I have recently escaped a long history of toxic work environments. My jobs were in various healthcare related fields; everything from front line roles to management. Despite the many instances of self sacrifice, abuse, and poor wages, it took over a decade for me to escape. There was a consistent paradigm, a cyclic pattern in every job role that (in hindsight) now reminds me of the situations that keep people in abusive relationships.
I live in Canada and we have an amazing and universal healthcare system. However, it is plagued by poor management and a lack of accountability. When these plagues are combined with stressors such as changes in funding and increased work loads, a cycle of abuse is started. Management feels threatened: Perhaps their lack of management skills will become apparent or perhaps it is something simpler, something like job security where their usefulness is questioned. In any case, it leads to aggression. Not physical in my particular situation, but through the use of aggressive tactics such as blame shift and need statements. Policies are introduced to ensure that blame is directed to front line staff and need statements are thrown around in an attempt to motivate and place them appropriately. Threats of unemployment, bad references, and other disciplinary actions are used repeatedly and often if the needs of the manager/company are not met.
A traumatic bond between workers and managers begins to develop: Intermittent patterns of reinforcement and punishment strengthen it, especially in hierarchical companies where there tends to be a large power imbalances such as in Canadian Healthcare. Workers who were previously content and had a good relationship with management might see the initial cases of mistreatment as a “one-off”, especially if management follows up the mistreatment with care or other attentions. This is apparent even on a macro level where news articles and self help psychology give tips on how to deal with a stressed out boss. In abusive relationships, victims can experience a cognitive shift as the abuse continues. Since power is imbalanced and the victim generally has a lack of control in the situation, they begin to exhibit behaviours that are in their control; namely, behaviours that lead to pleasing managers and avoid making managers upset in order to also avoid the manager's aggression and other punitive actions. I used to be this guy. Taking extra shifts, working oncall at stupid hours of the day/night.
In abusive relationships, intermittent reinforcements such as promises to stop or extravagant apologies strengthen the traumatic bond. I experienced this a lot in the workplace, where managers would continuously promise that a situation would get better, to keep trucking along because an end is in sight. When the situation fails to get better, my concerns were either trivialized or my employer would pretend to care and then not change. Near the end of my career I attempted to make changes. These changes were almost always viewed negatively and efforts were placed to ensure they were not successful. There was also always this idea that I wouldn't be able to find a job that paid better in the healthcare field or had the flexible hours, or whatever perk management decided to emphasize. In this stage of an abusive relationship victims begin to experience learned helplessness and a general acceptance of powerlessness. I think this is what kept me from leaving despite being a reliable hard working individual with plenty of options and available opportunities.
If a person was being abused by their partner, it wouldn't be appropriate to tell them that the abuse was justified because they didn't work hard enough, because they couldn't find someone else, or because they financially depended on the abuser. Your manager's need statements and their talk about your desperation for money and security merely reflects their own desperation. Abusive relationships are difficult to leave, but don't make the mistake I did and stay.