Hey Sap,

I learned this the hard way. It doesnt really matter whose problem it is. You can simply adjust from your end and cant force her to magically become a different person. Yeah, one thing that can be done is be understand your motivation for working there. I remember being in tears often and angry all the time. Eventually after a super pleasant interlude where she unfairly threatened to replace me, i decided that i was giving way too much power to this woman over my mental peace. I had two choices – either stay or quit. The former wasnt possible and i gave it a thought – whats my motivation for this? I realized absolutely none. At best, I secretly craved for appreciation or atleast some kind of acknowledgment from their end.

But i understood that i was getting way too personal and it was affecting my mental peace. Yeah, i always had low self-esteem and every criticism felt like a stab to the heart. I know it sounds silly but thats what it was. Then i concluded that i need to calm down and simply tap into an old resource – my desire to do work well for my sake. Over time, i became least concerned with what the work reflected of me as a person and rather became concerned with doing the work well – if someone suggested improvements that were required, i went ahead calmly and never let them have the luxury of shaking me up. I stopped letting my whole insecurities getting in the way of every comment, suggestion. Maybe that weekend of getting high helped haha. I think i got some strange clarity 😛

From then on, I remember often going to the bathroom and doing power poses to feel better. Another practise was disconnecting from office when i went home – a proper de-stress hour or two before bed. However, if you really feel unhappy and feel like you’ve exhausted all options from your end, then its better to look for other opportunities.

As for when to decide what, thats truly up to you.

Dear Sapnap3:

I smiled as I saw this new thread. Before reading it I went to the last one and read all your posts there. I copied the following from there with the intent on posting it here and responding to it, still without reading this thread:

“when do I stop blaming myself for ‘not trying hard enough’ ‘not givning my all’ and ‘not letting go’…when?
…I see people having beautiful babies, getting engaged, married, getting promotions. Why am i stagnant? I have an MBA, should I get one job with an understanding boss?…”

I copied the above because I saw the works of your Inner Critic and was going to point her out to you (that superego psychic entity, the often abusive, ineffective overgrown inner critic, also known as toxic inner critic). Reading the above post encouraged me in thinking I am on to the core problem you are suffering from: that toxic inner critic.

You posted above: “All my life, I have been raised to blame myself for everything. My new boss is mean…” The part of your brain (the particular neural connections) that blames you for everything is that psychic entity, Superego, Internal Critic. And it is the problem, it does way too much … not for you but against you. As it blames you for everything, you take responsibility for what is NOT your responsibility. Having a certain boss is NOT your responsibility, yet your inner critic tells you that it is. “well, how is it that others don’t have mean bosses? Huh? No answer? Well, it is YOUR fault then…?”

“And how is it that other women your age are married? Look at them! They look so happy. How is it that you are not married, and you don’t have babies? No wonder you are not happy!”

And the part of you, the Inner Child (Id I suppose, in Freudian terms, as is Superego) says: “Okay, okay, I must get married then, and I must have babies, then I will be happy and I must make the boss not mean because it is my doing that she is mean so I have to fix it as it is my fault I am not married and ….”

Part of you bullies the other part of you and it is very common. See my thread on bullying myself from a day or two ago.

It is a slow process that requires extreme patience and genteelness with yourself, the process of shrinking that inner critic. It is about becoming aware of IT, of its attack throughout the day: Oh, here is an attack. Then instead of engaging in it with an argument (and the drive to do so is intense, it is like an itch that needs to be scratched), you resist it and disengage from it for now. And you do it again and again, day after day.

Once formed, this toxic internal critic will (in between feeling good breaks) torture you forevermore. No way to please it, no matter what. Disengage from it, shrink it, over time- that is the only way.

The mean boss will continue to bother you way more than if you didn’t have your own mean inner critic. The two work together, one from the outside, the other from the inside.

Looking forward to your next post…?

anita

Dear Sapnap:

You wrote above that you “agree with the presence of that very loud inner critic”- well, what are you going to do about its presence? It is not like there is nothing to do. If you’d like to read more about the inner critic and the other side of the same coin, the outer critic, you can google Pete Walker’s website on Inner Critic and Outer Critic.

anita

I don’t think I gave examples. Maybe you can come up with examples in your life today?
anita