Reply to I just learned about tribe gaslighting and more people should know about it!

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I just read this blog post about "tribe gaslighting" and was kind of astounded because this EXACT thing has happened to me multiple times:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/guide-better-relationships/201811/gaslighting-tribe

Basically she is just talking about how groups will often gaslight on behalf of a narcissist, by refusing to acknowledge another person's experience with the narcissist. So they'll say things like "Oh, that's not my experience with her" or "I've never noticed him acting that way" instead of listening to what someone is saying.

I was in a workplace a few years back and this is exactly what happened. Our boss was incredibly inappropriate and boundary-violating with me. [b]Stuff like: commenting on my personal life in the middle of staff meetings, criticizing my eating habits, making comments about how my clothes fit or how I wore my hair. [/b]Whenever I would bring it up with anyone else at work, they'd kind of shrug and say that they had never noticed it or that they didn't think that stuff was a big deal. It made me feel crazy and after I left that job I spent a lot of time thinking that I was the problem, that I was too sensitive and needed to get over stuff like this.

But this is what it was: tribe gaslighting. That boss was super inappropriate and probably should have been fired or, at a minimum, sent to an extensive training program to address this behavior. I can't believe I ever accepted any of it as normal.

Anyway, passing this along in case other people go through this. I wish I'd read this exact article years ago so that I would have understood what was going on and had a way of talking about it.[/quote]

Eh, I can imagine someone I know writing this post, and the truth is she really is just paranoid and oversensitive.  [/quote]

If someone you know experienced this stuff from a supervisor, it’s workplace harassment regardless of what you personally think of her personality. There really isn’t a situation in which this stuff is appropriate.[/quote]

But the whole point is that maybe the supervisor wasn't saying anything negative or invasive and the OP just looks for offense everywhere.  For instance, the person OP reminds me of would take questions about her vegetarianism (do you eat fish?) as "criticizing her eating habits."[/quote]

OP here. To clarify, when I say this boss criticized my eating habits, I mean that I would show up to a meeting a couple minutes late and they would say said stuff like “We were just talking about your weird eating habits — too bad you weren’t here to defend yourself!” It was not a neutral question. And it was just one of many personal things they would bring up and then make fun of in front of others. They also made fun of my personal finances, my mental health, and my social life.

Honestly, I think at this point I am sensitive about all of this stuff, largely because this boss made me feel so self-conscious and defensive. I really wish I’d understood at the time how not okay it was, and had tried harder to get someone to do something about it. But when I talked to coworkers and they seemed really blasé about it, I figured I just needed to toughen up. In retrospect, I don’t think that was the right solution. This person was an abusive boss.[/quote]

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