I have this incredible fear of looking vulnerable and weak at work.
I’ve rotated through a few teams at work, but let’s call my first boss “Aidan”. While I had a pretty rocky relationship with Aidan for the first year and a half, we learnt to understand each other. I feel like I could express my feelings, if I was stressed or worried about something. Aidan doesn’t say anything about how he feels or what’s going on, but I can tell when he’s stressed or got something going on. He has his subtle ways. Likewise I think he knows when something is going on with me too. I trust that I can tell him almost anything, and I think the same goes around the other way.
I had just started to build a bond with my next boss, let’s call him “Dylan”. Dylan is a kind soul who praises his staff which I really appreciate. He’s so calm and collected almost to a fault. So calm that you never see him under pressure. But I’m just not like that…I can keep calm and patient for a long time but I usually breakdown eventually.
Dylan’s boss also never falters. He’s very self assured and confident. He has a witty and sharp sense of humour (much like myself)…which is good in some ways, but it also gets me down. It feels like I can’t be vulnerable in front of him or anyone for that matter. No one in that team shows emotion other than banter.
What makes things worse is that I went on a mental health course with a lot of them and they openly admitted that they’ve never had any troubles with mental health. I truly don’t understand people like that because LMAO how teach me your ways. And I have mental health problems.
Worse again, Dylan’s boss is pretty sexist at the best of times. He picks on women more aggressively than men. He has his favourites which are all men. He’s a bit of a control freak. I feel that if I show any emotion or anything he’s going to be like ha ha women moment. And because he has such a big influence over everyone, they’re likely going to have the same reaction around him. I feel like showing any sort of vulnerability is going to kick his sexism into gear and he’s going to make the decision that I’m too emotional and not capable of doing my job.
Furthermore, Dylan’s boss doesn’t like being challenged and especially by a woman. He’s in for a shock because he’s soon going to know that I don’t like playing by the rules lol. My PDA will kick in hard.
Overall I just have this huge fear of being judged and like I’m not good enough
it’s of course entirely your choice whether you stay friends with her or not, but personally, someone who would do that to you is not your friend, and isn’t worthy of the title of “best friend“. you deserve friends who don’t talk badly about you behind your back, or share details about your personal life without your permission (even if it’s to another friend). you are kind, so supportive, and a good person, and you deserve better than that.
