Dealing w/Anxiety from Toxic Manager

[bethanny]

I have not been around in a good while, though I did recommend this site to a friend recently who was under tremendous stress over a family member. 

This site has helped me tremendously periodically, especially in my corporate work environment when a dynamic starts to trigger new as well as that old pain from a dysfunctional family history. 

My mom had unrecovered bpd and my dad was an alcoholic and narcissist.  They have both passed on but my PTSD gets triggered by toxic authority figures, especially women.

I have weathered a lot from this particular authority person over the years who now has inspired me to return to this support website.  I just tried to contact the employee assistance program of my company but apparently there is no longer one.

I am a hardworking and solid employee but this woman has always treated me with contempt and as far as her power allowed, made my work life much less comfortable for me.  I have had to bite the proverbial bullet.  Hierarchy is very strong and protected in corporate firms.

Fortunately my direct supervisor is a wonderfully empathetic person so her good will makes the job often pleasant but the manager inserts herself in when she can. Lately she has decided I am too slow as a worker and has begun harassing me about it directly. 

I work now remotely because of the pandemic and have had some technical problems with the laptop I was provided with and she has exhibited nothing but impatience with my issues. Even omitted sending me a larger monitor to make my wordprocessing job easier for the beginning of the pandemic.  I was getting eyestrain and was not even aware every other employee had been provided with a second monitor.  She laughed off her mistake.  She claims it was a mistake.  Maybe, but there is an entire over a decade list of passive aggressive and aggressive treatment that suggests it might have been otherwise.

I am a real "girl scout" when it comes to work. I work hard and am generous with my time and efforts.  I pride myself on my strong work ethic and my performance.

My last review chat with her she implied I was stupid as well as opportunistic in terms of overtime.  This is so the opposite of the truth.

I have often worked off the clock at the end of my shift to help a particular attorney or busy coworkers make a deadline. I admit this is enabling/codependent behavior on my part, but it was something I readily did in response to the stress on others. I rarely sought overtime unless an emergency required serious hours and then I put in for it to this manager (this is an overnight shift so I couldn't do it beforehand) not knowing if I would be obliged or scolded.

The last recent time I did this, and not on my authorization but the person supervising the late shift, this manager forebade me doing any more overtime.  This is more a punishment on my late night coworkers and the attorneys than myself.  But it is one of the reasons I am so uneasy with her harassment right now.  It has ramped up.

I am not an ace technologically speaking but I hold my own in the group.  There is more and more sophisticated software coming down the pike and more and more of our attorneys are adept with the computer which makes us as a support team all the more challenged.  We do our best. There aren't many formal opportunities for training so we try our best to keep up.  We are all swimming in a sea of new technologies at work, but when a manager is looking for grounds for incompetence among the group, she can find instances where a worker was not on top of the game because of the scope of the work requests. 

The ambushes to me by this manager are increasing. I am planning to retire in the very near future and now I am suddenly primally frightened this woman may try to get me fired before then. 

She has always had irrational malice toward me.  It is crazymaking all the efforts I have made which were received by her with punishing reactions mostly.  No good deed goes unpunished.  Also, a few times I screwed up by not requesting vacation time, etc., within the official window and the vilification I received for such a mistake was so personally insulting and inappropriate.  All she had to do was say no. Instead she went off on that unrecovered borderline personality "shark turn" rage that will be held on her laundry list of my sins forever.  And generalized as "I ALWAYS BEHAVE THIS WAY..." ALL OR NOTHING, BLACK AND WHITE THINKING.

She is not an easy manager for anyone. I know four people who retired early to get away from her.  The pandemic slowed down my retirement efforts, there are some medical procedures I was intending to pay with my employment insurance that I was counting on before retiring. 

Anyway, she is not easy, but she has scapegoated me for a long time.  I have endured it.  I have been through a lot with this firm already. If anyone is around from the old days, I had a male employee physically threaten me on the job with no witnesses and I got so much grief from management and coworkers for being a troublemaker. I felt so threatened by him I left the building.

Not only didn't they deal with him and his anger management issues (or whatever was inciting his threatening behavior ... perhaps drugs) but since he was very popular among coworkers who didn't work directly with him I was shunned by a work community whose good will I presumed to enjoy, this for a painful while.  It certainly changed my degree of trust and lessened my comfort among those fellow employees. It seems when a group is confronted by a he said/she said scenario they tend to act like a jury and pick one side or the other and jointly stand by that group opinion.  It was a rude awakening, though I watched the same thing happen with my borderline mother when she exerted political power with family members pre a long estrangement with primary and secondary family. Instead of doing any serious conflict resolution with me, she immediately solicited them to comfort her for my "crazed" (a total lie) treatment of her.  I was stunned by the detachment. I was stunned she was willing to damage my support network so quickly and so efficiently.

The reason this website is so beloved by me is how I found support and understanding when I came here to lean and try to survive the slings and arrows.  You guys came through so wonderfully.  I am tearing up as I type this.

I have a phone review meeting with this manager tonight, in a few hours.  I am dreading it.  She has begun monitoring the time I take to finish off projects and cajoling me if she thinks I am too slow during my work, bypassing my actual supervisor.  It is, I believe, based on emotional irrational reasoning.  Malice.

Projects have extenuating needs, I am careful, accurate and thorough.  I am also resourceful and if I don't know how to do something I find out if possible, or I contact the attorney immediately if I am confused.  My immediate supervisor, coworkers and the vast number of attorneys I interact with (not like the old days when the number was fewer and they remembered who you were after you did a great job on their projects) don't seem to have any problem with me, but this manager is like a dog with a bone, barking at me for being too slow (and implied stupid). 

It is triggering some irrational as well as rational panic in me.  It is triggering the despair of growing up with a mother who saw me as a disappointment in not being perfectly and inhumanly accommodating to her every need.  My mother was a roller coaster.  She could be nurturing and kind to the extreme at times, but then suddenly make clear she demanded I walk a tight rope of accommodating as well as anticipating her needs.  If I inadvertently messed up there was hell to pay.  If I deliberately defied her, there was the highway.

Thanks for listening to all of this. 

Best,
Bethanny

[Methuen]

Hey Bethany  This sounds distressing.  

Does your employer have a Personnel Practices Code?

Have you seen the agreement between employers and employees to see your benefits (EAP et al) , as well as internal policies?

This woman sounds like a witch.  

Try SET?  ...but don’t validate the invalid.  Don't JADE as Jadeing will escalate a bpd.  Stay calm through the phone review.

How long have you worked for this particular firm?

Do you have previous reviews that have recognized your work?

Can you record the conversation?

[zachira]

I am admiring all that you have worked through with your family members through the years and sad about how you are being affected by your toxic manager. It sounds like your manager is a narcissist, and is targeting you. I know the fear and anxiety can be so overwhelming when a person like this has a lot of negative heartbreaking impact over an important area of your life,  like your job. I am thinking that it is probably hard for you to hide how you feel in the presence of this manager, and disapproving body language for a narcissist can really set them on a revenge path, as not being admired triggers overwhelming shame and anger in the narcissist. I have found the books of Bill Eddy, a social worker and lawyer, who specializes in mediation with high conflict personalities, very helpful in dealing with my disordered family members. You might find particularly helpful his book: "Its All Your Fault at Work! Managing Narcissists and Other High-Conflict People". Meanwhile we are here to listen and support you. Hopefully this manager will not be around too much longer, and you can retire at the time you have planned.

[bethanny]

Methuen and Zachira, Thanks so much for your empathy.

Zachira, I will look into Bill Eddy. I appreciate the recommendation!

Metheun, I have stopped expecting serious accountability of superiors in a corporate environment. When I was younger I trusted there might be justice, but I have seen such little evidence of it during my years at the rung I am on in the  corporate workplace.

I don't know what SET and JADE mean but am really curious.  It has been a while since I have been on this website. I will explore as best I can to learn more of the latest or popular insights and tools. 

I have been dealing with this person by detaching as best I could. But she is really coming at me lately.  As I said, I don't have a lot of faith in a just corporate climate.  I know four people who retired early to get away from her and one who quit.  I also know that three of those people really popped off in their exit interviews but this woman has enjoyed promotions since then.

I don't think I can call her out successfully to her superiors.  I think I am looking to try to endure as effectively as possible and try to survive the pain I see her intending to keep meting out and survive the balance of my work time before retirement.  I really need to focus on the retirement transition, and transition has its own historic pressures on me as well, but now it seems I have to focus on covering my back more diligently in terms of increased work education at same time.  Which may or may not protect me, anyway.

No matter what I do, the ubpd/narcissist will frame it in the negative and I need to not be baited by that to go into fight, flight or freeze mode, but to keep breathing and keep my serenity as best I can. 

I know out of my own insecurity from dysfunctional history I cannot shrug off her malice as someone who did not come from there could more easily.  Their game of playing "I am okay, you are not!" will trigger me if I do not stay supported by myself and a network like this of people who don't minimize the toxicity of sustained malice!

I am resigned to honing my skills to try to avoid being vulnerable to her over-reactions to mistakes or lack of expertise.  Again, I also know dealing with an ubpd person or narcissist you can not prevent the irrational malice from manipulation.  I mainly need to fight being pulled into her shaming of me, to reject the negative portrait of me she is pushing onto others and myself.

As I was listening to Dr Ramani and others on youtube lately, someone said a narcissist is addicted to projecting their insecurity onto you, they are addicted to your pain -- addicted to causing it -- so they can feel more powerful by making you feel sh*tty. 

Something exciting did happen Monday night. Maybe because of my efforts to fortify myself here and with the videos I had been watching.  And my willingness to try to get counseling.

This woman pounced on me for taking too long on a project.  I defended myself but she kept on framing her own reality in which I was being colossally slow. It seemed a nightmare moment but I had the presence of mind and courage to contact the attorney I had sent the project back to and he responded to the group email of the department from me praising my work and congratulating me on creating what he had needed after both my manager, cruelly, and my supervisor, very nice but shaken by the manager's declarations about me, had misinterpreted the very instructions the attorney had laid out.  It was a crazymaking experience with a happy ending for me. Validation by the attorney.  When I contacted him I prayed I had done the job right. I was beginning to doubt reality from the intense contempt once again of this manager.  He reassured me. I am glad I trusted and  honored myself enough to risk writing him.

I am from a 12 step background and say the serenity prayer  when I am challenged.  I don't want to deny all criticisms of me, some are deserved and I like others need to be responsible and accountable, but I want to recognize feedback when it has gratuitously malicious and personal intent. 

Also, last night when I did not get played into shame or guilt by her I remembered an old affirmation I once had used a lot: "I have taken off the dark and heavy garments of shame and guilt and I feel light and free."

I am not perfect, but I don't want to get seduced by shame to feel self-hating and insecure because I am not perfect, especially when the reality is I work hard and smartly and deserve respect not contempt even if and when I do mess up occasionally.  Narcissists and ubpd people are good at building mountains of shaming and guilting out of molehills.

My borderline mother could be so vilifying about whatever she saw as a failing and I stifled so much of my own life force growing up because I was indoctrinated into doubting myself and fearing her harsh judgmentalism and believing that mistakes at any level should never happen, and had dire consequences.  I missed so much believing better to avoid than to try and to grow.

The good news also is that my company has eap counseling after all so tomorrow I will call the number. I think staying awake and sharing here and with a counselor and with my small network of loved ones will help me weather the storms that will be coming at me. 

One of the symptoms of PTSD is getting thrown into "infant time" where you feel like a helpless child rather than your current adult seasoned self. 

Or as if a trap door opens under your feet and you drop down the shame chute from years of trusting significant others who invalidated you out of their own insecurity and woundedness. 

Last night I was dreading an encounter with this manager but when she started to blast me I felt very together and self-protective and defended myself and asserted myself with the proverbial "amazing grace."  I was so impressed I felt it and I blessed it.  She disappeared fast from the scene after the attorney validated my choices. 

I know it is not the end of this. I need to be and stay an ally to myself.  And I need to do all I can do to fortify myself and to seek out others who will offer wisdom and comfort to the crazymaking manipulations of people like her acting out of irrational malice.

Thanks, guys, for listening and supporting.  Means a lot. 

Bethanny
xxxx

[zachira]

I too am listenting to Dr. Ramani's videos on youtube and learning a great deal about how to deal with narcissists and recover from abuse from them. I think you will find Bill Eddy a wonderful compliment to Dr. Ramani, along with letting us know how you are doing. You are welcome to post as often as you feel the need to reach out. Also, do let us know when things are going well.

[Methuen]

This woman pounced on me for taking too long on a project.  I defended myself but she kept on framing her own reality in which I was being colossally slow. It seemed a nightmare moment but I had the presence of mind and courage to contact the attorney I had sent the project back to and he responded to the group email of the department from me praising my work and congratulating me on creating what he had needed after both my manager, cruelly, and my supervisor, very nice but shaken by the manager's declarations about me, had misinterpreted the very instructions the attorney had laid out.

Last night I was dreading an encounter with this manager but when she started to blast me I felt very together and self-protective and defended myself and asserted myself with the proverbial "amazing grace."  I was so impressed I felt it and I blessed it.  She disappeared fast from the scene after the attorney validated my choices.

Perfect!  There's a few good tools in all this for your toolbox.

The good news also is that my company has eap counseling after all so tomorrow I will call the number.

Excellent!

I don't know what SET and JADE mean but am really curious.  It has been a while since I have been on this website.

 Go to "How to Get the Most out of this site".  It will take you to the following link where you can see the list of topics such as JADE and SET.
https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=334882.0

I congratulate you for using both your knowledge and experience with BPD to assist you in dealing with this current situation.  That knowledge and prior experience (with T and healing) sounds like it may have helped you compose yourself to take affirmative action prior to the phone interview (contacted the attorney) and handle yourself through the interview.  These are AMAZING results Bethany.  Congratulations!

[pursuingJoy]

Bethanny, you've received some great guidance. Just want to extend a big hug and 'same here.' You really are doing great. I'm glad you're getting needed validation from outside sources.

I had a direct supervisor that sounds much like your manager. She had a habit of pulling you into her office, closing the door, getting up in your face, and yelling while she pointed her finger. One former employee finally warned her that he would not allow the door to be closed, future conversations would be recorded, and if need be, he would report her to HR. This supervisor is beloved by many in the organization, which amps up her influence/power and makes it even more intimidating to report her.

When a friend or peer is a bully, that's one thing. When it's your boss, your livelihood is at risk. It's so unfair. I wish more workplaces would address bullying.

I read an article once that said work bullies almost always target the most productive, hard working employees. 

[Methuen]

I read an article once that said work bullies almost always target the most productive, hard working employees.

...honestly  and probably because of their own “deep” insecurities.  Makes a lot of sense to me.

[bethanny]

Metheun:  JADE and SET wise practices

pursuingJoy!  I agree.  I am one of the most efficient and hardest working employees which is why I get so shocked and confused at the level of malice this woman is accusing me of, and implying I am stupid and/or lazy.  It is gobsmacking. 

I am going to start a new thread. More to come.

Thanks for the TLC!

I still have to check out Bill Eddy.