Hiya all
I've struggled against BPD-like traits in two family members the last 8-10 years. I've had a lot of help in here, and a lot of help from psychologists, and I've I trained with a lot of tools from this forum, so that I could stay out of conflicts sooner, and it has helped a lot.
Still, I've had the strangest experience that last month, I wanna tell you about. Maybe you can recognise anything from the story in your own life, and then it would be worth a lot to me to hear from you.
But here goes:
My story isn't directly about a familiy member with bpd traits. it begins in a voluntarly community toolshop in my hood. I found the place via Facebook, and wanted to give it a shot. Visited them a sunday afternoon, and the guy who showed me the place was really kind. They have a big wood tool shop, laser cutters, 3D printers, you name it, and they have really neat spaces and rooms for it all. Everyone in the local community was welcomed every sunday afternoon - for free- and there was to employees paid over taxes who stood ready to help us. At first sight, it felt too good to be real, but I started comming there and I met many kind people who wanted to small talk, also a great deal of introverts who just wanted to finish their wood craft idea and didn't wanna talk, and that was totally alright with me.
I have a past in scouting, so I'm actually used to talk to people from all over the world at camps and jamborees, so it felt familiar to me welcoming all the foreign users also in the tool shop.
It was okay sundays, but deep inside I felt something wrong about it all. It was actually this intense feeling, like the persons talked with and sometimes worked with, didn't seem as engaged as I was. For starters, they had a fine kitchen, but nobody took initative to brew a termos with coffee and one with tea or maybe just collect a few bucks to buy instant coffee for all of us. People didn't seem engaged in each other, even though this was the perfect place to make friends with the same interests.
As an old scout I'm used to get people together, so I baked bread in the little kitchen, made toast for lunch, made coffee and tea every time, and people liked it a lot. But it kind of just exploded on the surface. They didn't take any initiatives, when I didn't bake bread or didn't brew coffee for all.
I talked to almost everybody since I'm just curious as a person, and I like places where people feel good and help each other, like in scouting. To me it's the way you make friends.
But I couldn't find anyone with a spirit like mine, and that wasn't at all a problem in scouting. When I spoke with people, they spoke about negative experiences in their working life or family life, they also spoke about all their chronical diseases - a lot. And even if I tried to change subject, in seconds they were back to all the negative stuff. I mean. it's good talking about problems and disappointments in life, I'm totally for that and I think it's a good way of getting through crises. But when we were together, I felt we also needed to have a good time together with laughs and making some positive crafts in the tool shop, so we could get out of the negative spirale.
The employees wasn't that happy either. I mean they greated me and tried smiling sometimes, but one was more interested in his own projects and kind of held his head down, when new guests wanted to be shown around the premises. So I showed them our amazing tool shop. The other one, a young woman, sometimes just sat on a chair a stared the thousand mile stare, while cutting in some small piece of fabric with a pair of scisossers, just to be thrown out later. Other days, she made a cup of coffee and got outside with her friend who visited at her job, just chatting with that friend for an hour or more of the three hours the sunday tool shop was open.
People had plans and ideas - like me - "Oh we could make a tool shop for eletric guitars too", but again noone took initiative. And nobody really cared about the place. They had to vacum when they had been cutting wood oc, but otherwise, the wound pick one small piece of paper off of the floor. I felt the place was a gift to us, so I cleaned a little every sunday, emptied the dish washer and stuff like that.
But I was always left with this intense feeling, that people walked around like zombies or prisoners, and I couldn't get around what was the problem. They did mention a female boss, who we almost never have been seing. She "worked from home" she said, so she maybe visited one sunday every three months.
Over the summer a lot of people who also lent the facility, just other days than sundays, moved out. People talked a lot. Some said the female boss was a man hater, which sounded kind of a childish discription. But more than 100 people moved out, and they didn't even have the money for a new place, so they had to rent a pretty poor place, just to get away from the female boss.
At last I got tired of listening to all peoples negative talk. I wanted to make courses and I wanted to develop this fine place. And it wouldn't happen with all these negative people alone, so I contacted the female boss, and she quite rapidly answer that it was a terrific idea I've had and oc we should do that together.
She mention two other guys we could start this new initiative up with, guys I knew a bit.
I looked really positive. I was really engaged and looked forward to this succes, but there indeed was something spooky about this place. I've felt it for more than 9 months while I've been there, but I couldn't pin point what it was, and that felt really peculiar, bc I think from all my bad experiences with family members with bpd-traits, I think I've become quite good at spotting these anormalities.
I hope you're a bit curious now, bc it has been a long warming up story - I know it, thanks for reading so far ;)
It all got out of hand, when I after a week being sick, returned one sunday. I had interviewed and talked to the guys about our new project. We wanted to be volounters at the tool shop, and as a appreciation we would get keys for the place, so we could make our own projects anytime we wanted. They guys I had to work with wasn't into writing, so I promised to write their/our wishes down and send them to the boss.
This Sunday to my surprise, they were furious about me sending the notes to the female boss, even though that was what we had agreed about. They felt I had made secrect plans with the boss and held them out of it. I had did no such thing. I had been sick and didn't even speek to the boss while I were away. When they insisted, I got really angry. I had been kind to them for a half year, maybe even pleased them baking bread and serving coffee (my bad, I should've learned that I shouldn't need to do that, but I did), and now they accused me for keeping them out of the cooperation with the boss. I didn't get it, and they weren't good with words, so they couldn't explain it deeper.
In retrospective it really feels like someone had said something to them about me, but I don't know who and what? I was clueless.
I left place angry about being called a traitor to our little volountering project. I wrote the female boss about the whole episode, and then it all became very weird and irrational.
First the boss wrote that I had did nothing wrong. But the guys couldn't tell me what exactly they were mad about. It was like, the didn't dare to repeat a rumour they were told.
Then the boss meant that it was my duty to just forget it all and to forget about it all. She meant I was causing the comotion, and for the first time I could see the bpd-traits and maybe narcissistic traits. She started gaslighting, told me it was all a misunderstanding, and I was being silly bc I would just forget it all. I was like "What misunderstanding? There was none. I did all the work to make this happen, and now my partners said I had let them down, and now we should just forget it all, and I was being silly, that I wanted an explanation.
I mean the guys could've called me, explaining about the misunderstading, but they never did.
I said I wanted to think about the whole episode and would return after Christmas and wished her Happy Holidays.
That she didn't accept. She wanted the crises gone now. And I was the only who could get it out of the world (If I would just forget it all had happened, then there were no problem)
I began feeling uneasy about it all. I had written her a month ago about security when working when dangerous saws, that we should have signs a safety equipment, and she thought it was a good idea, and told me to start the process. But when I wanted a meeting, I should just calm down and stay focused on my own projects (what) One day she would write me, that she liked that I finally took responsibily in the tool shop, and the next week she would write me, that I shouldn't interfere. She was the only boss, and every little thing should go through her desk, even when we needed a new yellow toner for the printer, which we never got.
I started to see that she wanted us to look like the best tool shop in town, so new plans and articles in the news paper or on facebook about how great we were, was very welcome. I understood, that all her positivity was love bombing, when I suggested that I would be a volounteer. And when I needed her help, or needed a printer toner or needed support in conflicts where I didn't backstab any of the other volunteers, I was bad air to her and being silly.
I've never experienced anyone being that narcissistic before, so I have been quite stunned. Now I finally see how every project is turned down or people are being made scapegoats, when they need money or support or just help from her, and she just shrugs them off, bc she's sitting in "an important meeting" never returning there polite ask for help.
Now I understand why the two employees are going around like zombies, bc they can't even order a yellow ink toner themselves. When someone/guests breaks the secutity rules with the saws, she writes HER rules in a mail to the employees, but she never gives guest warnings or throw them out for acting unsafe. She just don't anything to do about it. She talks like a big boss, but next day she is saying something completely different. And when an employee are setting rules for safety, she backs up the guest who were unsafe and not the employee
Finally I just had enough, when she wrote me I shouldn't take responsibility, just have fun in the shop (bc my responsibility gave her too many problems she didn't wanna solve). I just didn't answer that mail.
After 10 days she texted me, with loving bombing. I was the best person in the tool shop. Everyone wanted me to come back, and they would all welcome me. It was just a misunderstanding.
When I wrote back it wasn't a misunderstanding, that the guys were still angry with me for something I never what was about. She wrote back, that she thought, I shouldn't return. That I had said something about others about them not being welcome ( I never did), so now I should leave!
I got mad, and I wrote in strong language how her way of not leading the place was absolutely a disgrace. I shouldn't have used strong language, but I had had enough. I've had tried to stop all talking behind peoples backs in the shop, and I had been completely honest to her in every case, and now she just dumped me like a piece of trash, because she couldn't control me.
After some days she sent me a new mail expelling me from the whole tool shop. She signed as "The board", but I'm pretty sure it was her, because I have never received a mail from any board without the chairman of the board signing.
I wrote that I couldn't take her mail seriously and told her she couldn't expell me, when I had left the place two weeks ago and had removed all my stuff. Then I blocked her e-mail adresses.
Now I get it all. But it's still hard for me to believe that she acted that crazy and immature. Now I understand the the ill omen that layed all over the tool shop.
Has any of you ever experienced a place, where a boss with bpd- or narcissistic traits have ruined a whole place, so that only people who don't stand up to them stay, and all the others leave. It's really peculiar to me, not so much that people of her kind exists, but that so many, stay around her and keep the place going.
I feel I could see through her bc I learned all the tools in here.
All best - and soon Happy Holidays - from Snoopy
