How Narcissists in the Workplace can Impact Your Mental Health?
Narcissism is defined as an excessive admiration for one’s abilities or appearance. A narcissist is thus a person who is self-involved and only cares about his/her needs. Narcissists have a hard time in competitive environments as their self-obsession makes it unbearable to see others getting appreciated or admired.
Narcissists are hard people to deal with generally but tackling a narcissist in the workplace can be mind boggling. In this article, we are going to explain some of the mental health impacts of working with a narcissist.
What are some signs of a narcissist?
Narcissists have very peculiar symptoms and it is very easy to spot them if you know the symptoms. Narcissism is a proper disorder but not everyone who displays narcissistic traits do not have the disorder. Thus narcissist all fall on a wide spectrum but the symptoms are the same, they just vary in intensity.
One of the main signs of a narcissist is a sense of grandiose. If your boss is a narcissist then it is very easy to this delusional fantasy of grandiose in him/her. He/she is likely to have weird rituals and rules for all the employees to follow which will mostly centered on his/her service.
There is also a sense of entitlement which is present in narcissists. They also tend to manipulate others by insinuating feelings of guilt and shame. Narcissists do not have any sense of empathy and are thus likely to ask for favors rather than giving them unless there is a greater benefit for them in it.
How it damages your mental health?
As mentioned earlier, narcissists manipulate into feelings of guilt and shame. All of this manipulation is to use these people for their own benefit. People who are on the receiving end, are thus likely to develop poor self-worth. A person working under a narcissist will never feel good about themselves or their ability since a narcissist will never give credit to the team and always wants to be the top of every project.
For a person, who is working hard day and night but is stuck with a narcissist can soon develop depression. He/she is also likely to beat himself up for not doing enough which in turn brings severe anxiety. As a result, the mental health of a person can be completely destroyed by just working under a narcissist.
What can you do about it?
In order to deal with this situation, one first needs to establish if he/she is working under a narcissist or just needs to work even harder to excel at their job. The symptoms described in the earlier section can be very helpful in establishing the narcissistic traits of your boss. Once you have established this fact, you can rationalize your so called ‘slow progress’ as mentioned by your narcissistic boss.
If you are already dealing with mental health issues caused by a difficult work environment, you should see a psychologist as soon as possible. He/she can help you in developing cognitive techniques to not let the negativity created by narcissists in your life get the better of you.
