Social isolation at work

[Ashley_Penny_Davey]

I have a bully at work. I have made 2 formal complaints against her, and they have been upheld. I think she has a narcissist personality disorder.

She doesn't speak or acknowledge me, which is fine with me, but being the kind of narcissist she is, I feel like she os trying to exclude me. Lately, she seems to be THAT more outgoing and loud, like a child trying to prove she has more friends than another child.

I am more of an introvert. I feel awkward in many social situations. I have my own mental health issues and I have issues outside of work as well. I guess I'm snowballing my problems.

I don't think I can beat her, but how can I manage the situation? I am feeling more and more lonely at work. Should I focus on my other problems than her? What would you do?

[SubduedBlues]

Hi Ashley, welcome to BB

in my experience, most bullies do what they do because the feed off your reaction to the event. Whenever I meet one of these types of people, if they are not open to reason (which in your instance appears to be the case) I endeavour to discover how they bully me (or others) and then take the wind from their sails.

For example, I have Tourette Syndrome and when people try to pick on me for my tics. Sometimes when I get a weird motor tic, I ask "so... which insensitive person is going to make fun of that?" before they make fun of me. Then, as no one wants to be known as "that" person, no one makes fun.

It really depends on what situation you think that they need to feel good about bullying you. Then make the comments or ask the questions that they would feel bad if they did their normal bully behavior.

~~~

The book "Bringing out the best in people" by Aubrey Daniels is about behaviors. The key thing here is the antecedents that precede a behavior, and the consequences that cement the behavior. It would seem to me that you are trying, unsuccessfully, to remove a behavior that you don't like. Read the book, and learn about antecedents, as if you remove the antecedent then the undesirable behavior won't occur.

SB