Bullied at work for the 2nd time.

Hello!

I'm new at the forum. I was feeling very, very sick and anxious about going to work tomorrow and I decided to join and read other stories people in my situation may share and, also, to ask for some hints or comments.

At my first company, we were a group from the same college and studies that started as interns and developed a career there. We were really naive and the manager bullied most of us (he was very paranoid, working in a very toxic environment, and he would think that we were lying to him or trying to trick him, which was not true). He was the worst person I have ever known, as he used all the manual bully manager at work would do and enjoyed everytime very sadistically. As we were very naive then. my coworkers and I suffered this in very different ways. Mine was thinking that it was my fault, that I should give 200%, working much more and going to HR, which didn't work, it eventually got me into trouble.
I developed health problems: I lost my period, my hair was extremely greasy, I had cry attacks, anxiety, chest pain and felt very miserable.
It took 6 months of looking until I found another job, because my career is very specialized. It looked like years.

Then I had some nice years of work and I got to feel better and recover my health, just by not being there. I remember that my 1st days at the new job I was jumping if I had a phone call or a new e-mail, like I was feeling post-traumatic disorder.

So everything turned out well, finally, and I was rather happy. But about 6 months ago I had a job offer which looked like a dream! It was in another beautiful country, the manager was amazing and very supportive, they promised to help me change my career to another area, which was what I actually wanted... everything looked perfect, enough to make me leave my work and apartment and family and friends and start at the new job.

Well, it is not what it looked like. The environment was weirdly hostile from the moment I arrived. Like people were very hostile - not with me but also with other people and between them. But nothing that getting a good life afterwards could not solve and some guidance of the manager.
But then there was an organization change and my manager was dismissed. The new manager made some changes and moved me back to the old area of work. Not only that, he named me responsible of my area.
So, that drove 3 people mad. And they have been bullying me constantly: yelling at me in the middle of the office to say that I am not qualified for the job (only +10 years), yelling that I have been telling lies to the manager about one of them, avoiding me to not go for lunch with me, saying passive-agressive stuff in front of me about "people they hate", not replying if I ask them or talk to them, even for work, saying hello to everyone except for me, telling the manager that I should do a job that it's not for me, etc.
And, finally, this week, one arrogant coworker, who has problems with the other guys also, told my managers that I am not qualified and when I went to talk to him trying to make peace, he yelled at me very rude things as that in my case he would leave because my job can be done by a bachelor student and, still, I am not qualified to do it.
(I got insecured to ask for feedback about my work to the customer and they answered that they were happy and I was doing a quite good job).

As this is not my 1st experience, I don't think that this is related to me at all. In fact, the toxic environment was there from the beginning and I learned that many people just stayed at my position for maybe 2 months and left. They were clearly smarter than me because I didn't see it clearly enough until I reached this situation. Now I'm stuck in another country with a bullying situation and a rent apartment contract for another 6 months.

I have started looking for another job and one recruiter told me that there is a company which requires a profile very similar to mine but he told me that the fact that I want to change from a job so early, specially because I moved from my country to this, does not look good and that I should find a honest but reasonable explanation about why I want to leave.
I really hope that I can find another year because I can't continue like this.

I feel right now: anxiety, chest pain, difficulty to breath, feeling of shame, problems to focus, again, lost my period, crying attacks (at home), feelings of hopelessness and I feel constantly tired and incapable of doing anything right.

Please, help!!

Best wishes.

I am sorry things have been so difficult for you lately. I can relate in some ways. Working for people like that is miserable. I don't have answers for you but I can sympathize. I used to get so tense at my last job I held back in my early twenties (I'm 41 now), that I would go home and drink to calm down and the bad thing is that I was doing this day after day, everyday until my brother told me to stop. And I did stop. It was so much stress.

Don't listen to the recruiter.

Apply for the position at the company with the opening, or contact your old manager and ask if you could be considered for re-employment since you probably left on good terms. Then find an independent counselor and get therapy, if possible, for what you've been through. It sounds as though you either do not have managerial/upper level support in order to succeed at your position, or that you have been purposefully placed and left to flounder because managers want you to quit. This is not a respectful or developmental workplace, and you should seek employment elsewhere regardless of "how it looks."

BonAqua wrote:Hello!

I'm new at the forum. I was feeling very, very sick and anxious about going to work tomorrow and I decided to join and read other stories people in my situation may share and, also, to ask for some hints or comments.

At my first company, we were a group from the same college and studies that started as interns and developed a career there. We were really naive and the manager bullied most of us (he was very paranoid, working in a very toxic environment, and he would think that we were lying to him or trying to trick him, which was not true). He was the worst person I have ever known, as he used all the manual bully manager at work would do and enjoyed everytime very sadistically. As we were very naive then. my coworkers and I suffered this in very different ways. Mine was thinking that it was my fault, that I should give 200%, working much more and going to HR, which didn't work, it eventually got me into trouble.
I developed health problems: I lost my period, my hair was extremely greasy, I had cry attacks, anxiety, chest pain and felt very miserable.
It took 6 months of looking until I found another job, because my career is very specialized. It looked like years.

Then I had some nice years of work and I got to feel better and recover my health, just by not being there. I remember that my 1st days at the new job I was jumping if I had a phone call or a new e-mail, like I was feeling post-traumatic disorder.

So everything turned out well, finally, and I was rather happy. But about 6 months ago I had a job offer which looked like a dream! It was in another beautiful country, the manager was amazing and very supportive, they promised to help me change my career to another area, which was what I actually wanted... everything looked perfect, enough to make me leave my work and apartment and family and friends and start at the new job.

Well, it is not what it looked like. The environment was weirdly hostile from the moment I arrived. Like people were very hostile - not with me but also with other people and between them. But nothing that getting a good life afterwards could not solve and some guidance of the manager.
But then there was an organization change and my manager was dismissed. The new manager made some changes and moved me back to the old area of work. Not only that, he named me responsible of my area.
So, that drove 3 people mad. And they have been bullying me constantly: yelling at me in the middle of the office to say that I am not qualified for the job (only +10 years), yelling that I have been telling lies to the manager about one of them, avoiding me to not go for lunch with me, saying passive-agressive stuff in front of me about "people they hate", not replying if I ask them or talk to them, even for work, saying hello to everyone except for me, telling the manager that I should do a job that it's not for me, etc.
And, finally, this week, one arrogant coworker, who has problems with the other guys also, told my managers that I am not qualified and when I went to talk to him trying to make peace, he yelled at me very rude things as that in my case he would leave because my job can be done by a bachelor student and, still, I am not qualified to do it.
(I got insecured to ask for feedback about my work to the customer and they answered that they were happy and I was doing a quite good job).

As this is not my 1st experience, I don't think that this is related to me at all. In fact, the toxic environment was there from the beginning and I learned that many people just stayed at my position for maybe 2 months and left. They were clearly smarter than me because I didn't see it clearly enough until I reached this situation. Now I'm stuck in another country with a bullying situation and a rent apartment contract for another 6 months.

I have started looking for another job and one recruiter told me that there is a company which requires a profile very similar to mine but he told me that the fact that I want to change from a job so early, specially because I moved from my country to this, does not look good and that I should find a honest but reasonable explanation about why I want to leave.
I really hope that I can find another year because I can't continue like this.

I feel right now: anxiety, chest pain, difficulty to breath, feeling of shame, problems to focus, again, lost my period, crying attacks (at home), feelings of hopelessness and I feel constantly tired and incapable of doing anything right.

Please, help!!

Best wishes.

Hello BonAqua

According to the official statistics about 2% of the population are sociopaths. A major criticism of this is the lack of indication of how they're distributed in your country. In my opinion it can be as high as 30% of people in very deprived areas inside Western countries.

Sociopaths hate themselves, the world, and everyone in it. Most of all they hate you if you are happy, positive, confident, moral, friendly, outgoing, popular, intelligent, pretty, athletic, gifted or a successful person. This is more than the green eyed monster, its is pure vindictive hate directed at you for not being as big a loser as they are. They seek to turn you into themselves.

Some sociopaths are low functioning meaning they don't have the manipulation skills to hide what they are. These struggle to keep their jobs and stay out of prison. Others are high functioning meaning they can pull the wool over peoples eyes while they are destroying and ruining their targets. This is done by wearing fake masks in front of people carefully designed to give out the impression that they're a honest, trustworthy, moral and good person. They do get caught, eventually, but usually not before they have ruined several people.

At work watch how your manager is around someone in a superior position or someone who holds a lot of influence inside the organisation. Does he/she behave like a completely different person? If so its a mask.

With sociopaths as managers they either get rid of the light off their team by forcing them to quit, playing office politics in such a way as to get them sacked as the ones having the problem, or the light turns into a sociopath falling into place under them.

The weak minded employees who cave into the sociopathic manager so as not to be targeted themselves get turned into the next round of sociopaths. The strong willed employees get driven out by either forcing them to quit or finding a way to get rid of them (usually this is done using the employees reactions to the bullying to portray them as the bully).

Coping Skills
Cortisol is the stress hormone which puts you into fight or flight mode. Flight is when the hormone makes you feel anxious, on edge, makes you panic and makes you feel upset. Its your body trying to force you to flee the situation. With fight the cortisol dumps a load of sugar into your bloodstream to be used by your muscles for fighting. To dampen down the response:
1. You can reduce your cortisol levels by 80% in mere seconds by giving yourself a large dose of easily absorbed sugar. The reason this works is most of that cortisol is no longer needed to get your liver to dump sugar into your blood stream. I recommend a bag of lollipops to suck on when stressed.
2. Avoid coffee and make sure that you stick to a proper nights sleep as best as possible. Tired people are prone to obsessing about whatever is stressing them out. While the bullying might give you some insomnia nights there is no need to make it worse by consciously having late nights.
3. Get yourself a book on mindfulness (a mere £5 on Kindle). It teaches you that there are your feelings and then all the thoughts you add to them. Thoughts such as figuring out why something happened, planning what to do about it, thinking about how to get revenge. Basically we add a whole lot of thoughts to the feeling of stress and it is the thoughts that we add which are responsible for most of the way we feel. The feeling of stress on its own, with no inner dialogue added, really isn't a problem. Mindfulness can take take up to 2 months to get all the way where you no longer add inner dialogue.

Work Place Survival Skills
Sociopaths exist. If they are high functioning they often manipulate their way into positions of power by appearing the gifted sweet innocent angel to those above them while destroying the threats below them. There is nothing you can do about this other than accept that people like this exist and nothing you will ever do will change it. You can run from job to job and you will always encounter them. So instead of behaving what you consider to be the right way at work you need a more practical approach:
1. You want your manager to think you are deeply unhappy and miserable in life. Tell him/her lies to convince them of this. Invent stories of how you tried to commit suicide when younger, how your parents abused you, how nothing ever goes your way, and how your whole life is a complete failure. Here you are wearing a mask in front of the sociopath to manipulate them away from targeting you as someone to destroy (you are already destroyed).
2. Don't bully the sociopath or give them attitude back. The sociopath is good at getting weak people on board with them and will use them to make out that its you who is the bully. Then you get sacked not them.
3. Don't be the best at your job. Don't be so bad as to get yourself sacked but be a little below average. Even if redundancies come up you are safe as being an under performer makes the sociopath like you while they will actually lay off the top performing threats instead.
4. Build relationships around the organisation when the sociopath is not there to see. Let the other people, particularly senior managers and people with influence, see your true self. The happy, positive, confident person. Of course don't rush right into this, wait until you know if they are also a sociopath first. At organisations where there is one there are either usually several due to the senior managers/HR really having no clue on how to spot or deal with toxic employees. Most of the time, they prefer to pretend that a problem doesn't exist and hope it will go away by itself.
5. Give out the impression to the sociopath manager that you are a weak minded employee by caving to their will.

Getting Rid of the Sociopath Manager
After applying the survival skills your sociopath manager will think you are a weak employee and will trust you. Over a few months they will open up to you and you should listen out for those secrets which you can use to destroy them. Remember, all people with anti-social personality disorders (sociopaths come under this) have a problem obeying rules, laws and social norms. Just sit and wait until you have them whether it be stealing, dealing drugs, drink driving, bullying someone who is in the process of making a complaint against them, damaging property, etc. Then strike.

Alternatively you want a nice big social event like a Xmas Party or Xmas Dinner. Monitor the sociopath manager until he is in a situation where he is talking to several over people including those senior managers who believe him to be the next great thing. Insert yourself into the conversation and when they start getting to know you come out with something like:

'I'm into psychology and have been doing a lot of reading into personality disorders. I know its not every ones cup of tea but its really interesting especially when it comes to problems like sociopathy and psychopathy. Apparently sociopaths hate themselves, the world and everything in it but most of all they hate happy, confident, gifted, etc, people. They seek to destroy and ruin them and whats eye opening is the high functioning sociopaths usually get away with it in the work place for several years until they are finally found out. Its because they are good at manipulating the people above them into thinking they are gifted sweet innocent angels because they are always wearing a mask when around such people. Meanwhile they do a lot of damage to the business by getting rid of the talent, mobbing or convincing other people the talent has got behavioural issues going on.

Your sociopath is totally paranoid and terrified of being exposed. Its one of their top fears. They will meltdown at the above. They will immediately go on the offensive raising eyebrows and often turn violent (so don't do this if he/she is holding a pint or anything). The other top fear is losing control of their environment and people in it. Which the above statement also does. Always be safe. Your health and life are worth more than getting rid of a sociopath so assess the risk to yourself first.

The above advice will help you in future jobs. If you can relate to what I have written I advise not going back to your last position. If you want to, and do, you want to be really really happy in the phone call where you ask to go back. If the manager is a sociopath they will be delighted at the chance to take you back in and ruin you further. If you go back, you want to act ruined.