Triggering interaction with narc ex boss

[Hattie]

15 years ago, I started working for a man who turned out to be a grandiose narcissist. Not that I knew it at the time, he just made my life hell for the next 5 years!

When I finished my project, he refused to release the work into the public domain, which had a very negative effect on my career. Ever since then he has repeatedly hoovered me, demanding extra work, time etc, all with the promise of finally publishing my work.

10 years later and he FINALLY is publishing the project, but I am not being given full credit for my work (to be fair, there is a third party involved who is making things difficult).

I have tried pushing back against this , but this has resulted in him threatening me with being removed from the credits for the project altogether, and the use of bullying language. It is really triggering, and anytime I get an email from him I feel really angry, and it takes me ages to calm down.  This evening, I have a splitting headache, and can hardly concentrate.

I have to deal with more of this crap tomorrow. The one good thing is that when this is settled, I will hopefully finally be shot of him! Thanks for reading  just needed to vent really !

[clara]

I feel your pain, Hattie!

I had a narc former boss who not only refused to acknowledge my long and hard work on a project that had his name on it (nowhere was I listed in any type of credit) but then he tried to withhold payment for the job.  He gave one excuse after another until I finally went over his head to a senior person because I could tolerate being cheated out of credit but I wasn't going to be cheated out of being paid.  So, he gave me my pay (which wasn't even coming out of his pocket but rather that of the senior person's organization) and never forgave me.  He tried his entire bag of tricks to get me to resign, and then when we got a new boss, he went to the new boss and tried to get me laid off.  This went on for years, and my only comfort was in knowing that he'd antagonized a lot of other people over the years so it wasn't like he had a lot of support. 

Interestingly, a bit of karma came back to bite him because the new boss started looking for ways to get rid of him!  He didn't succeed, but it gave me some satisfaction seeing how my old boss was being made miserable and was in the position he'd once put me in!  So...these little games people like him like to play don't seem at all unique!

[Hattie]

Thanks for your reply, Clara! Well, much to my amazement,  I ACTUALLY WON!!! My work was published on Friday with my name at the top of the author list- I got full credit! Apparently there was some time pressure to publish it in a particular edition,  so my guess is they didn't want to get into a dispute with me over authorship as there wasn't time. In any case, fighting back was worth it! I am so delighted and have received many messages of congratulations from friends and colleagues. Also a couple of sneaky attempts to sabotage my celebrations by the narcs in my life, but oh well.

I think the strategy of going over the narc's head is an excellent one. I used that many times with my ex boss. I also just maintained my cool and professionalism with him as much as possible, even though inwardly i wanted to deck him.

I am glad you finally got paid for your work. That is a real triumph, and something to truly be proud of.

I am not at all surprised to hear that the drama with your ex boss went on for years. These people hang around like a bad smell. I am wondering if this is the last I will hear from my ex boss, now that our work together is formally tied up. Something tells me that he will be launching some kind of hoover before long. We shall see. I hope not!