Hello Reddit. I’m trying to remain as anonymous as possible, so I’ll be vague on certain details.
I recently started a new job and quickly connected with a coworker. We bonded over shared experiences—parenting, past jobs, struggles with fitting in socially—and conversations with them have really helped me get through the workday. On our first day meeting, they mentioned they had lost a child. I asked gently about it, but they said they didn’t want to talk about it, so I respected that and didn’t bring it up again.
Over time, they opened up more. They shared that they had a difficult past involving substance use and feeling like an outcast at a previous job—something that happened shortly after their child passed away. They mentioned that people had left them notes and threats, and they vaguely referred to there being an article written about them. That made me realize there might be something serious involved, but I didn’t press them for details.
Out of curiosity, I ended up looking them up—and I was completely unprepared for what I found. I won’t go into specifics, but what I read left me horrified. Now I feel overwhelmed, anxious, and unsure how to handle this. My gut reaction is to distance myself immediately, but doing that would be noticeable, and I don’t want to cause drama or hurt anyone unnecessarily.
This person has been nothing but kind to me. From everything I’ve seen, they’ve turned their life around. They’re clean, they’ve been open about their past, and they seemed genuinely supportive. I don’t think they were trying to hide anything—maybe they hoped I’d get to know them as a person before discovering their history.
The problem is… I’m struggling mentally already. I deal with anxiety and other mental health issues, and I’m currently unmedicated. Forming connections is difficult for me, and this was one of the few people I felt I could talk to. But now I’m panicking. I don’t know how to act at work tomorrow. I don’t know what boundaries I need to set—or how. I don’t want to be naive, but I also don’t want to be cold or cruel. I’m just scared and confused.
If anyone has advice or perspectives I might not have considered, I would really appreciate it. I’m feeling lost.
I promise my situation is real, but i did use chatgpt to help me form it
Comments
Please, for your own sake, do not trust coworkers.
You should talk to them about whatever you found that’s so off putting. Approach them empathetically and try to place yourself in their shoes and give them a chance to explain because it’s what you would want if you were in their place. I am assuming that because the coworker is not in jail then no crime was committed, that doesn’t necessarily mean the coworker is not to blame for the child’s passing, but still at least hear their side before cutting them off
Edit: DO NOT DISCUSS THIS AT WORK!!! This conversation needs to be had when you are both on your own time because it’s probably going to be dark and very emotional.
I’m assuming a child died of accidental drug overdose from access or exposure to mom/dad’s drugs.
Either way, regardless of whatever it is you learned about your coworker, it sounds like they are very much trying to move on from that period of their life but haven’t escaped judgement from society.
Perhaps you were the first kind person they’ve encountered in a long, long time. I would keep that in mind.
So, while you don’t spell it out, I don’t actually know if the details of what they did are relevant. What’s relevant is that they committed a horrendous crime, the legal system decided on punishment and punished them, and they did their time. They’re now actively trying to both recover and move on and also to lay low and not make waves. A lot of people that have gone through the legal system for serious crimes but have done their time end up in similar positions. It doesn’t seem exactly fair to me that people continue to bear the stigma of past crimes when the justice system has decided that they’ve paid the price but also that’s how human society works.
Ultimately, you transgressed some boundaries here. You really shouldn’t have looked them up like you did but curiosity is natural. You knew they were quiet about their past and wanted to keep a low profile, and now you know why.
What matters here though is two things – do you think they’re still the same person they were when they did this? Like do you believe that they have done the work to become a better person and are sorry for what they did? That’s question one. Question two – can you live with the knowledge you now have, or can you not fundamentally move past what you know they did? Really, question two is the big one – can you move forward from this? If not, that is your answer. When it comes to boundaries and setting them, the appropriate boundaries are those that preserve your own sanity and also allow you to work normally. Setting those boundaries requires communicating them verbally. You’ll need to give us more details maybe if you want specific verbiage, but ultimately you just need to figure out what you need to feel safe and sane at work and then verbalize that. So long as you’re polite (and honest, if possible), that’s all you can really do.
It’s important to note that even if you think, cognitively, that they have moved on and gotten their lives turned around, if you don’t believe it in your gut, then it doesn’t really matter. Either you accept them for their past or you don’t. The past can’t be changed. If you can’t move past it, then yeah, boundaries everywhere moving forward.
I will say, if you can’t move past it, don’t spend time jerking them around. I’d be proactive about shutting the relationship down slowly; for someone in your coworker’s shoes, it’s going to hurt a lot more knowing you strung them along than if you just start to distance yourself now. They already have to live with the guilt and shame day in and day out, but when you’re dealing with that kind of thing, time is precious. It’s a finite resource and we have to use it to rebuild ourselves and our lives. Someone wasting it when you need to use it so carefully and intentionally is extra hurtful. It’s also hurtful knowing that yet another connection is going to sour because of what’s in your past, so it’s better to be given the bitter medicine so you can just swallow it rather than drawing it out, drop by drop.
I have a guess on your coworker’s crime based on what you wrote and in a comment you made about how coworker was convicted and served, and I originally typed the guess, but I’m going to delete it because the particulars are not as important as your feelings. Anyways, if my guess is correct, or in the ballpark, I can see how this would cause you to be horrified. I don’t know how long this coworker has stayed clean, but it sounds like this coworker is making a concerted effort to turn their life around. At the same time, it’s hard to unsee what you read about this person and I’m not sure I’d be able to do so in your shoes. But you’ve brought up how you don’t want to be cold or cruel. This suggests to me that despite the horrific past, you feel that this person doesn’t deserve outright hostility from you.
That suggests that you feel that your coworker, at present, has paid the dues for the past and, despite your feelings, your brain wants to give your coworker some respect.
So I suggest maybe be polite and still talk. Even if you don’t bring it up, your coworker has seen enough of this to know that you found about about the coworker’s past. Your coworker may say “I see that you found out.”. Then maybe you will know how you want to approach this. Maybe a talk at a public park or something like that. Or maybe your coworker will just think that this will go the way all other previous friendships have gone and decide to cut it off before facing disappointment or hostility again.
Only you know the actual history, so only you know if you can eventually overlook the past. So I think only you will know what you really should do in this circumstance.
Im going to throw this out there.
I went to school with a famous person whose mother had a serious substance abuse problem that resulted in the death of one child and the permanent damage to another. She later went on to nearly kill yet another man some years later. To say all of this was appalling is an understatement.
Yet to know their mother when we were kids, she was absolutely lovely. I never forgot that kindness that she had shown me before things turned for her, so when she came into my daughter’s shop years later after everything had happened (and she was a local pariah by this point) I showed her that same kindness.
She had an illness, and it changed a lot of lives. She was given way more grace than most because of their standing in our community, but she still was never let to forget what she had done and was always openly talked about, even in front of her children. It’s ok that she wasn’t forgiven, but I just never saw the value in dragging out what wasn’t ever going to be helped.
My point to this is that we dont always need details or answers to why people make the choices they do. We have two choices of our own when faced with someone like your coworker: Spend it admonising her and being another barrier in an already difficult to accept rehabilitation society-or- just accept that it costs you nothing to just be decent to her. You don’t have to go out of your way or make her a cause, just don’t impede and don’t discourage her from doing her best. You might be surprised at the helpful lessons you can learn from the strength she’s gained coming back from that.
What’s going on behind her is none of her business when she’s trying to move forward, and it’s certainly not yours.
My two cents.
You just need to treat them as a coworker, nothing more. Be civil and pleasant, that’s all. You don’t have to be personally close to a coworker if you don’t want to.