In turn, they will always fear this. Yeah I couldnt deal with Brenda bawling at her desk on the regular. That may be true. Letting each other save face is so important. Your compassion towards Brenda is truly admirable. Does she have a plan to work towards achieving that, both personally and professionally? And it is nowhere near the level that OP describes. If she really needs to be there for the busy period, give her a private space to cry in. Shoulder, neck or back pain; general body aches and pains. I really feel for everyone having to listen to or Brenda regularly cry. Others sensitivity to emotions is ignored or treated as unimportant, which I expect would be a big problem for other empaths. From the outside it looks like favoritism; Brenda can behave however she likes, and everyone else must tiptoe around her. I can ignore someone crying (though itll take some work on my part, as I sympathy-cry easily), but full sobbing? Shes stuck. :). I have cried at work, but its always been a reaction to extreme stress, and Ive been careful to do it in our one stall restrooms to avoid upsetting others. The OP has been very active in the commentsbut it seems only with those focusing on why Brenda might be in such an emotional state or for an opportunity to mention how wonderful Brenda is and how universally she is loved. If it were that level of specific event, Im thinking the OP would have been more specific than the catch-all, hard time. Most of us have, have had or will have the occasional bad relationship sinking fast, pets that dont live forever, friend breakups, financial problems, and some level of proximity to mental health crises, physical health crises, and death. This is good. My only other suggestion is getting her a room with a closed door. If it got her reliably negative ones, Im pretty sure there would have been more obvious efforts to make it stop. Brenda and her feelings are literally the topic of the post. By the way, I am really impressed with your caring. I mean, Brenda is clearly going through a rough time, but watching her and hearing her would be incredibly stressful and distracting and upsetting for everybody else. Now, the ability to work with coworkers is an important job requirement, but the first step is to try with things like a private office. I really hope she can get the helps she needs! I work for the government so there are hoops to jump through, unless an employee does something criminal or particularly egregious. I do struggle, though, with how deeply she feels things in my own life that I do not. How can she recharge her resilience and ability to self-modulate her reactions? :). May e theres something thats offered that can help her. The door stays closed, otherwise. But she also doesnt try to hold back the tears when someone suggests we celebrate Christmas at a different persons house. All other occasions have been during spring). I think it needs to go even further than stop sharing. Yes to everything Alison suggested. Ive seen a lot of people talking about their own experiences with those particular issues and how they manifested similar symptoms, but not necessarily trying to diagnose Brenda. OP says that Brendas over-the-top emotions recently have been related to some baggage from her personal life. And trying to deal with these issues while hiding it from everyone around you out of fear just adds an entire layer of stress and difficulty. I wish everyone had access to what they offer. I feel how I imagine I would feel if that happened to me. I absolutely know what you mean, and I think the unsympathetic nature of the responses youve gotten are very telling. I knew someone like this in my previous position. I just finished rereading The Blue Sword :). (Probably done simply by existing because she imprints/enmeshes.) All Ive got is wow and annoyance. Weve all cried at work. Employees' emotional behaviour is a common challenge for any manager. Trying to find the best ways to armor up emotionally is a serious chore. Its been a strange situation, for sure and thankfully, Brendas behavior has not been like this for the duration of her 9 years with our company. but even I dont tell my clients I feel things better than they do. Im sure some of them are sympathetic, yes, but everyone has been in a tremendously uncomfortable position for months now. Friend had all kinds of help pouring in. I eventually had to block his communications because, months after wed broke up, he would incessantly email and IM me that he could tell that I was sad or missing him, and if I responded that he was completely wrong, he insisted that I was just denying my feelings like a stubborn little kid who didnt want to admit that the adult was right (if I didnt respond, it was because he was right and I didnt want to admit it). Im a fairly patient person when it comes to dealing with other peoples mental health problems and I would have snapped months ago. It was bad enough in a friend group, but then most of us joined a large student org together and took on leadership positions. This is a tough one. Its a self-designated label, not a condition or a diagnosis. IMO, shes needing attention, and using her empathy to get it. Thats not always the right call either, honestly. I dont work there, I have no idea who you are, and I dont know where you work. A certain level of sympathy and leeway is well and good, but ultimately people need to be able to show up and work. Brenda is not getting the help she needs, whether its medication, more intensive therapy, or receiving care as an in-patient. Youve obviously care about Brenda and your other employees, and youre trying very hard to handle this in a respectful and appropriate way. Dont get so bogged down by non-confrontational niceness that you enable a problem that really does need to be fixed for everyones sake. Geez! Also a pregnant woman vomiting suddenly is not a sign that something is really, really wrong or that she needs to exercise self-control (how incredibly offensive). But Maybe Not, you didnt disrupt your entire office multiple times. Especially if the OP is correct that she would try to oppose suggestions like working from home if they were brought up to her, without proposing an alternative plan that achieves the same purpose. It has to do with the neurons in your brainspecifically mirror neuronsand the way your nervous system operates. Yes, 100% this. One person mentioned histrionic disorder and I removed it as a commenting rules violation. You and Brenda may have already damaged many relationships beyond repair, you two may end up being a reason a good employee leaves. Love the Support Animal idea. Was it rude of me to ignore the fact that she was clearly in distress? And its potentially even kinder to Brenda herself, since it sounds like she doesnt realize the impact this is having on others, and that shes someone who would care about that if she knew. Especially for an empath who is so aware of how other people are feeling? While I dont know that its your place to suggest specific ways to stop crying, I have found that some kind of physical sensation that overrides the tear response has been useful. I have no problem with someone crying. Thats such a good point! A tiny piece of unintended criticism spirals into hours of self-doubt and catastrophizing. Not good. Shortness of breath. Your situation is all about her lack of control and lack of willingness to take it elsewhere, and I encourage you to focus on those! Thankfully, I have received enough usable language from Alison and others that I can incorporate into my conversations with Brenda about her behavior. Ideally it should at some point where you hit people that manage supervisors, interact with vendors and have to see through BS, and are involved in business negotations, where high EQ is a job requirement, but some companies dont have that culture. Shes single so she spends a lot of time by herself anyway. Sure, some people are being manipulative when they cry some people are also being manipulative when they get angry but not everyone is. OP, if you dont feel something, Brenda certainly shouldnt as well. OP, Im going to try to be kind here, but the fact that you and your coworkers are in a mental health field means they need /more/ protection from management in regards to their coworkers behaviour, not /less/. Ive worked with Brenda. Feelings are personal. Having to work at blocking out other peoples drive by rage or fear. Yeah, this made me think of a coworker I had. Maybe after enough of being told she wasnt as special as she thought she was, shed put a stop to that nonsense. Could that task not be Brendas? I would be avoiding her as much as I humanly could, because I would switch into mom mode around her and end up stressing myself out and that wouldnt help my work. I certainly believe that some people fall on the extreme end of this and that thats definitely an experience that impacts their lives, but the broad idea that most people can just shrug things off with a simple that sucks isnt my experience at all. I think thats the frustration many of us are experiencing with this post that Brenda seems to imply, though her experience of other peoples pain, that they are not feeling *correctly* or *enough*. You seem to be reading a lot into details that arent in the letter. I loved this: But that wasnt tears streaming down my face multiple times a day, that was reading a random sentence that reminded me of what happened and catching my breath and crying quietly for a minute or two. All of this has a tinge of manipulative behavior to me, tbh. I dont want to work with employers cool with letting me come in and break down over and over again and whose support is displayed as okay, but can you do it quietly? Like holy Jesus, would I run. 100% this. I understand your point, but the OP explicitly states she is doing her work well. Ive often had admins on my teams that work from other states (either from home or other offices), and its been no different than if they were on site. OP, youve listed multiple things that cause Brendas meltdowns and while some of them are her empathetic response to others problems, a lot of them are simply things happening to her that she doesnt enjoy (such as receiving less than stellar feedback on her work), or her open personal problems (such as this old trauma shes working on). The kindest thing you can do for her, and her coworkers, is to let her know that this situation now requires serious help and you cant let things continue as they are. Do your meetings via Zoom! Its not that I dont care, its that I assume that if you dont tell me, you dont need or want me to know. Maybe links to follow (with a warning that the field can be thoughtlessly othering towell, to a lot of us. I love her. Or maybe even because her manager & coworkers have been supportive of her (or at least walking on eggshells and not openly dismissive/frustrated/hostile/etc. Brenda is in the midst of a highly emotional season (since late January-ish) in which she is dealing with baggage from her own life that she has largely ignored for decades. They absolutely have to! Exactly. What are they, how are you going to enforce them? If theres a strong culture not to bring up issues lest they rock the boat at your office, as there seems to be, its entirely possible that they think its not worth bringing up because nothing will be done. :) Regardless, the feedback from everyone is very helpful. When you say that most people really love her, and follow it up with for the most part, it signals to me that its more likely that people are annoyed with her antics but afraid to say anything because the situation isnt being handled and Brenda is so kooky and we love her for it. Id likely be squelching high level exasperation, and quite possibly low level rage, even if I also felt sympathetic and kindly on some level. Butwell, someone who was actually seeing you as the center point of your own life and experiences would be responding to how youre reacting to your life event, not overwhelming your reaction with their own feelings. We run into this all the time though here, people set a REALLY narrow definition of her work in letters like I manage a brilliant jerk.. Tip of the hat to Idril Celebrindal, you said it above, and I didnt read far enough before posting. To challenge them would require me to spend all of my meager capital. We can talk about options like a leave of absence or intermittent FMLA, or we could even have you work part-time from home while youre navigating this. That is where the line is. Over time, emotionally fragile individuals are less able to hide their increasingly obvious psychological, behavioural and physical distress, and it shows up in some combination of the following symptoms or indicators of emotional fragility: 1. There is this great thing I read about the circle of empathy. I mean it wouldnt be great to constantly be sobbing in the bathroom either, I feel like there may have been a letter like that, but its better than at her desk! https://www.askamanager.org/2018/06/my-coworker-owes-me-money-and-wont-pay-it-back-my-coworkers-panic-attacks-are-affecting-my-work-and-more.html, Update:
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