My friend P has talked about the many micro-aggressions she has tolerated for years from a few of her co-worked, aided and abetted by dysfunctional leadership. None of the actions on their own are worthy of note or attention but when it goes on non-stop and comes from multiple directions it chips away at a person's self-worth. P says if makes her question what she knows to be true about herself professionally. She does not like that they have forced her to turn defensive - feeling pressured to prove what she never thought could be in question. She is moving on now and is torn about how to process all of this and not carry grudges.
She has reason to believe these same people would present very differently if they had met outside the context of work at a book club or exercise class for example. They might have even become friends. The circumstances of their meeting were such that it only dialed up negative things - maybe there were operating from an instinct of self-preservation. I told her what I do in similar situations which is not a model the more enlightened among us would endorse. I sever connection with such people for good the moment the professional relationship ends. Its a clean and forever cut.
I have found that it serves me well because the energy that feeds their feels and actions gets depleted from lack of connection. Everyone moves on with their lives and those intolerable transgressions of the past become ancient history. I told P in three years, she'd be hard pressed to remember the names of the people who were the bane of her existence never mind the incidents that got her so upset.