In hindsight I recognise that my PhD supervisor was a bully. We were at a research station 10 miles away from the main University and I was his first Ph.D student. On the day I arrived to start my PhD he told me he was happy to be away from the university as his colleagues did not respect him. There were fewer than 10 people at the research station the main ones being my supervisor and his enablers. I would say that one of the enablers was also a bully. My supervisor actually never supervised me at all. Once when I asked for advice he told me to go and ask someone else! By the end of the first year I had achieved nothing and seriously enquired about leaving. I confronted my supervisor with a list of things I was not happy with including him telling me to ‘stop worrying woman’, catching him laughing about me with his enablers after I had just confided in him, receiving zero supervision etc. When I wrote my first year report it came back with no comments or corrections although I knew there were mistakes. My first international presentation received a lot of praise and an invitation to do my field work overseas. My supervisor’s colleagues were very impressed with my talk and asked me how I had been able to achieve what I had achieved with him as my supervisor!!! Thank goodness I had that invitation to go overseas, which I stretched out to delay returning to the research station and my supervisor. All this was 30 years ago. I still ruminate about it because it was so wrong. My daughter is now doing a PhD and has had trouble with one of her supervisors who she has managed to change with the help of her college - but not her department who tried to gaslight her. It seems that now PhD students are assigned 2 supervisors which is an improvement. I hope that telling her about my awful experience with my supervisor gave her the courage to do something about hers. But I must stop ruminating over something that happened so long ago.
Thank you. I really appreciate your sharing here of your experiences with bullying as a PhD student. When you're in it, it's so difficult to understand what is happening and as you say, it is with hindsight that you recognise he was a bully. Unfortunately, bullying is so widespread in institutions, but awareness and knowledge of these patterns is gradually increasing. I am sure that the wisdom, insights and learning you have gained from your experiences will have helped your daughter.
It is always a pleasure reading your weekly newsletter, this one particularly resonated every paragraph was a lightbulb moment!
It was helpful to remind us of the reasons why HSPs are so often targeted because of their admirable traits, many will need to hear this!
I am currently in a job which has previously been the epitome of a toxic bulling workplace. I have worked under several bosses many of which display behaviour that form part of the dark triad group of personality traits, it has been an education to say the least, I could write a book and probably will!
After quitting my garden design degree, I landed my current job on a country estate, I naively thought I might end up working with kind decent people who had a passion for the outdoors as much as me, like the presenters of Countryfile or Gardeners World haha!
My first impression of my new manager was that he was warm and welcoming, however nothing could have been further from the truth. He was an absolute manic displaying huge mood swings regularly shouting and swearing whilst drunk and high on drugs which made him paranoid and unpredictable. Out of the sight of the security cameras he would take pleasure in kicking one unfortunate female member of staff who went on sick leave for a year presumably because of the abuse. Later he received a two-year sentence for a separate and much more serious assault.
I once approached this manager regarding the unruly behaviour by a colleague who was off the rails but to my disarray he would take delight in shifting the blame, twisting my story and wondering which one of us he was going to fire, he loved mind games as much as getting inebriated on whisky.
A big issue on the estate was that there wasn’t an HR department, mangers often protected staff who were abusive by invalidating our concerns, they would sigh and shrug off remarks, downplaying the situation as if we were making a fuss, the truth is they just didn’t want to manage the problem. One particularly cantankerous staff member had repeatedly threatened members of staff, squaring up, shouting and raising his fists. I put my concerns in a letter quoting 'bulling in the workplace policy', managment eventually acted, albeit rather weakly.
In this male dominated competitive environment sensitivity equalled weakness, I eventually got the respect I deserved by becoming more disagreeable (out of character for me) indeed once or twice my amygdala became momentarily hijacked, I’m much calmer these days ha! You had to be strong-minded to work in this environment!
So, this was my initiation and although my hair is now rather thin these are the experiences that I needed in order to better assert myself and grow. I don’t think we should underestimate what any of us are capable of, I feel it is important to challenge tyranny and never let might win over right especially if you are an HPS!
So pleased this one resonated with you Matt. I really want to honour your courage both in what you've been through but also in the way you are sharing here. You really demonstrate here how we can learn and evolve from simply witnessing and hearing others experiences. It sounds like you went through some truly horrendous times with bosses. Bullying is so widespread, cruel, and distressing and it does happen to some of the most empathic, gifted people. However, what I like about your story here is an example of how dark experiences, can eventually be transmuted and seen as life initiations and doorways to empowerment and transformation.
Thank you, Genevieve for the kind words! It is hard to become resilient without a few challenging experiences, if our mental health is intact, I know we can use our free will, values and mindset to forge a better way.
Dr Genevieve, it seems you know my history, my life and my feelings. Thank you so much!
The ancient greeks correctly insisted on ‘know thyself”, but they didn’t teach us how. You do. You describe at perfection what a life of a HSP can be. It’s been a very hard test. But you also give a meaning to it when you say that we’ve chosen it (!). Existentialists didn’t see it; they gave up.
Ecelso, thank you and I'm so pleased to hear that this piece resonated with you.
Bullying in the workplace has been hidden for too long now and so often it's the person who has been targeted who is shamed, who suffers in silence and who takes years to recover, whilst the person who has bullied stays in their position and maybe even rises to the top of the ladder. These are the very hard tests of this human life, but I absolutely believe there is meaning in every situation, however painful, and that they are there for our deepest growth and evolution.
I've made a translation of the text into Portuguese. I'd like to submit it to you, for your appreciation and possible authorization to make it available to my fellow Brazilians friends.
Could you please inform me an address to which I could send it?
Thank you Ecelso. What a helpful thing to do for your fellow Brazilian friends. If you could press reply to the HSP Revolution newsletter which landed in your email box.
Hi-Great article. I am a male HSP and also from an italian-asian background and have been bullied all my life. It's a double whammy for me racism towards my ethnicity and discrimination towards my sensitivity. I am currently trying to cope with being bullied through sports i play and at sports clubs. I've been to a few and i always attract the aggressive bullies trying to control me. They will treat the rest differently and me in a demeaning manner. It's got to the point where i am thinking of quitting being an athlete.The problem with trying to gather allies is, many people have low levels of empathy and have many internal unprocessed issues and HSP's are like punching bags for these people who are ultimately sick within themselves. HSPs seem to bring out these nasty traits in others who have issues. It's always there problem not ours, but we bear the brunt. They can smell it too. They can smell vulnerability through the gentle sensitive aura you project and that's why hsps get targeted and they make a bee line for you. i can see the hate on there face for someone who is sensitive , esp if you are a guy. It's like they find it vulgar. I hate those cliches off 'oh he is just having a bad day' or 'he seems lovely with me' or 'Just ignore her she is being silly'. It's so tough and takes it's emotional and mental toll. Sadly, you find on many forums esp like reddit, many people are actually not real hsps and will say they are but be hostile and aggressive towards you if you try to reach out or simply not understand the pain, which means they are 100 percent just pretending to be a hsp or have somehow fooled themselves that the are one.
In hindsight I recognise that my PhD supervisor was a bully. We were at a research station 10 miles away from the main University and I was his first Ph.D student. On the day I arrived to start my PhD he told me he was happy to be away from the university as his colleagues did not respect him. There were fewer than 10 people at the research station the main ones being my supervisor and his enablers. I would say that one of the enablers was also a bully. My supervisor actually never supervised me at all. Once when I asked for advice he told me to go and ask someone else! By the end of the first year I had achieved nothing and seriously enquired about leaving. I confronted my supervisor with a list of things I was not happy with including him telling me to ‘stop worrying woman’, catching him laughing about me with his enablers after I had just confided in him, receiving zero supervision etc. When I wrote my first year report it came back with no comments or corrections although I knew there were mistakes. My first international presentation received a lot of praise and an invitation to do my field work overseas. My supervisor’s colleagues were very impressed with my talk and asked me how I had been able to achieve what I had achieved with him as my supervisor!!! Thank goodness I had that invitation to go overseas, which I stretched out to delay returning to the research station and my supervisor. All this was 30 years ago. I still ruminate about it because it was so wrong. My daughter is now doing a PhD and has had trouble with one of her supervisors who she has managed to change with the help of her college - but not her department who tried to gaslight her. It seems that now PhD students are assigned 2 supervisors which is an improvement. I hope that telling her about my awful experience with my supervisor gave her the courage to do something about hers. But I must stop ruminating over something that happened so long ago.
Thank you. I really appreciate your sharing here of your experiences with bullying as a PhD student. When you're in it, it's so difficult to understand what is happening and as you say, it is with hindsight that you recognise he was a bully. Unfortunately, bullying is so widespread in institutions, but awareness and knowledge of these patterns is gradually increasing. I am sure that the wisdom, insights and learning you have gained from your experiences will have helped your daughter.
Dear Dr Genevieve,
It is always a pleasure reading your weekly newsletter, this one particularly resonated every paragraph was a lightbulb moment!
It was helpful to remind us of the reasons why HSPs are so often targeted because of their admirable traits, many will need to hear this!
I am currently in a job which has previously been the epitome of a toxic bulling workplace. I have worked under several bosses many of which display behaviour that form part of the dark triad group of personality traits, it has been an education to say the least, I could write a book and probably will!
After quitting my garden design degree, I landed my current job on a country estate, I naively thought I might end up working with kind decent people who had a passion for the outdoors as much as me, like the presenters of Countryfile or Gardeners World haha!
My first impression of my new manager was that he was warm and welcoming, however nothing could have been further from the truth. He was an absolute manic displaying huge mood swings regularly shouting and swearing whilst drunk and high on drugs which made him paranoid and unpredictable. Out of the sight of the security cameras he would take pleasure in kicking one unfortunate female member of staff who went on sick leave for a year presumably because of the abuse. Later he received a two-year sentence for a separate and much more serious assault.
I once approached this manager regarding the unruly behaviour by a colleague who was off the rails but to my disarray he would take delight in shifting the blame, twisting my story and wondering which one of us he was going to fire, he loved mind games as much as getting inebriated on whisky.
A big issue on the estate was that there wasn’t an HR department, mangers often protected staff who were abusive by invalidating our concerns, they would sigh and shrug off remarks, downplaying the situation as if we were making a fuss, the truth is they just didn’t want to manage the problem. One particularly cantankerous staff member had repeatedly threatened members of staff, squaring up, shouting and raising his fists. I put my concerns in a letter quoting 'bulling in the workplace policy', managment eventually acted, albeit rather weakly.
In this male dominated competitive environment sensitivity equalled weakness, I eventually got the respect I deserved by becoming more disagreeable (out of character for me) indeed once or twice my amygdala became momentarily hijacked, I’m much calmer these days ha! You had to be strong-minded to work in this environment!
So, this was my initiation and although my hair is now rather thin these are the experiences that I needed in order to better assert myself and grow. I don’t think we should underestimate what any of us are capable of, I feel it is important to challenge tyranny and never let might win over right especially if you are an HPS!
So pleased this one resonated with you Matt. I really want to honour your courage both in what you've been through but also in the way you are sharing here. You really demonstrate here how we can learn and evolve from simply witnessing and hearing others experiences. It sounds like you went through some truly horrendous times with bosses. Bullying is so widespread, cruel, and distressing and it does happen to some of the most empathic, gifted people. However, what I like about your story here is an example of how dark experiences, can eventually be transmuted and seen as life initiations and doorways to empowerment and transformation.
Thank you, Genevieve for the kind words! It is hard to become resilient without a few challenging experiences, if our mental health is intact, I know we can use our free will, values and mindset to forge a better way.
Dr Genevieve, it seems you know my history, my life and my feelings. Thank you so much!
The ancient greeks correctly insisted on ‘know thyself”, but they didn’t teach us how. You do. You describe at perfection what a life of a HSP can be. It’s been a very hard test. But you also give a meaning to it when you say that we’ve chosen it (!). Existentialists didn’t see it; they gave up.
Thank you again and again! 🙏🌹
Ecelso, thank you and I'm so pleased to hear that this piece resonated with you.
Bullying in the workplace has been hidden for too long now and so often it's the person who has been targeted who is shamed, who suffers in silence and who takes years to recover, whilst the person who has bullied stays in their position and maybe even rises to the top of the ladder. These are the very hard tests of this human life, but I absolutely believe there is meaning in every situation, however painful, and that they are there for our deepest growth and evolution.
Hi Dr. Genevieve,
I've made a translation of the text into Portuguese. I'd like to submit it to you, for your appreciation and possible authorization to make it available to my fellow Brazilians friends.
Could you please inform me an address to which I could send it?
So many thanks!
Thank you Ecelso. What a helpful thing to do for your fellow Brazilian friends. If you could press reply to the HSP Revolution newsletter which landed in your email box.
Hi-Great article. I am a male HSP and also from an italian-asian background and have been bullied all my life. It's a double whammy for me racism towards my ethnicity and discrimination towards my sensitivity. I am currently trying to cope with being bullied through sports i play and at sports clubs. I've been to a few and i always attract the aggressive bullies trying to control me. They will treat the rest differently and me in a demeaning manner. It's got to the point where i am thinking of quitting being an athlete.The problem with trying to gather allies is, many people have low levels of empathy and have many internal unprocessed issues and HSP's are like punching bags for these people who are ultimately sick within themselves. HSPs seem to bring out these nasty traits in others who have issues. It's always there problem not ours, but we bear the brunt. They can smell it too. They can smell vulnerability through the gentle sensitive aura you project and that's why hsps get targeted and they make a bee line for you. i can see the hate on there face for someone who is sensitive , esp if you are a guy. It's like they find it vulgar. I hate those cliches off 'oh he is just having a bad day' or 'he seems lovely with me' or 'Just ignore her she is being silly'. It's so tough and takes it's emotional and mental toll. Sadly, you find on many forums esp like reddit, many people are actually not real hsps and will say they are but be hostile and aggressive towards you if you try to reach out or simply not understand the pain, which means they are 100 percent just pretending to be a hsp or have somehow fooled themselves that the are one.