the loss of an ideal speaks to this kind of pain: not only losing what happened, but losing what you hoped would happen.
The Loss of Work Identity
For many professionals, work becomes intertwined with identity. Surviving a high-pressure environment can even become a badge of honor. If you were known as the person who could always manage the crisis, calm the conflict, or absorb the pressure, leaving can feel like losing a role you never fully chose.
Trauma Bonding and the Loss of Coworkers
One of the hardest parts of leaving can be leaving your team behind. Coworkers in hostile environments often form intense bonds through shared hardship. You may miss people you cared about, even while knowing the workplace harmed you. You may also feel guilt for "abandoning" coworkers who are still dealing with the difficult boss, culture, or workload.
If the grief feels confusing
A therapist can help you sort out grief, stress, identity loss, and possible trauma responses without judging your decision to leave. You can search for support through the GoodTherapy therapist directory.
A Case Example: Jane Doe
Consider the story of a client I will call Jane Doe. Jane spent three years working at a highly competitive, fast-paced job in Utah’s Silicon Slopes. Her manager was demanding, often texting her late at night and belittling her in front of others. When Jane finally found a new, healthier job and handed in her resignation, she expected to be thrilled.
Instead, during her first week at the new job, Jane found herself crying in her car. She missed the chaotic energy of her old agency. She felt immense guilt for leaving her favorite coworker behind to deal with their difficult boss alone. She also felt a deep sense of failure, believing she should have been strong enough to change the culture of her old firm.
Jane was experiencing disenfranchised grief, a type of grief that is not typically acknowledged or socially supported (Doka, 1989). Because friends and family kept congratulating her on leaving the "bad job," Jane felt she had to hide her sadness. Once she learned to label her feelings as grief, she was able to process her complex emotions and more fully embrace her new, healthier role.
The Stages of Workplace Grief
The well-known Kübler-Ross model names denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance as stages of grief (Kübler-Ross, 1969). These stages can be useful language, but they can also be misleading if they are treated as a neat checklist. Workplace grief, especially grief that is not widely recognized, rarely moves in a tidy order.
You may feel acceptance one day and anger the next. You may feel relieved and devastated in the same hour. You may know logically that leaving was necessary and still miss the people, urgency, or identity that came with the role. This is not inconsistency. It is how grief often works.
Try this now: name one part of the job you are glad to be free from, and one part you honestly miss. Let both be true for a moment. You do not have to make one feeling cancel the other.
How to Heal From Workplace Grief and Move Forward
If you are navigating workplace grief after leaving a toxic job, there are practical steps that can support your mental health and ease the transition. Start by giving yourself permission to feel however you feel. Do not judge your sadness or try to force yourself to be happy just because you escaped. Healing requires you to feel the pain rather than ignore it.
Next, focus on regulating your nervous system. Establish predictable, calming routines in daily life. Simple actions like taking a daily walk, practicing slower breathing, eating meals at regular times, protecting sleep, or enjoying a quiet morning coffee can help teach your body that it is no longer in the old environment. The National Institute of Mental Health notes that stress is a physical and mental response and that healthy coping can support well-being during stressful periods.
Professional support can provide a safe place to unpack what happened. A therapist can help you identify lingering trauma responses, rebuild professional self-esteem, and establish healthy, protective boundaries for your next career move. A GoodTherapy article on the trauma of workplace stress also describes how chronic unrealistic demands and conflict can leave people feeling victimized, anxious, fatigued, or isolated.
It can also help to distinguish workplace grief from burnout. The World Health Organization describes burnout as an occupational phenomenon resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed, and GoodTherapy’s discussion of perfectionism and burnout describes how prolonged stress can deplete motivation and hope. Burnout and grief can overlap, but workplace grief often includes mourning what you hoped the job would be, who you became there, and who you had to leave behind.
Leaving a toxic workplace is an act of self-preservation. The grief that follows is not a sign of weakness, and it does not mean you made a mistake. It may be your mind’s way of catching up to the hardship you endured. By facing this grief with patience and self-compassion, you can clear a path toward a healthier professional future.
Support for workplace grief
If leaving a job has brought up grief, stress, or anxiety that feels hard to carry alone, you can look for a therapist through the GoodTherapy therapist directory.
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers to common questions about workplace grief after leaving a toxic job.
References
Doka, K. J. (1989). Disenfranchised grief: Recognizing hidden sorrow. Lexington Books.
Kübler-Ross, E. (1969). On death and dying. Macmillan.
Papa, A., & Maitoza, R. (2013). The role of loss in the experience of grief: The case of job loss. Journal of Loss and Trauma, 18(2), 152-169. DOI: 10.1080/15325024.2012.684580
Take the Next Step
You do not have to make sense of workplace grief alone. Compassionate support can help you process what happened and rebuild steadier boundaries for what comes next.
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About the Author Dr. R. C. Morris, LCSW, PhDLicensed Clinical Social Worker | Salt Lake City, Utah Dr. R. C. Morris practices with Liberated Mind Counseling and Health Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. His work supports clients navigating anxiety, depression, grief, identity concerns, life transitions, career concerns, and questions of meaning or purpose. His clinical approach includes evidence-based, values-oriented therapy, including Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and cognitive behavioral approaches. This article reflects his focus on helping people understand and heal from the hidden grief that can follow stressful or painful work experiences. |
In her seminal book, On Death and Dying, psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross identified five distinct stages of grief. Kübler-Ross worked with dying people and designed her model to describe the distinct grief of dying.
In On Grief and Grieving: Finding the Meaning of Grief Through the Five Stages of Loss, a book co-authored with David Kessler, Kübler-Ross expanded her model to include many other types of grief. A modified version of Kübler-Ross’s model adds two new stages, shock and testing. This seven-stage model of grief is familiar to many people who have grieved a loss, yet little research supports the model. [amazon_affiliate]
The Seven Stages of Grief
According to Kübler-Ross, and later to her co-author David Kessler, there are five stages of grief: denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance.
Some grief experts suggest this model might leave out two additional stages. This is sometimes called the Extended Kübler-Ross Model. According to that seven-stage model, the stages of grief are as follows:
- Shock: This is a person’s initial sense of paralysis and shock following bad news.
- Denial: Denial is an attempt to avoid the pain of the loss. Sometimes people distract themselves with other pursuits.
- Anger: Anger is a reaction to the loss of control that often accompanies a loss. A person may experience overwhelming feelings of frustration or target their anger to a specific source, such as God, a doctor, or the person who shared the bad news.
- Bargaining: Bargaining is an attempt to regain control. During this stage, a person tries to find a way to escape the pain. For example, a person dying of cancer might adopt a very healthy lifestyle, or a parent whose child is dying might spend lots of time praying.
- Depression: When bargaining fails and a person realizes they cannot control the loss, they may enter a state of intense depression.
- Testing: During this stage, a person experiments with ways to better manage and cope with the loss.
- Acceptance: During acceptance, a person integrates and understands the loss. This does not mean they are “over†it, but they are able to move forward. The degree to which a person is able to accept the loss and move forward depends on the specific loss, personal psychological factors, a supportive environment, and more.
In his book Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief, David Kessler argues that the quest for meaning might be the final stage of grief before acceptance.
While the original model was presented as sequential, most grief experts now argue that a person can go through the stages in any order. They may also repeat or revisit stages, especially during times of intense emotional distress. For example, a person grieving the loss of their father might become angry over his loss when he is not present at their wedding, even if they already experienced the anger stage years before.
While the original model was presented as sequential, most grief experts now argue that a person can go through the stages in any order.
Shock: The First Stage of Grief
Grief often begins with bad news—a stunning diagnosis, a phone call announcing a loved one’s death, or an ultrasound that reveals a baby is not developing normally. This can feel like a massive blow, sending a person into a state of emotional shock. During this earliest stage of grief, a person may feel unable to process the meaning of the news.
Shock can last just a few moments or for many days. For some people, shock reappears as the grieving process unfolds. A person grieving the death of a relative may feel another wave of shock settle in at the funeral or burial, for instance.
Some hallmarks of shock include:
- Difficulty expressing emotions
- Trouble processing the meaning or effect of the news. A family member might be unable to plan a funeral, while a newly diagnosed patient may feel ill-equipped to make treatment decisions.
- Feeling numb, paralyzed, or overwhelmed
- Feeling overstimulated and in need of a break from the weight of the grief
Testing: An Often Overlooked Stage of Grief
As a person meanders through the stages of grief, they may arrive at a period of testing. This stage of grief is similar to bargaining, but typically occurs later. During testing, a person experiments with different ways to manage their grief. For example, a person going through a divorce might contemplate joining a support group, weigh the benefits of a new hobby, or consider dating.
Testing differs from bargaining in that testing is about finding sustainable strategies for living with bad news. Bargaining is about escaping the bad news and regaining control.
A person in the testing stage may:
- Be interested in learning about grief or their specific loss
- Try new strategies for coping
- Reach out to loved ones for support
- “Try on†different philosophies or spiritual traditions
How Helpful Are the Stages of Grief?
While many grieving people report experiencing at least a few of the stages of grief, most research does not support a stage-based model of grief. A 2007 study found people grieving a death experience denial, anger, depression, and acceptance in a similar sequence to that identified by Kubler-Ross. That study, however, found no support for bargaining and found the most prevalent grief-related emotion was yearning for a lost loved one.
Factors such as a person’s social environment, how supported they feel, and the nature of the loss may also change how a person grieves.
Factors such as a person’s social environment, how supported they feel, and the nature of the loss may also change how a person grieves.
Some studies have found a person’s grief may depend on the loss. A 2016 study, for example, argues that people caring for a loved one with dementia face a unique grieving process. This is because they “lose†the person before they die but then experience another loss at death. The study proposes a dementia-specific model of grieving and argues that ambiguity is a core component of each stage of dementia grief.
The extent to which a stage-based model of grief helps people is unclear. People who experience one of the traditional stages may feel less alone when they learn their feelings are common. People who do not go through the stages of grief, however, may feel alone or stigmatized. They may even feel pressured to manifest outward signs of internal grief stages they do not actually feel.
There is no right or wrong way to grieve. Grief is the natural reaction to a loss. Cultural norms, personal factors, social support, health, religious and social values, and myriad other factors may affect how a person experiences grief. Therapy can help people manage their grief and find a way forward. The right therapist may even help a person find meaning in a loss, or a sense of purpose in persisting despite the loss.
“These models can…help people understand and explain their experience. However, grief is not predictable, linear, stable, or neat. It is an experience marked by its ferocious aliveness and proclivity for shape shifting. Models run the risk of being too prescriptive…and can render people feeling like they have a map of mere country borders and seashores, not the detail or scope to actually navigate one’s way around with any seriousness. Use the seven stages as a basic introduction to the language of grief, but when one becomes fluent in their own personal grief experience, they will realize it’s a language entirely unto its own. Therapy and other therapeutic work help hold and develop the latter,†says Jade Wood, MA, LMFT, MHSA, a Washington, D.C. therapist who specializes in managing grief.
To begin your search for a compassionate grief therapist, click here.
References:
- Additional stages of grief. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.econdolence.com/learn/articles/additional-stages-of-grief
- Blandin, K., & Pepin, R. (2016, October 15). Dementia grief: A theoretical model of a unique grief experience. Dementia (London), 16(1), 67-78. doi: 10.1177/1471301215581081
- Kübler-Ross, E. (2009). On death and dying. Abingdon: Routledge.
- Maciejewski, P. K., Zhang, B., Block, S. D., & Prigerson, H. G. (2007, February 21). An empirical examination of the stage theory of grief. JAMA, 297(7), 716. doi: 10.1001/jama.297.7.716
- Testing stage. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://changingminds.org/disciplines/change_management/kubler_ross/testing_stage.htm
- The Kübler-Ross Grief Cycle. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://changingminds.org/disciplines/change_management/kubler_ross/kubler_ross.htm