Everything else I’ve written on this subject is about process — the log, the complaint, the clocks, the lawyer. All of it matters. None of it is what keeps you whole.
Because here’s what nobody warns you about: harassment situations have a long middle. Weeks or months between the report and the resolution, when you still have to walk into that building, sit in that meeting, and do excellent work while the person who hurt you is twenty feet away and the investigation is “ongoing.” The process protects your rights. This is about protecting you — and I’m writing it as someone who has lived through the long middle more than once.
1. Name What It’s Doing to You — Honestly
Harassment doesn’t just hurt in the moment. It rewires your days. The Sunday-night dread. The rehearsed conversations in the shower. Reading his face when he walks in. Measuring your week by his moods. If that’s where you are, say it out loud — to yourself, to someone you trust. You can’t guard what you won’t admit is under attack. And know that what you’re feeling is a normal human response to an abnormal situation, not a weakness in you.
2. Let the File Carry It
Your log is evidence, but it’s also relief. Once an incident is written down — dated, witnessed, filed — your mind can stop holding it. When the replay starts at 2 a.m., tell yourself the truth: it’s in the file; it’s held. Then put it down. Documentation is how you stop working the night shift for a person who isn’t even in the room.
3. Guard the Perimeter
Harassment isolates. Refuse it. Keep two or three people close who know the truth of your situation — a spouse, a pastor, a friend outside the company, a counselor. Vent to them, never at work. And keep something in your life that’s entirely yours and entirely untouched by him: the workout, the garden, the ministry, the Saturday project. This job is one room in your house. He doesn’t get the whole address.
4. Take the Toll Seriously
Sleep, appetite, concentration, mood — these are data, and when they slide, act. See a doctor. See a therapist; an employee-assistance program, if you have one, can be a confidential starting point. This isn’t surrender and it isn’t evidence of weakness. It’s maintenance on the most important asset you have — a clear mind — and, frankly, it documents the impact too. If the harassment is affecting your ability to work, ask about your options: medical leave, an accommodation, a temporary reassignment. You’re allowed to protect your health while the process runs.
5. Keep Your Excellence Where It Belongs
Work excellent — not to earn safety from him, because that’s a tank with holes in it, but for your record, your reputation beyond him, your exit, and your own mirror. Sustainable pace, not heroics. Defined work, confirmed in writing, done well, and then home. Your good work is your shield, and it’s also proof that you’re still you.
6. Refuse to Become What’s Hurting You
This is the deepest danger of the long middle — not what he does to your career, but what the fight can do to your character. Bitterness starts to feel like armor. Cynicism starts to feel like wisdom. Check yourself honestly and often. Keep your hands clean: no retaliation in kind, no whisper campaigns of your own, no shortcuts a hostile reader could inflate. David dodged spears for years and never threw one back — and that restraint is why the whole kingdom knew who the problem was. Your greatest victory here isn’t beating him. It’s walking out still yourself.
7. Hand the Verdict to God
If you’re a person of faith, this is the part that carried me. You’ve reported it. You’ve built the file. You’ve done what wisdom asks. The final judgment — the part where he answers for what he did — was never yours to deliver. “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” (Romans 12:19). That’s not passivity. It’s jurisdiction. You can resign as his judge without resigning from the fight — and there’s a peace that comes with putting down a gavel you were never meant to hold. Pray for him, honestly, as hard as that is. You can’t stay poisoned toward someone you’re bringing before God.
8. Keep an Exit You May Never Use
You might win inside the building — sometimes the investigation ends with him gone, not you. But keep your options warm regardless: resume current, network alive, savings building. Options are oxygen. A person who isn’t trapped walks into every meeting differently, sleeps differently, and negotiates from strength if a separation is ever offered. And if you leave, leave on your terms — file complete, references secured, story clean — never in a moment of despair that hands him the ending he engineered.
9. Remember That This Season Ends
The long middle feels permanent. It isn’t. Investigations conclude, harassers get removed or leave, and people build futures far beyond the building that failed them. Three thousand years ago a man spent years hunted by the most powerful person in his world, and the season that felt endless became the season that made him. Yours can too.
Go Deeper
The complete playbook — the documentation system, the clean-hands doctrine, the allies you need, the faith that carries you, and how to walk out with your character and future intact — is in my book, The Spirit of Saul: Surviving the Boss Who Wants to See You Fall.
Protect your rights with the process. Protect yourself with everything above. And when this is over — and it will be — finish your song.
Commissioner William Epps is an author and security leadership consultant. His books are published through E.P.P.S Method Publishing Co. This article is general guidance, not legal or medical advice.
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