Damsel in Distress was and is a damsel always faking distress, causing others distress, and creating distress all around her. Days after throwing me under the bus with a supervisor, I physically and emotionally pulled myself away from her while replaying the sight of that narcissistic smirk that had appeared on her face when she apologized to me for catching me off guard. I also replayed other micro-expressions I’d experienced from Damsel and her flying monkeys, and I realized that their facial expressions were always similar.
In retrospect, Damsel and her mobsters were all waiting for my downfall. They were all seemingly hoping for my impending doom. They were all looking for an angle to “get me good”, and they weren’t going to cease trying until they gained satisfaction over their exploits. They had targeted me, and at some points when I considered that maybe they had granted me their grace, they had most certainly not. They had only regrouped to strategize a more formidable attack against me.
Although I’d never advise that one play the games of a narcissist or narcissistic individuals, I do believe in girding up oneself for battle. The games that these individuals play are often spiritual in nature, even if they, themselves, don’t even realize this. I know from experience that I cannot go into any situation within the workplace giving these individuals the benefit of doubt. That spider I’d seen days earlier was a warning to me to watch out, to know my enemy, and to remember that I’m that enemy’s target. It was a warning to me to never ever make the mistake of giving a narcissist the benefit of doubt.
It was clear to me that Damsel and her cohorts, the mobsters, were simply tolerating me with the hopes of getting rid of me, but I suppose they’d come to the realization that I wasn’t going anywhere. Their quest to have me removed from my job assignment hadn’t worked as they had planned since a former supervisor had been relocated to another facility. In fact, once that supervisor left, the mobsters were dispersed away from me for a time, and I was left alone. So, even if the supervisor and the mobsters weren’t collaborating against me, that supervisor did play upon their behaviors as he also targeted to devalue me too.
In truth, I came to discern a lot about them based on their negative micro-expressions, their subtle put downs against me, and their coded conversations about me that they liked me even less than I thought based on their fake niceness towards me. In fact, sometimes the hatred I felt coming from them was tangible enough to touch, and oftentimes I could sense a very dark energy when they were around me too. The dark energy specifically would come more from the flying monkeys than the narcissist as they seemed to shroud around her as one protective force towering over her like a dark blanket.
For instance, I knew that three flying monkeys, in particular, absolutely hated me even if they made light surface conversation with me by sharing personal details about their lives. Even if they laughed at my jokes, I could still sense a dark energy surrounding them that I couldn’t shake. At moments that I might turn towards them just to move or do something, I’d see their individual faces show a smirk, grimace, or look of displeasure. They’d often roll their eyes at each other when they didn’t know I was looking, or they whisper things to each other about me that they must not have known I couldn’t hear.
This isn’t to say that the micro-expressions of the mobsters always had something to do with me, but I most often knew when those expressions were because of me based on something I’d said or something I did that they didn’t like. In particular, it was obvious to me that they wanted to have some type of control over me as well as some knowledge of my personal life. I don’t know what they could use to their advantage about my life, but they were always wanting to know personal details about me. It was weird.
Yet, because I never gave them any information that wasn’t already publicly available, they seemed to have a problem with me. Unlike them, I didn’t see the need to talk about the personal details of my life with them. I didn’t even care to know about their personal lives either, despite their need to spill all of their information. Plus, I didn’t consider sharing so much personal information at work to be professional anyway. Even though I know conversation can be a way to pass the time, some information is just not meant to be shared in a work setting.
Unfortunately, I’d become a little too comfortable in trying to understand the mobsters as people. Though they are people with feelings and issues, they are also people who have proven to me that they’ll stop at nothing to have their way over others. Their being nice to me and attempting to get to know me was their own way of trying to bamboozle me into believing they were accepting of me when this was far from the case. They truly didn’t like me at all, and they took pleasure in anything that seemed to cause me grief.
I’d often walk up from a break to hear a flying monkey say something to Damsel in a tone that showed their true dislike of me. I’d hear my name often, and there was always a negativity within the atmosphere when I’d hear it. I’d often wonder if I was a source of stress within the environment, and if others were afraid to tell me. I even stopped speaking to people in a cheerful manner just to see if I was the problem. Some of my coworkers noticed that I stopped speaking, and they’d reach out to me. Yet, I knew enough about my own personality and desire to bring light into darkness that I knew I wasn’t the problem. It’s just that the mobsters wanted me to be the problem.
Oddly enough, though, each flying monkey had tried everything to gain inroads to me. They asked me personal questions to try to learn about me, but I evaded responding to them with personal answers at all costs. My answers were never really answers, and sometimes I’d give no response at all. In a sense, I’d leave them hanging to figure things out about me on their own, or someone else would fill in the void left by my lack of response. Other times, they’d seek to gain an entrance into my life by attempting to invite me to outings, but I’d learned enough of those tricks from a previous workplace. So, I’d decline invitations every single time.
I’m very careful not to mix business with pleasure. These coworkers hadn’t provened to me that they could ever be my true friends. They didn’t even know how to be true friends to each other. Aside from the work we did as a team, we had absolutely nothing in common. In a great attempt to show we had a lot in common, Damsel invited me to hang out with her and her flying monkeys to just gossip. I responded with, “I don’t want to waste an evening gossiping about work when I’m not at work. Besides, I don’t do parties or get togethers. I’m an introvert, and I’m socially awkward, but thanks though.”
Although everyone laughed when I replied with the above statement, I was serious. Nonetheless, Damsel refused to be deterred and tried getting me to hang out on other occasions, but just like her, I wouldn’t be deterred either. I declined her each and every time until she eventually gave up asking me for a while. I also declined her attempts to get my phone number. She’d tried every angle in that case too. I didn’t want to be like her flying monkeys who received texts from her on her days off about what was going on at work. I knew getting my phone number was one way for her to keep tabs on me, and I didn’t want this type of intrusion within my life.
Damsel in Distress: What if there’s an emergency and I need to reach you?
Me: How could I possibly help you in an emergency? That’s what 911 is for.
Everyone who’d heard my response laughed, including Damsel, but again, I was serious. There was no way I was giving out my phone number to anyone at work. Team leads and coaches had even tried to get me to call them using my personal phone so that my number would be displayed to them, but I refused to do so. My personal phone was not for work. Although each of them gave me their personal phone numbers, I still texted them via the work app on our given equipment. I didn’t have a need for their personal numbers because I didn’t consider them friends. When I say I don’t want to mix business and pleasure, I mean it.
Nevertheless, the occurrence with the spider was a message to me loud and clear to pay attention to the people around me. The sight of that spider signified that I should be watchful of oncoming attacks. With this in mind, I wasn’t going to forget how Damsel threw me under the bus in a situation that she had not discussed with me beforehand, and I was totally caught off guard. She phrased the situation in a context which made it seem as if we’d been in deep discussion about her issue and had agreed upon that deep discussion when that wasn’t ever the case.
After being thrown under the bus, I was left speechless because I was in shock, and although Damsel apologized to me about it, the low level of trust I already had in her was then completely gone. I recognized within her apology the micro-smirk which casted a shadow of darkness across her face for what it was, and I retreated within myself. In her attempts to reclaim herself as my friend, I knew she was lying and only using her apology as her way to sucker me into her trap and keep me grounded. If I didn’t think there was more of the same to follow, I would have been very wrong.
Not soon after being thrown under the bus, the very next day, Damsel and one of her flying monkeys tried to indulge me in their conversation. Within the workplace, I hardly ever indulge in discussions pertaining to personal issues, politics, or religion, and when I am asked a question pertaining to these topics, I usually give a vague and/or indirect response, but in this instance, I was caught off guard, and responded with my belief, and that response lit up a fury of anger within both Damsel in Distress and her flying monkey.
Damsel in Distress: “Isn’t it true that the dead come back to you and talk with you?”
The flying monkey: “I think my grandmother was talking to me through the objects that were being moved around in my room last night. It scared me, but I thought it was her. I hoped it was her.”
I remained silent, but I listened as I continued working. When Damsel asked me the question directly, I attempted to evade responding at first, but Damsel kept pressing the issue and called out my name so that everyone could hear, asking the question yet again. I should have remained silent, but within my mind, I didn’t want to lie about my thoughts.
Damsel in Distress: Isn’t a dead loved one talking to us to let us know they are okay?
Me: I personally don’t believe this. I believe it’s a trick of the devil to fool us to make us think we are talking to a dead loved one when it’s really a familiar spirit or demon. I think there can be reminders of our loved ones, but I don’t think they [our loved ones] are coming back to talk to us, but that’s just what I believe based on personal experiences. It’s not to take away from what you believe though. [I didn’t elaborate further.]
… and just like that, there was an awkward silence. Within the silence I could feel it. I could feel and see within the spirit realm a volatile anger seething within the narcissist. I could see that her flying monkey was standing by with no reaction but awaiting some type of command signal as if that would put her into fight mode against me. Even though Damsel continued to talk to her flying monkey about their conversation on the topic of talking to the dead, she completely turned her back to me in a huff. Instead of reacting to her, though, I continued to work. I also ignored her negative attitude towards me.
Damsel in Distress: I know [so and so] talks to me. I called their name and I felt peace.
Although I didn’t want to make light of her situation, I knew her continuing to dwell on the topic was her way of solidifying sympathy from her flying monkey. However, I didn’t feel the need to apologize for my thoughts and opinions on the matter. She asked me what I thought. It’s not my problem she didn’t like my response. That’s her problem.
Interestingly, Damsel did as I expected her to do in terms of narcissistic behaviors. She gave me the silent treatment. It was instead, her flying monkey who revealed to me via her smug behavior how Damsel actually felt. The continuous smacking sounds, humming of music that signified being aggressive, continuously walking by my work space as if to interfere with my own work were all indications of volatile behavior on Damsel’s behalf, but I refused to indulge in the childish games. Instead, I chose to remain silent while intently focusing on my work.
The very next day, the work atmosphere was even more unleveled with a negative energy exchange. This time, Damsel’s main flying monkey was present. Instead of talking to me, Damsel gave me the silent treatment and became agitated when the main flying monkey stopped working to ask me questions. Although I sensed something was up, I didn’t engage with the negative energy. I grey rocked with one-word responses when necessary or remained absolutely silent and worked, but inside of myself I raged because I was sick and tired of dealing with their immaturity.
Later on, Damsel was angered over a team lead’s update on the progress of our job tasks, and instead of talking to each of us privately, the team lead openly aired our individual progress to the entire group. As usual, I was the fastest and most efficient member of the group. In second place was a coworker I had trained, and in third place was Damsel followed by her main flying monkey. I could immediately tell that Damsel was livid. She didn’t speak to me most of the entire shift.
In the coming days after this, Damsel remained nonchalant and distant towards me – only talking to me when specific people were around. I knew this was done so it would appear we were on friendly terms, but I knew the truth. I knew what she was doing. This was her way to manipulate and control the narrative. All the while, however, she was sabotaging my work efforts by stealing my work assignments and attempting to leave me with undesirable work assignments that she was supposed to originally complete.
That team lead’s progress update sparked an even more competitive streak within Damsel against me, and from that day forward she was always attempting to arrange her work in a way that would display that she was doing better than me even if she was not. I’d do my tasks as normal, and she and her flying monkeys would do half the work but stage their work to look as if they’d done not only more work, but they’d done it faster too.
For the most part, I slowed down my pace just to prove to myself that I wasn’t in competition with Damsel (or anyone else for that matter). I even began taking my breaks more often just to prove to the mobsters how little I cared to indulge in their games. I even arranged to take my lunch break even later so that when the bulk of the work was made available to us, I was not even around to complete it so it showed I wasn’t in competition.
Although I didn’t necessarily dumb myself down or stop giving my best efforts to my job, I didn’t want to compete over something that wasn’t a competition to me in the first place. I didn’t want to play mobster games, but perhaps in pulling back, that was a game all on it’s on. Yet, I was trying to work in peace.
As employees, the mobsters and I were being paid basically the same. None of us were getting paid anymore than the other to outdo each other, and we weren’t being appreciated any more over another either. The work was supposed to be a collaborative team effort to fulfill an entire job assignment that had been allocated to us individually in parts, but when there was a sense of competition, there was no unity in completion (if that even makes sense).
I always took note that when there was a competitive streak going on instead of a unified effort to get things done, then we never finished the projects on time. Only when we worked together in peace did we actually accomplish getting the projects completed on time. However, to no avail, I attempted several times to get the mobsters to see this, but I reckoned that they saw what they wanted to see, and they were simply being difficult for the sake of just being against me. Yet, in the long run, their lack of unity only induced mayhem.
After a while of realizing that even the leadership within this corporation induced this type of mayhem within the workplace, I concluded that trying any harder to get through to the mobsters was a waste of time. I just decided to settle into working my shift and leaving it at that. I didn’t care to compete. I didn’t care to play games. I simply wanted to make money for the hours I worked and then go home. I didn’t want to give the mobsters any more doubt because I doubted my efforts to bring catalytic change would ever make any difference.
Once I felt the sense that the mobsters were my competitors, it became more understandable to me as to why some coworkers ceased giving their all and only gave the bare minimum. It also became more apparent to me that the mobsters would never be my friends within the workplace or outside of it. I didn’t want that anyway. I knew for certain that I could and should never give Damsel in Distress, a narcissist, or her flying monkeys of mobsters any benefit of doubt. They didn’t deserve it.
Neither a narcissist or their flying monkeys can keep up the “nice” facade for very long. They can only truly ever be who they really are even when they try hard to pretend they are someone they are not. As much as I wanted to understand Damsel and the rest of the mobsters, I refused to give them any more benefits of doubt. They are who they are, and they will always be who they are. There’s no change if they never decide to change.
The lesson I learned: It never works to one’s advantage to give a narcissist the benefit of doubt. If this experience doesn’t clue one in, then I’m doubtful anything else will, but I still have more experiences to come. So stay tuned … 😉
My Voice Unchained 