Dear Megan:

I hope your sister heals and gets better and better. You wrote that you had a hard life. If that includes a difficult home life as a child, then I imagine your sister experienced that difficult home life as well, didn’t she.

You expressed that you do your best at work, but your boss, instead of focusing on the positives of your work and  praising you, she focuses on the negatives and puts you down. You wondered if she has a hard life and that’s the reason she is bitter. You wrote: “I have been through a hard  life but that doesn’t make me bitter, it  motivates me to be the best person I can be and help those who are struggling as well”.

Some people who suffer from aggression in their home, an aggressive parent, let’s say, identify with the aggressor, making a decision (with very little thought, as it is a quick decision) to never be in that weak position again, to be instead in the position of power- the position of the aggressor. For them, human relationships are  Win-Lose prospects: either one wins, or one loses. So they go about life trying to Win, which means to have power over others via aggression, verbal aggression, facial expression/ body language aggression, and otherwise.

Do you think that’s what behind your boss’s behavior?

anita