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This article is useless and gives no real advice except "get out". To deal with abusers you have to learn to see tricks they use to emotionally destabilize thei

This article is useless and gives no real advice except "get out". To deal with abusers you have to learn to see tricks they use to emotionally destabilize their victims. For example, they can use hints and innuendos for intimidation. I wrote a blog post about such communication https://dandanua.github.io/posts/counterfactual-communication-and-intimidation/ https://dandanua.github.io/posts/counterfactual-communicatio... Also, you can't really "manage" your boss if he/she is gaslighting you. This is a criminal offense (or should be, depending on where you live) and must be punished accordingly.

evocatus 6y ago
Thanks for this article, this clarifies a number of things that have been causing me great distress lately.
skim_milk 6y ago
Let's be honest, telling people they have to accept their abuse and "get on your abusers' level and 'outsmart' them" is kind of wrong. The advice to leave your abusive boss and your insecurities behind and find a better paying job is, really, the only ethically correct advice. Your "option" of "trying to outplay" your boss only plays into the victims' insecurities and validates the abuser's hold.
- dandanua 6y ago
  In some cases you can't just leave, you can have obligations and responsibilities. You can be tied with the firm and an abusive boss can take full advantage of it. In this case you have to play, it doesn't matter do you want it or not. But to "outplay" you don't have to be much smarter. If you are honest then the advice of trying to make communication more explicit will do it by itself, hopefully.
  - skim_milk 6y ago
    This has essentially become a subjective debate over how to live one's best life. Yes, many of us prefer freedom over financials. However, very often in reality, at the heart of the argument that one has to just hang on and suffer well with their job is an insecurity that one doesn't deserve better. To mental health professionals, I assume they would understand that the people looking for advice and reading their articles are from emotionally/physically/economically insecure environments, from which the advice "suffer well" is essentially entirely non-productive because it is their lack of a feeling of security that prevents them from knowing they deserve better. From the lack of security, which causes the lack of the knowledge that they deserve better, these people will typically not ever try to come up with a way out of their abuse until they hit rock bottom. It's not that that's inherently a worse way to live, but the reason behind this way of living is typically (but not always) due to hidden insecurities, which abusive bosses freaking love to exploit because it's works very well at controlling their insecure employees. Yes someone can be secure and live like this but I think many would agree that this is a rare scenario and not the best advice for the average person looking at these articles.
- ohthehugemanate 6y ago
  It's not so black and white. There are many varieties of "not great" boss, and not all of them are toxic. A narcissist is not always a toxic boss. But it will be really frustrating until you get their perspective, and t he at situation can certainly get toxic. Get a working partnership going with someone like this and they are a benefit. But the minute words like "toxic" or "abusive" come into play, absolutely the options are "validate the abuser's hold". or "get out"
winfred 6y ago
>Also, you can't really "manage" your boss if he/she is gaslighting you. This is a criminal offense (or should be, depending on where you live) and must be punished accordingly. It scares me that you can write these things without realizing the consequences and without being downvoted or having your comment removed. "He/she said something that makes me doubt my reality, I want criminal prosecution." The level of policing that would take, is just unimaginable. The only societies that have come anywhere near this level of state control are East Germany, the Soviet Union and China. Your view would be a lot worse than those all together. How about you just quit and find another boss and then we don't have to completely overhaul our society in a way we know doesn't work.
- dandanua 6y ago
  You probably never experienced it. Or, maybe you would like to gaslight the others? Do you realize that the desire to just remove my words shows who you really are? How the prosecution of gaslighting makes us closer to authoritarian countries? To countries where abuse of others is the main policy? You're talking nonsense, saying that white is black and vice versa. The prosecution of gaslighting doesn't require full state control. Gaslighting involves lies, hidden threats, and other offenses. All of this can be proved in court, in theory. Here, I found some laws for you https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/emotional-abuse-laws.html https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/emotional-abu... They are in family context, but similar things happen in a corporate setting.

evocatus 6y ago

Thanks for this article, this clarifies a number of things that have been causing me great distress lately.

skim_milk 6y ago

Let's be honest, telling people they have to accept their abuse and "get on your abusers' level and 'outsmart' them" is kind of wrong. The advice to leave your abusive boss and your insecurities behind and find a better paying job is, really, the only ethically correct advice. Your "option" of "trying to outplay" your boss only plays into the victims' insecurities and validates the abuser's hold.

dandanua 6y ago
In some cases you can't just leave, you can have obligations and responsibilities. You can be tied with the firm and an abusive boss can take full advantage of it. In this case you have to play, it doesn't matter do you want it or not. But to "outplay" you don't have to be much smarter. If you are honest then the advice of trying to make communication more explicit will do it by itself, hopefully.
- skim_milk 6y ago
  This has essentially become a subjective debate over how to live one's best life. Yes, many of us prefer freedom over financials. However, very often in reality, at the heart of the argument that one has to just hang on and suffer well with their job is an insecurity that one doesn't deserve better. To mental health professionals, I assume they would understand that the people looking for advice and reading their articles are from emotionally/physically/economically insecure environments, from which the advice "suffer well" is essentially entirely non-productive because it is their lack of a feeling of security that prevents them from knowing they deserve better. From the lack of security, which causes the lack of the knowledge that they deserve better, these people will typically not ever try to come up with a way out of their abuse until they hit rock bottom. It's not that that's inherently a worse way to live, but the reason behind this way of living is typically (but not always) due to hidden insecurities, which abusive bosses freaking love to exploit because it's works very well at controlling their insecure employees. Yes someone can be secure and live like this but I think many would agree that this is a rare scenario and not the best advice for the average person looking at these articles.
ohthehugemanate 6y ago
It's not so black and white. There are many varieties of "not great" boss, and not all of them are toxic. A narcissist is not always a toxic boss. But it will be really frustrating until you get their perspective, and t he at situation can certainly get toxic. Get a working partnership going with someone like this and they are a benefit. But the minute words like "toxic" or "abusive" come into play, absolutely the options are "validate the abuser's hold". or "get out"

winfred 6y ago

>Also, you can't really "manage" your boss if he/she is gaslighting you. This is a criminal offense (or should be, depending on where you live) and must be punished accordingly. It scares me that you can write these things without realizing the consequences and without being downvoted or having your comment removed. "He/she said something that makes me doubt my reality, I want criminal prosecution." The level of policing that would take, is just unimaginable. The only societies that have come anywhere near this level of state control are East Germany, the Soviet Union and China. Your view would be a lot worse than those all together. How about you just quit and find another boss and then we don't have to completely overhaul our society in a way we know doesn't work.

dandanua 6y ago
You probably never experienced it. Or, maybe you would like to gaslight the others? Do you realize that the desire to just remove my words shows who you really are? How the prosecution of gaslighting makes us closer to authoritarian countries? To countries where abuse of others is the main policy? You're talking nonsense, saying that white is black and vice versa. The prosecution of gaslighting doesn't require full state control. Gaslighting involves lies, hidden threats, and other offenses. All of this can be proved in court, in theory. Here, I found some laws for you https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/emotional-abuse-laws.html https://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/emotional-abu... They are in family context, but similar things happen in a corporate setting.