Dear Calm Moon:

I am sorry that you lost your little brother two years ago, the boy that you raised. It must be very painful for you..

You wrote about your manager: “too intrusive… She constantly wants to chat and complains a lot. It sucks energy out of me… her energy too controlling and non-negotiable. What’s strange is she seems to be open to ideas and listening, but in the end, she only pushes her ideas… She constantly messaged me throughout the days when I was on sick leave, asking me when I would come back… she constantly wrote to me and asked me to come in a very rude way. In the end, it was so crucial for me to come… I don’t know why I feel depressed and suffocated around her. She seems to be friendly. But many of her actions and words don’t align with me. When she’s absent, I can breathe again“-

– I can understand why her presence depresses and suffocates you, and why you can breathe again when you are not in her presence. I felt similarly regarding my mother when in her presence: she talked to me whenever she wanted to talk, no matter what I was doing. I was trying to do my homework, study for a test, read, focus on something else.. but she’d talk to me regardless, and often in an excited tone that agitated me.

She too was controlling and non-negotiable. She pushed her ideas on me; my ideas were of no value to her. She was very rude to me many times (beyond talking a lot no matter what I was doing). She was nice many times (to me and to others), but much of it was fake, a pretense. When her niceness was genuine, I was not able to appreciate because of the backlog of the too much rudeness and alarmingly consistent absence of consideration of what I may need, want, think and feel.

When she was at home, I was able to relax.

Intrusive is the right word. I once painted (following an art class), my mother’s hands intruding into my brain and messing with it. I was physically and mentally exhausted in my first two decades+ of life.

anita