When the move doesn't work

You asked your manager why you were passed over, and you got a vague answer and an uneasy smile. You rang the friend, and she was pleasant and distant and hasn't rung back. You put in the formal complaint, and six weeks later a letter came saying it wasn't upheld.

The thought arrives at once. "See? Nothing works. I was right all along."

Look at what actually happened, and compare it with what you had before. One move failed. That tells you about that move and that person. A manager who won't give you a straight answer has told you something important about your future in that team. The moves now open to you are different. You could ask someone else for honest feedback, or go to the manager's manager, or start looking elsewhere. Before you asked, you didn't know any of that. You were in the same job, knowing less.

In a useful sense a failed move still moves you, because it closes a question. Under the old habit every question stayed open. You never found out whether the friendship could be mended, so it sat there for years, neither alive nor finished. Now you have a better idea. That's sad, and it also frees up the attention you were spending on it.

I said in chapter 4 that some walls are real, and this is the place to be straight about them. Some organisations protect their own. Some systems are stacked, and a person on the wrong side of them has fewer moves, and each one costs more. The rule still holds, but the moves look different. You find allies, because a complaint from five people is harder to ignore than a complaint from one. You go outside, to an ombudsman, a regulator, a tribunal or your elected representative. Or you leave.

Leaving is a move, and I wouldn't call it a defeat. You might also look squarely at a fight and decide it isn't worth what it would cost you, and that's a move as well. What separates it from the old habit is that you chose it, you know why, and you've stopped waiting. You can still think they were wrong. You've decided to spend the next two years on something else.

Then there are lapses. At some point you'll notice that you're a fortnight into replaying something, old or new, and that you've told it to four people and done nothing. When that happens, please don't conclude that you're back where you started. You know things now that you didn't know before, and a lapse doesn't remove them. Ask the same question, today. What's my move?

It's worth a minute to see what set the lapse off. Common causes are tiredness, an anniversary, contact with the person, or a fresh wrong that looks like the old one. I'd advise against counting days or weeks of doing well. A count turns one bad fortnight into a broken record, and that makes a second bad fortnight more likely.

Fresh wrongs will keep happening. Nothing in this book makes other people behave. A complaint made to the right person with a clear request does tend to get further than one told to the next desk, so a few things may go better. Most of the change will be on your side. You'll have the same number of wrongs and spend less time stuck in each.

Some things need more than a book, and I'd see a doctor or a therapist in any of these cases.

• The event was frightening or violent, and more than a month later you have nightmares or flashbacks, avoid anything that reminds you of it, or feel constantly on edge. These can be signs of post-traumatic stress, and there are talking therapies designed for it that a doctor can refer you to.
• Your mood has been low most days for more than two weeks, or you've lost interest in things you used to enjoy.
• You have thoughts of harming yourself. Speak to a doctor or a crisis line today. If you think you might act on those thoughts, call the emergency services.
• You were abused or neglected as a child. A good therapist is a better setting for that work than any book.
• You feel wronged in nearly every relationship you have, you can see it, and nothing you try makes any difference. That's a pattern a therapist can work with.

If you're being harmed now, the advice at the start of the book still stands, and safety comes first. And if you take prescribed medication, don't stop or change it because of anything you've read here.