I am in your shoes right now. I was in a long-term substitute teaching position at a school where I had a good reputation with the students, teaching staff, and two principals. That all ended with a confrontation between myself and a couple of the full-time teachers who underminded me in front of the students which was unprofessional and disrespectful to me. And when I complained to the school president about it, he fired me. It was a truly toxic environment for me there.

Like you, I regret the outcome but there was literally nothing I could do to prevent it. Nothing. So, I'm trying to be compassionate with myself and while I can't salvage that situation what I can tell you is what I"m telling myself: just tell future employers that the position wasn't a good fit, that you learned a lot about yourself from the experience, and review what skills you have that you can offer that new employer. That's what I intend to do, to salvage my teaching reputation.

If I dwell on it, as I used to do in the past, it will eat away at my self esteem and cripple me mentally. Don't let that happen to you.

You and I both had toxic work environments, knew it wasn't good for us, and we left our work situations because we care about our well-being. That doesn't mean we have to be ashamed, or beat ourselves up about it, or hold it over our heads like a dismal failure that we can't recover from. It was one horrible job experience.

I went to another school yesterday, told them about that horrible experience and the principal totally respected me and understood and said he wouldn't hold it against me, that he was happy to have me as a substitute at his school until the end of the school year, so that made me feel like, despite horrible endings, that doesn't mean you can't get something good as a result.

So, all I'm saying is, don't let this one horrible experience color the way you perceive yourself or your future job prospects in your small community. We can't control people who trash talk about us, so all we can do is hold our head up, reframe it for new people in a positive spin, and be great spin doctors of our lives, because everyone is.

Everyone spin doctors their work experiences to look positive. So, that's what I'm doing and that is what I'm urging you to do: spin doctor the hell out of your professional resume, forget using that place as a reference (you don't need them!) and forge ahead. You can do this.