LuckiLee
VIP Member
Are your parents your abusers?
If not, you need to have a conversation with them.
Sorry you're struggling!
If not, you need to have a conversation with them.
Sorry you're struggling!
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I’m out of ideas, i don’t know what to do
- Post starter LoveTea
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- Post starter
- #14
LoveTea, did you say you have spoken to your therapist about this relationship with your supervisor? What does your T say about it?
It sounds like you definitely need loving support, but it's hard for a person to be a sole supporter to someone with the amount of needs you seem to have. Especially if she has a lot of responsibility as it sounds like she has. Is there a support group or anything like that you could join?
It sounds like you definitely need loving support, but it's hard for a person to be a sole supporter to someone with the amount of needs you seem to have. Especially if she has a lot of responsibility as it sounds like she has. Is there a support group or anything like that you could join?
- Post starter
- #16
@Buttercup I have been speaking to my T about it for the past few weeks. She mostly asks how I feel about the situation. I guess I’m just upset and hurt because my supervisor always said to reach out for help and would coax me to open up and the more I did, the more she retreated from me. But, we havn’t really come up with a strategy to deal with it.
She actually isn’t my sole supporter, I have one other friend who I am very close with. Now that friend is my sole supporter, and I don’t get to see her much. I’m afraid that now I will scare her off too. My therapists practice does have a few support groups, but I can’t really afford it. There are some on campus, but I have had some very bad experiences with the facilitators. I would normally ask my supervisor for help with that (because she has connections in the area for things like that) but I can’t anymore. I guess I could look into it on my own or ask my T.
She actually isn’t my sole supporter, I have one other friend who I am very close with. Now that friend is my sole supporter, and I don’t get to see her much. I’m afraid that now I will scare her off too. My therapists practice does have a few support groups, but I can’t really afford it. There are some on campus, but I have had some very bad experiences with the facilitators. I would normally ask my supervisor for help with that (because she has connections in the area for things like that) but I can’t anymore. I guess I could look into it on my own or ask my T.
Respect the boundaries she's trying to establish. When you're disappointed with her responses, remember she's human too. She doesn't owe you anything beyond professional supervision regardless of any of the circumstances or how you feel about it.
Looking for her motive...
She's overwhelmed and decided its beyond her ability to support you. Work on changing your expectations with her and with people you work with. This takes time and experience. You're still young. I think your therapist should be more direct with you
Good luck
Looking for her motive...
She's overwhelmed and decided its beyond her ability to support you. Work on changing your expectations with her and with people you work with. This takes time and experience. You're still young. I think your therapist should be more direct with you
Good luck
- Post starter
- #18
I do want to respect her boundaries, but I guess I just don’t understand where they are. She doesn’t really say much to me, she decides how she wants to deal with it and I have to figure it out for the most part. At one moment she says don’t do it alone clearly that didn’t work, and a moment later she is saying she can’t handle me. But, I also dissociate at work, and I am trying to work on it but I am still doing just that, working on it. I am still not very good at it, especially by myself. I don’t know how to respect those boundaries considering I can’t stop my dissociating instantaneously and the more she pushes me away the more it happens. I think I will have to talk to my peers and tell them not to get her when it happens, but other than that all I can do is try and I feel like that isn’t enough.
Can you explain?
- Post starter
- #20
@Supervixn currently, when I dissociate most of the people I work with will just go get my supervisor to help me get out of it. But obviously, she doesn’t want to do this anymore, so I have to make that clear those people beforehand. It is hard for me though because I don’t really talk to people about my PTSD or symptoms, they know something is up, but they are used to just getting my supervisor.
- Post starter
- #22
@Supervixn I guess the best way to descibe it is extreme spacing out. I will just become glassy eyed and sometimes verbally unresponsive. I have been working on it, and I have told her everything I know that works for me. Sometimes when I am coming out of it I will start to panic or have a flashback, but not always. They used to last a long time and they had trouble getting me out of it because none of us had any tools to deal with it. Now it typically only takes me about 5 minutes to get out of it, sometimes even a minute. But now, when I have tools and I am actually starting to try she says she can’t handle it.
She never talks to me when I am level headed and we can have an actual conversation, she says it when I am in a complete melt down. Which happened this week because I barely have anyone to talk to, even just to say hi for a few minutes (she started actually conversing with me for about a week a few weeks ago and apperently just talking to me like a normal person was too much for her). Then she suddenly was pushing me out the door without any explanation.
I guess I am just confused and hurt. I tried to do what she said. I started telling her what was going on, I started asking for help, but she just pushes me away. She said she would be different from everyone else.
She never talks to me when I am level headed and we can have an actual conversation, she says it when I am in a complete melt down. Which happened this week because I barely have anyone to talk to, even just to say hi for a few minutes (she started actually conversing with me for about a week a few weeks ago and apperently just talking to me like a normal person was too much for her). Then she suddenly was pushing me out the door without any explanation.
I guess I am just confused and hurt. I tried to do what she said. I started telling her what was going on, I started asking for help, but she just pushes me away. She said she would be different from everyone else.
mumstheword
VIP Member
It sounds like it's become too much for her.
Perhaps it's time to think about branching out further afield.
It's really not so good to expect one person to be our life saver constantly.
Life teaches us to expand our coping tools, strategies and social arena, precisely in this way.
It sounds like all the energy she can spare you, is going into your crisis management and you still expect more from her.
That's a lot of expecting.
We set ourselves up for disappointment and failed relationships when we do this.
Instead, may I suggest try being super grateful for all the energy and support she's already given you and look around for some other sources of support.
You might find them where you least expect it
. Everyone has limited social/emotional capacity. That's just life.
I think it's great and very fortunate that you've had so much support in your workplace frankly.
Not something I've ever experienced.
I would be hugely grateful for someone so obviously as compassionate as your supervisor to help me through crisis times.
The fact that she's reached her limit just means she's human. I think you are asking an awful lot of her.
Have you ever asked her how she's going?
What you can do to support her?
Maybe she's struggling with the role she's taken on for you and needs you to help her help you.
If you can extend some thought to how you can support her, it might become more of the friendship that you sound like you are craving,
A friendship is based on reciprocity.
What you have been asking or her is crisis support.
Wanting more from her may only work when you start to extend some emotional support as well.
Even just letting her know how grateful you are for all the kindness and support she's already given you, may go a long way to building the kind of friendship you sound like you would like
. Maybe even a gift, some flowers or something nice, to let her know that you appreciate everything she's done for you.
Gratitude and consideration of others and courtesy go a loooooog way in build good rapport with people.
Good luck!
I hope you can find more support and friendship, maybe some nurturing peer support,as well, and build a friendlier relationship with your supervisor. :-)
Perhaps it's time to think about branching out further afield.
It's really not so good to expect one person to be our life saver constantly.
Life teaches us to expand our coping tools, strategies and social arena, precisely in this way.
It sounds like all the energy she can spare you, is going into your crisis management and you still expect more from her.
That's a lot of expecting.
We set ourselves up for disappointment and failed relationships when we do this.
Instead, may I suggest try being super grateful for all the energy and support she's already given you and look around for some other sources of support.
You might find them where you least expect it
. Everyone has limited social/emotional capacity. That's just life.
I think it's great and very fortunate that you've had so much support in your workplace frankly.
Not something I've ever experienced.
I would be hugely grateful for someone so obviously as compassionate as your supervisor to help me through crisis times.
The fact that she's reached her limit just means she's human. I think you are asking an awful lot of her.
Have you ever asked her how she's going?
What you can do to support her?
Maybe she's struggling with the role she's taken on for you and needs you to help her help you.
If you can extend some thought to how you can support her, it might become more of the friendship that you sound like you are craving,
A friendship is based on reciprocity.
What you have been asking or her is crisis support.
Wanting more from her may only work when you start to extend some emotional support as well.
Even just letting her know how grateful you are for all the kindness and support she's already given you, may go a long way to building the kind of friendship you sound like you would like
. Maybe even a gift, some flowers or something nice, to let her know that you appreciate everything she's done for you.
Gratitude and consideration of others and courtesy go a loooooog way in build good rapport with people.
Good luck!
I hope you can find more support and friendship, maybe some nurturing peer support,as well, and build a friendlier relationship with your supervisor. :-)
Justmehere
Sponsor
This relationship continues to be super duper unhealthy. I don't think it's wise for you to try to make this relationship work for any personal needs or symptom management needs at all.
You will simply continue to get let down and this will likely continue to get worse if you do - until one or both of you lose your job over it.
I think you have to do a really hard thing and stop chasing her for support or personal connection. She's sending some very clear signals she can't do it.
Someone who acts in all the unhealthy ways she is acting usually has big issues in their own personal life. If you can't give her space for your own sake, do it as a way to help her have more time to address her own issues.
Yes, it stinks she isn't meeting with you like others, but she's gone above and way beyond what a healthy supervisor should do. Let her back up.
I tend to cringe when I read about sufferers reaching out for support from supporters with crappy boundaries like your supervisor. They usually end up abandoning the sufferer. My best supporters are willing to tell me no quite easily, and avoid dual roles like the plague...
You can't change her. You've tried and it can't be done. But you can change you. That's the only thing any of us have control over.
It will be hard to back up from personal support from her, but I think trying to chase connection with someone so unhealthy is a distraction from building up a healthier support network that can be really there for you and support your recovery a lot better than she ever could.
What are you doing in terms of work to reduce the unmanaged dissociation you are experiencing on the job? What skills or strategies are you learning?
What are you doing in therapy in terms of working building up a fuller support network outside of work?
You will simply continue to get let down and this will likely continue to get worse if you do - until one or both of you lose your job over it.
I think you have to do a really hard thing and stop chasing her for support or personal connection. She's sending some very clear signals she can't do it.
Someone who acts in all the unhealthy ways she is acting usually has big issues in their own personal life. If you can't give her space for your own sake, do it as a way to help her have more time to address her own issues.
Yes, it stinks she isn't meeting with you like others, but she's gone above and way beyond what a healthy supervisor should do. Let her back up.
I tend to cringe when I read about sufferers reaching out for support from supporters with crappy boundaries like your supervisor. They usually end up abandoning the sufferer. My best supporters are willing to tell me no quite easily, and avoid dual roles like the plague...
You can't change her. You've tried and it can't be done. But you can change you. That's the only thing any of us have control over.
It will be hard to back up from personal support from her, but I think trying to chase connection with someone so unhealthy is a distraction from building up a healthier support network that can be really there for you and support your recovery a lot better than she ever could.
What are you doing in terms of work to reduce the unmanaged dissociation you are experiencing on the job? What skills or strategies are you learning?
What are you doing in therapy in terms of working building up a fuller support network outside of work?
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