Making Waves; Dealing with a Narcissist

What Would My Therapist Say? #6

This monthly advice column comes from me, but it’s all based on the wisdom given to me by the therapist I saw for decades, Neil. When my friends ask for advice, I usually draw on something Neil would say and from my own experience, and now I want to do that for you.

Please submit your questions anonymously here. Be creative with your sign off if you are so inclined. If not, I’ll happily figure one out for you. I look forward to answering them.

Dear Armchair Therapist,

I have a very successful small business which I built from the ground up. I hired someone a few years ago as a contractor to advise me, help with my website and social media as the business was growing. He has been very helpful, knowledgable and provided great service.

I have come to rely on him. He would often go above and beyond what was in his contract.

Recently, I noticed he was making decisions unilaterally, without consultation or in some cases, my knowledge. I started to ask questions and pushed back on some of the changes. In one instance, I didn’t agree with some content and asked him not to post it to our social channels. It was provocative and could be damaging. He didn’t seem to get it.

Since then, he’s become quite belligerent and insulting towards me. We had developed a close working relationship, so it’s a shock.

He’s telling me I’m not doing enough for the business, I don’t know what I’m doing, and I need him or this business would be nothing. I now suspect he is talking to other employees and contractors about me behind my back. I feel he is purposely creating instability in the business.

I had been given very vague warnings about him years earlier, but nobody said anything specific. More like, “be careful” or “oh, that makes sense he’d want to get his hooks in you.” I noted these comments, but didn’t follow up or ask for specifics. I wasn’t experiencing anything untoward and he was doing his job well, so it didn’t seem necessary at the time.

Now, my radar is going off. 

As long as I am doing everything he recommends and don’t push back, he seems ok. Now, I am seeing a different side of this person. I’ve tried speaking to him directly about my concerns, to no avail. He’s sapped my confidence and energy. I even started to believe I couldn’t do this without him—despite being very successful before he arrived.

The more digging I’m doing, I’m realizing he has set up the back end of my business with his own personal email (with my credit card) and not my business email as owner. I’m scared to make waves as he seems to have embedded himself into the back end of my business platform and has a lot of control. I don’t want to lose what I’ve spent years building. Am I missing something?

Making Waves

What would my therapist say?  Run!!! When someone shows you who they are, believe them.

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Dear Making Waves,

You aren’t missing a thing. As a small business owner, I understand how easy it can be to lean on people, especially when they appear very competent and helpful.

When you are trying to be your own HR, legal, accounting, marketing and PR department, as well as delivering the services you are providing, it can be A LOT. Which is why finding and keeping good people is important. It sounds like he started out as one of those people.

However, if your spidey senses are going off, listen to them. Your intuition, or inner radar, as I like to call it, is there for a reason. To alert you, that’s why it’s called radar. If something seems off, it usually is.

Giving people the benefit of the doubt is a great quality. But, if you are feeling an imbalance of power or a shift in tone from someone whom you’ve worked well with in the past, follow your instincts.

You mentioned you’ve spoken to this person about your concerns, which is always the best first step, and it hasn’t helped. It sounds like it may have gotten worse.

As Neil would say, if someone show’s you who they are believe them. The other nugget of wisdom I wrote about in the last column also fits—doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result, is the definition of insanity.

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I want to tell you something…if you’ve been brave enough to start a successful small business, you’ve already proven you’ve got confidence, expertise and good instincts. Don’t let someone convince you otherwise. If he’s sapping these from you, as you’ve indicated, it’s a clear sign something is off and you need to set some boundaries.

Follow up with people who provided you with a warning. Ask them what they were referring to. If they describe similar behaviour or worse, get away from this person as fast as you can.

From what you’ve described, you may be dealing with a narcissist. Most follow a similar pattern.

I’ve broken down the relationship cycle when you’re dealing with a narcissist into six steps. Often the sixth step is the hardest to achieve. See if any of these resonate with you or your experience with this person.

1)    Woo – they sweep you off your feet by offering compliments and noting the specialness of your relationship with each other.

2)    Embed – they embed themselves in your life in a way that makes it difficult for you to understand exactly how much they’ve woven themselves into your daily habits.

3)    Control – Then they begin to use controlling tactics—to create a need and reliance on them, to keep your attention and ensure you are leaning on them. For much more than you realize.

4)    Capture – You become fully captured by them and rely on them to the point of feeling you couldn’t do something without them. However, you don’t yet realize it. Your confidence and ability to function is often stunted because you don’t want to move ahead without getting their opinion or approval. They’ve set it up to be this way—slowly and methodically. So, you don’t know it’s happened.

5)    Manipulate – Once you realize you’ve been captured and try to get out from underneath, the narcissist will begin to manipulate you and those around you. They will alert you to how much you need them, how bad it will be for you if you leave them or decide not to have them in your life. Watch out. They will work hard to try to keep you captured. But if they feel you slipping away, they will do everything to sabotage you, blame you, talk about you, stay connected to you. It will be ugly.

6)    Liberate – This is the most difficult step of all because it involves you acting without them—something you likely haven’t done in a long time. You can break free from a narcissist, but it will take effort and time for all those lingering narratives, thoughts and ideas they’ve planted in your head—about your own abilities and theirs, to go away.

Letting go and being free of a narcissist feels like you’ve been hit by a cyclone. Often you will blame yourself and feel responsible. It has taken years of grooming to get you to this place of dependence on them. It can take time to unwind the damage to your self-confidence, psyche and business, but it will be worth it.

It may mean switching platforms, moving to a new server and cancelling your credit cards. It will take some leg work and likely cost you some money up front, but it’s worth it in the end to be out from under someone who is creating a toxic work environment for you and potentially your employees.

Getting out from underneath their manipulation and control will feel odd at first, but you will find your freedom and your confidence will come back. You’ll know you are doing the right thing if you feel this one thing—relief.

The pain—personally and professionally, will be worth it in the end to feel the relief and be free of this person.

Keep (un)Learning. KVB. Xo

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