How to repair your reputation at work after crying or losing control
Uncontrollable emotional outbursts and burnout at work damage how colleagues perceive you and create deep professional anxiety. When these moments cross professional boundaries, it leaves people unsure how to face their team the next day or rebuild trust with management.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1leaving the incident in the past and not mentioning it again
- 2letting others cover a bit more of the workload to reduce stress
- 3venting frustrations to friends outside of work instead of coworkers
- 4starting therapy to manage burnout and emotions
- 5seeking help from school mental health personnel or counselors
- 6utilizing the school system's Employee Assistance Plan (EAP) or health insurance for therapy
- 7talking to administration to explain past history and steps being taken to handle it
- 8leaving the room to regain composure
- 9telling oneself not to take the behavior personally
- 10relying on colleagues for peer support and shared experiences
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Just sharing now that I’ve cooled off from the day and have some perspective that this career is an absolute bear.”source ↗
“For me, it was being cursed at by a student who I taught all last year and thought we had a solid relationship.”source ↗
“I had to leave the room to get myself together, I was so shaken by it.”source ↗
“Please be kind I am really struggling today.”source ↗
“A huge trigger for me is bullying. I witnessed a boy bully a girl in first period. Wrote him up, but I felt so heartbroken I didn’t know what to do.”source ↗
“In between second and third I tell myself I’ll have a little cry and move on. But the tears just won’t stop. I become hysterical. I just cannot stop crying.”source ↗
“Girl these teenagers. I cried today too!”source ↗
“For a while I have been feeling burnt out and overwhelmed at work. I feel like this is affecting me personally and how I'm perceived in the office.”source ↗
“It was unprofessional for me to have confided this, and I believe that this conversation likely got back to my boss. Is there a way I can recover from this professionally, make wiser choices, and also manage my burnout better?”source ↗
“I remember a student burped in my face at the front of the class and that really shocked me. So much so that I actually left the class as the tears came out of no where.”source ↗
“I cried the other day too- I was already feeling sick, and definitely should have called out. I can normally brush off attitude, but I had a student snap at me, and I just broke down.”source ↗
Where this came up
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