Self Care Summer: The End

The overdramatic ending to discovering the cause of my anxiety and defeating like a video game monster.

Photo source: https://soundcloud.com/klrx/i-hope-someday-you-see-the-light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-youre-in

Before I get started, I would like to issue a caveat: I know this entire situation is ridiculous. Unfortunately, it is also true. So here we go.

The Realization

Saturday, September 3rd, I woke up to meet my best friend for breakfast and I had a pit in my stomach. I was waiting for this person to text me because I knew they would, and I knew it would trigger all sorts of feelings of anxiety within me. I wanted to go enjoy breakfast with my best friend, I didn’t want to once again spend a day worrying if I had upset them, or if they were going to loom something over me.

I drove to the cafe and met my best friend, who took one look at me and said “What’s wrong? Something is off”.

The dam broke. I told her everything. 5 years of anxiety, insults, comments, mean actions, and selfish behavior came flooding out.

She was ready for this. She knew, based on this series and me trying to be more open about my anxiety, that I was not doing well. Then she said the words that I had known for a while, and I had even thought about, but could never bring myself to act on.

“Rachel, you need to be out of there. You need to quit”.

She was right. 100% right. And yet, I continued to downplay it and said, I would THINK about it. The truth was, I didn’t think I was strong enough to actually leave, for many reasons.

1. I’m not really a strong person. And I care so much about not upsetting people, that I get walked all over.
2. I LOVE the girls there. They made bad days good, and so many times reminded me why I do what I do. They were why I stayed so long.
3. *insert 100 more stupid reasons for not leaving*

So right there, over eggs and lattes, we made a plan. I would take everything that was owned by the business back, take everything that was mine, lock the door, slip the key under, and with a single text message, be done with that place and that person.

I know, I know, I KNOW. “Rachel, you quit a job without notice over a text message???”

Yup, sure did.

My timing was terrible and I realize that was a petty, cowardly way to do it. And that is exactly why I chose to do it that way. It was purposeful, and while not justifiable, here is my reasoning behind it. I did not want to change my mind. I did not want there to be a chance that I could be convinced to stay- because being such a detrimental people pleaser, I knew there was a pretty high chance that would happen. The choice to send a text, and then make communication impossible, was purposeful. As for the not giving notice portion, I was a part-time, 1099 independent contractor- I simply didn’t need to. Would it have been the “right” thing to do? Probably, but, it wasn’t the right thing for me.

The Final Boss

Photo Source: https://www.giantbomb.com/final-boss/3015-1537/

My original thought for this final blog in this terrible series was the make it an open letter to the person that made my life a living hell. I wanted to get it all out and I wanted everyone to know about what they had done.

Clearly, I did not end up going that route, publically. I did write that letter and I kept it- stapled to all of the emails from students and parents that I had received over the last week. I keep it in a special place in my office to remind myself that I can make a difference in the lives of others, and also that I am strong, and I am allowed to do things to make my life better.

I hope you can tell that I have made an effort to not give away the identity of this person. Because frankly, this isn’t about them; they do not deserve more attention. This is about me and how I finally started to feel better. Those who are close to me and the situation will know. But those strangers on the internet, hopefully, you’ve got no clue.

But to get to the better, I have to explain the worst.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

The Mayo Clinic defines it as the following:

“-one of several types of personality disorders- is a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others”

Other symptoms listed are the following:

• high sense of entitlement
• expectation to be recognized as a superior without the achievments that warrant it
• exaggerate achievements and talents
• belittle people they find inferior
• expect unquestioning compliance from those they believe to be under them
• inability to recognize the feelings of others
• behaving in an arrogant or conceited manner
• significant interpersonal problems stemming from their easily feeling slighted
• naturally reacting to situations with rage and trying to belittle the other person
• have secret feelings of insecurity, humiliation, and shame

Why am I giving you a psychology lesson? Fantastic question, I’m so glad you asked that. Well, I thought the best way to go about explaining how bad this situation affected me, was to just stick to psychological facts and examples. So let’s do just that. For your own information, here are some common examples of what behavior would look like for the symptoms listed above :)

• high sense of entitlement- taking things away from others simply because you think you deserve them. For example, this might look like taking a class that students were excited to take away from the original teacher because you wanted to forceable be the teacher of the class students were excited to take. This is called fabricated glorification.
• expectation to be recognized as a superior without the achievements that warrant it- this is a tough one to spot right away but this could look like lying on a resume or bio about getting a job or honor that you haven’t even started applying for to influence the way others publically viewed you.
• exaggerate achievements and talents- again, another difficult one to identify. This might look like consistently insisting that you are correct in a situation where you know little to no information. For example, let's just say, oh gosh I don’t know examples are hard to come up with on the spot. I guess let’s just go with if you were the educator of some kind of physical activity for kids, and you were given a 15-min time slot to talk about a muscle group of the body and you took 1 hour and 10 minutes. Ya know because you were more important than the others talking.
• belittle people they find inferior- a super easy one, just consistently talking over, cutting off, snapping at, and misexplaining others. The tangible example you ask? Of course! So let's say you went to a 2ish hour seminar on a topic and the next time that topic came up (which was that same day, by your own accord- oh and you left your fancy seminar outfit on so people would ask about it) you put your hand into another person’s face and told them to stop talking because-after this seminar- you knew what you were talking about and they didn’t. Oh right! And that person that now has your hand in their face- yeah, they have multiple degrees, certifications, a career, and hundreds of hours of training on the topic at hand. But you, yeah, you took a 2-hour seminar and therefore know more.
• expect unquestioning compliance from those they believe to be under them- another easy one- you say jump and expect others to ask how high. A real-life example would be instructing someone to show up to something, instead of asking if they would want to show up.
• inability to recognize the feelings of others- this one is a weird form of gaslighting and usually looks like a story topping, but with trauma, inconveniences, or general grief. For instance, if someone were trying to express that they were feeling anxious or stressed over their workload at multiple jobs, you might react with a comment about how they couldn’t possibly understand stress because you are the most stressed person ever.
• behaving in an arrogant or conceited manner- I feel like this one is self-explanatory. BUT, if you INSIST on an example- it would look like acting obnoxious or loud at the bar because everyone is looking at you anyway, might as well give them a reason to come talk to you.
• significant interpersonal problems stemming from their easily feeling slighted- this would be someone who is constantly in and out of relationships, blames others every time a relationship ends, or falsifies their own mistreatment. For example, if an employee were to ask not to be scheduled on a certain day for a legitimate and true reason, and you agree, but then you talk to other employees about how you think they are lying.
• naturally reacting to situations with rage and trying to belittle the other person- again SUPER easy to identify. Any time you don’t get what you want, you get mad. In real life, this might look like threatening to get a lawyer involved in situations that would be laughable to a lawyer. This is often done to intimidate the other person involved into compliance.
• have secret feelings of insecurity, humiliation, and shame- and finally, the root of it all. You do everything listed above simply because you, at your core, are not happy.

I hope you found all this very helpful and can see from the examples what I might have been dealing with :)

The thing about a narcissist is that they do not ever think they are in the wrong. So whether they are simply talking over you, or threatening to bring a lawyer in, they see themselves as justified to do so, because, and I cannot stress this enough, how dare you do whatever it was that you did.

The Aftermath

I have rambled a lot but allow to ramble just a little bit more.

“You set me up as the villain but you never mentioned the root of the problem. Took what you wanted and flipped it but you won’t be dragging my name to the bottom.” — Bad Omens “Limits”

Them (plural)

I was expecting to get “I can’t believe you left” messages but instead, I got “Thank you for everything you did” “Are you okay?” and “We will miss you” messages. I got support. I got validation. I got to realize that doing something good for me and upsetting people were not mutually exclusive.

Me

I did not realize how much this situation was affecting me until it was over. Until I could sleep better, and I didn’t have stomach aches, or wasn’t crying every day. Until I didn’t have to get worried if I would get paid or not, or if I would get yelled at again. Until I could breathe for the first time in 5 years.

Them.

If your business goes under because a part-time employee left, what does that say about you? Well to me it says that you are willing to hire a lawyer over sitting down and doing some math- but what do I know?

So that’s it. That is the end. Has my anxiety completely gone away? No, and it never will. I have anxiety and I will always have to manage it. Has my anxiety greatly decreased because I got out of a damaging situation that was negatively affecting multiple aspects of my life?

Yes.