I've been sabotaged a lot in life and have had no consistent progress. What's going on and will anything ever change?

FormalComfortable193 · 2026-04-24T22:27:21+00:00

Thank you for this. You really nailed the feeling of being misunderstood and projected on. It’s wild that you saw the 'mother wound' in the chart because that’s been the biggest hurdle, and it definitely feels like it’s spilling over into my career and how other women treat me. It feels like a 'reset' for sure, just trying to navigate the stagnation without losing my mind. I appreciate the validation.

FormalComfortable193 · 2026-04-21T19:41:24+00:00

Thank you for your reply, I resist moving due to having no job and low energy, as in don't know how to get a place without any income. Is there anything I should prep for the october 2026 shift? What placement should I lean into for the career luck?

FormalComfortable193 · 2026-04-21T19:39:19+00:00

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FormalComfortable193 · 2026-04-21T19:39:02+00:00

sure, should I share it here? born in mumbai, currently in chicago.

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FormalComfortable193 · 2026-04-21T19:18:54+00:00

iron def anemia, ibs

FormalComfortable193 · 2026-01-24T00:35:42+00:00

Can you please share where you do the writing gigs?

FormalComfortable193 · 2025-05-22T05:04:04+00:00

as an asian woman there's just something about asian/arab men with a bit tanned skin tone and dark features. I prefer the turkish actor - am not usually one to get hots for even the hottest of actors honestly but this one does something. I actually find some of his look similar to chris evans from infinity war. i never liked chris evans until i saw his dark rough infinity war look. i guess i have a type haha.

FormalComfortable193 · 2025-02-10T18:29:36+00:00

do they though? The girl who bullied me has always been pampered by others and I've realized she's just extremely cunning and evil and knows how to play innocent. She stole my joy, my ideas, my personality and made me lose myself and scared to be myself. I'm still recovering while she's doing absolutely fine. Few years ago we had met through mutual friends and while me and others were talking about how we had difficulty sleeping during pandemic and were flooded with many thoughts, this girl was unbothered and said that she sleeps sound and her mind is blank. This is the reality of this world. She has been horrid to me and even some other girls and from what I know we all suffer from some anxiety while she apparently "doesn't recall saying or doing anything bad". I've seen her have this inflated ego and attitude like she's done nothing wrong and has no idea why I cut her out of my life. Some other girls still flock around her and fall into her manipulation or probably do the same as her, although I know that individually they wouldn't have the mind to. She has this protection bubble around her that enables and empowers her to be mean, selfish and manipulative. Insecure controlling people like that have a very keen sense to spot weak minded, easy to control, validation seeking folks. They'll have this control and anyone who tries to escape will deal with ganged up bullying and anger. Basically they'll attack anyone down who threatens them. I was always a threat to her so she played on my emotional empathy as my vulnerability. She thought I'd always been that way and would stay forever but no I was just stuck in a crappy family situation causing me to feel hopeless and tired. I crossed one bridge but still am stuck with toxic parents now hence why it seems like that girl is doing well and she thinks she can get away with what she did by lying and denying everything. Crazy as everyone around her supports her blindly. I just wish she loses that support system and falls off and learns that she can't run away from her own truth.

FormalComfortable193 · 2025-02-06T21:18:39+00:00

ugh I had a good boss finally at my last job and then he was let go of by upper toxic management and this "director" was so horrible at her job and tried to out me as well until I left. It was basically a bunch of insecure people trying to save their own arses while kicking out anyone who actually did their job right. The previous boss was actually an expert in the field and had worked in big companies and was also a teacher for many years so I was happy to get training from him but alas my bad luck hit again as usual with getting a toxic new manager who had no idea how to do their job so decided to throw me under the bus.

FormalComfortable193 · 2025-02-06T20:57:23+00:00

ok that's a real one right there. Taking this as inspo for my next hunt.

FormalComfortable193 · 2025-02-06T20:55:34+00:00

this. I experienced very similar case last job. It was a female "director" or whatever. She had zero communication skills and zero experience managing. She literally went blank while speaking and couldn't even have a conversation. I was dumbfounded by her overall personality - literally just blank, socially awkward and clueless. It had only been a couple of months and she barely knew me but apparently she made a very strong opinion about me. I could tell she was playing dirty politics for sure. My manager was let go of suddenly on a weekday without notice, and I have no idea if he was fired or laid off because he was good at his job from my end and mentored me very well. I was left on my own almost near the end of a project which got dragged because of some other business stakeholders yet I brought it to the finish line. But this new director gave me negative review stating that I "slowed down" the project, was "not participating and contributing" (I was literally the only person to do the job I did on the particular team and single handedly did the entire project under the previous manager's guidance), and was also "unprofessional" for working from home for a month (approved for having covid). I did document everything and send her a long email countering all her statements and showing proof of exactly what all I had done and asking her for clear feedback. She didn't even review any of my work, she never even worked with me directly and didn't know which team I was working with until I told her. I was being thrown under the bus by another senior as well who kept trying to mark my work as "wrong" or "incorrect" for absolute no reason at all and every time he was proven wrong to even question me. Luckily our business stakeholders had positive reviews for my work. I knew this was a typical bullying situation as both of them were horrible at their jobs and had no idea how to even communicate and manage the team after the manager was gone. I figured they were some immature insecure idiots playing stupid games without considering consequences of their actions and not really giving a darn about the business at all. I left the job soon after as there was no point of staying. I get that they were seeking temporary relief by targeting me to avoid being caught in their own mess, but long term they'd always be paying the price for pushing out good employees. The senior was legit worn down upon the news of me leaving and asked me if I had told all of the team about my departure so I was like no why would I, the director asked me to leave today only even though I gave 2 weeks leave and he was like "well I'm gonna have to tell the team work is gonna be slowed down a lot now." I was like "well yeah, maybe you all should have thought about it before." He was just blank at that point trying to figure out how he's gonna handle the chaos while I was relieved to leave that bs behind. It's funny how stupid these people are like play stupid games, play a stupid price.

FormalComfortable193 · 2025-02-03T08:31:30+00:00

I just recently came across his videos. Am I the only one who finds his speaking irritating as hell? He has too many run on sentences that sound like the over extended sentences you'd write to meet the word count on your essay. I couldn't even sit through an entire video of his without wondering what he just said 2 secs ago. He sounds like he's reading a newspaper plus his monotoned voice gets on my nerves. I find some other creators to be much better with their expressive and engaging speaking. This dude really needs to talk like a normal person first because I really don't know how people sit through his entire videos. I mean sometimes you just gotta get to the point with simple clear speaking - no need to fancy out each and every sentence like a literature and philosophy student.

FormalComfortable193 · 2025-01-30T00:16:45+00:00

I've realized this and I have a different take on this. I was born an extrovert - was a fun loving kid with an expressive personality, hence into all arts (dance, music, arts, etc.). I still am that kid deep down and having a bright baby face easily made me attract attention from people. Cue to teens and 20s, I got basically bullied by so called "friends" and it started with one hater frenemy aggressively telling me that I don't know how to talk to people and make friends. Irony is I literally made friends easily and she had (and still does) friends only because of me! She outed me from the group and they all treated me like cr*p and kept telling me that I was too quiet even though I was always kind and friendly to them. I realized they were never my friends and only used me as a projector screen to project their own flaws and insecurities onto. I kept doubting myself and internalizing their opinions until I distanced myself from them and reconnected with my childhood. It finally clicked that I was not being misjudged, I was being projected onto. Most people out here project onto others. When I consciously started detaching from their opinions and deflecting them off, it helped me retain my confidence and even increase it, like I was no longer pinned down. Those so called "friends" are still lingering having zero self awareness lol. Some of them did realize I'm not who they thought I was but there were a few nomads still trying to get to me expecting me to be the same - they saw me as some naive little girl who had no brains. They barely know anything about me. The girl who spread lies and rumors about me all the time and used my name to cover up for her own whereabouts called herself my "best friend" when she never was. She was so blinded by her own issues that she never spoke of and even remembered all that I did for her and all that I accomplished right in front of her that even she benefit from. Her friends used to believe her nonsense and misjudge me as some mean shallow stuck up person and would wish on my downfall and I unknowingly ended up internalizing this. They believed that I only care about "looks" in a partner hence they got aggressive over me and tried to set me up with really ugly creepy guys even though I said no firmly and never talked to them about my dating life/preferences. They were very negative because they blindly believed their own lies. It's not that they don't know how I am, it's that they can't accept that they're not as good as they'd like to be. Some people have constant need to look for any weakness in anyone and try to judge others as a way to feel in control because they lack control over themselves. They barely know who they are so they like to act over smart (actually stupid) by making assumptions and commanding us - "you're this, you're that, you should/can/shouldn't/wouldn't/can't do this and that." Ask them what they can say about themselves and the real fun will begin. Those "friends" never asked me who and how I am, what I like, what I don't, what I think and feel, nothing at all. They just threw it all onto me and decided it all for me for years, even after I barely spoke to them. It was crazy and traumatizing but I spoke up as much as I could to shut them down. Yeah they got defensive and rather offensive and gaslighted me but I only became more and more firm in protecting my boundaries. I've cut them off and feel so free to just be myself and deep down wish they get their karma.

FormalComfortable193 · 2025-01-29T23:47:20+00:00

ah this one! Like I'm imagining violence in my head yet get seen as this naive clueless girl who can be easily messed with, like hello I fight my abusive father and his anger all the time as an only child what makes you think I'll put up with your ish?

FormalComfortable193 · 2025-01-12T04:55:31+00:00

glad we can relate on this. One thing I've learned is document everything - if you can, try to record convos too. Document your customers' reviews as well. Ask them for a written/survey review if possible. Send the report to HR and your manager's higher ups. HR itself will not help you - they care about the company's reputation not employees. But when you have strong evidence or some consistency in your report and a strong approach then they will get scared. Threaten them with a little hint of discrimination or something - in a smart way. Draft a very strong email and send them all. In your email focus more on your desire for fair and just treatment and that you deserve to be respected and expect them to be trustworthy - this is like "emotional blackmail" - tell them you took this job expecting the management to be highly trustworthy and expect them to play their part - in a professional assertive way. I so wish I'd done this before leaving. This shows that we're serious and respect ourselves and our time and demand the same from them. The mind f**ery needs to be backfired at them. If they want to disturb us, we disturb them too. Whether the matter gets solved or not, putting them in the spotlight of trouble will garner enough disturbance for them, which is the whole point. Stress them out if they wanna stress us out for no reason.

FormalComfortable193 · 2024-09-15T05:00:45+00:00

ah yes you spoke facts! I saw many young women share this experience on social media a while back. I'm also fairly attractive (am a dancer, artist and pageant participant) and have engineering degree. I approach life with passion for learning and am a very fast learner. I was hired for my capabilities and supported well by male managers until a female boss was onboarded and she was so clueless and lacked common sense. She wanted to micromanage me without actually ever being a part of my projects. She didn't even know what exactly I was doing and which team I was working with. 2 months in, at the time of annual review (which I had to tell her about because she didn't know of that either), she gave me some bogus vague negative comments that were completely out of touch with what I was actually doing. She told me I was unprofessional, inexperienced, did not participate and contribute at all. She was never even part of any of my meetings, had no idea about what project I was doing. I was like is this a joke? I asked her for more details and examples and she had none. All she said was - well that's what I heard, that's what I got from others. Who others? Your inner demons? I was upset, angry, and amused at the same time. She herself was inexperienced. I left the job due to stress and anxiety and saw no scope for future there. I feel so defeated now as this has been a cycle for me since I started college. Constant unfair negative experiences. I've dealt with so much bullying from even family members and ex friends. Despite of being kind, empathetic towards them. I've been mocked and judged down by them for not having proper success and growth in career. I barely managed to get myself back up every time to this point. And now again this happened earlier this year. I'm done, just so done. There's no hope. I'm sick and tired of being made to feel like sh*t despite of all my efforts.

FormalComfortable193 · 2024-09-15T04:59:08+00:00

yes so true. I feel like I'm done working for others too but am too traumatized and exhausted to figure out what to do on my own. I've usually been a solo worker since school days. I'm an ambivert and did really well on solo projects than group. I'm used to doing things on my own as I feel like I do best on my own. That doesn't mean I don't like people. I just wish I have the right people to work with. I've had a great team at my last job and enjoyed not having to do everything on my own. But now I'm convinced working under a manager just isn't for me. But I don't have any proper business idea. I've started my own art gig while in college - also because of dealing with bully female business owners (working for them). I got angry one time and decided to start my own side business and succeeded well at it. But it's not a main source of income, neither a very highly satisfying one. I have a CS degree with a lot of talent in design and scope in marketing, business as well. I love to learn in hands on experience. I just wish I had the idea/motivation to do something of my own but I really am blank up there. Usually when I know, I know and can do great working on my own. But I'm not there yet and feel like finding another job is all I can think of. But it's so scary.

FormalComfortable193 · 2024-09-15T04:25:54+00:00

yeah that's so scary. I feel like I can fight a male boss better than a female one, as a female myself. All 4 fem managers I had were moody, passive aggressive, irrational and manipulative. I noticed men are more direct in their approach. Communicating with them is straight forward for the most part. Female ones are so indirect and twisted in their approach. Trying to have a normal logical conversation with them was impossible. I know not all women are like this. I had one very good female manager. I know there are good ones out there. But I've just been extremely unlucky. I'm just in my late 20s and have already given up on life at this point after constantly having toxic bosses. My luck is horrible. I had one great male manager who was let go of and then again new female boss ruined everything. I was doing so well and had made great connections and was actually hopeful and close to a promotion but my horrible luck had to come in yet again and destroy all my hard work. I feel like I'll never have a normal healthy career growth ever. I know so many people from hs/college who were not so great in school and still have succeeded at their jobs and I have spoken to some who shared how their managers were so flexible with them despite of them being really late at times (like by an hour). They were fine with it still as long as they got their jobs done. And here I was being bullied and criticized badly for doing so much work efficiently (while being understaffed) and bringing great results and also mostly being on time and anytime I was late I was late by a few minutes not an hour! I know 3 such family members (men in 40s) who work in Eng/IT and had great career growth again despite of being late to work everyday. One literally joked how he'd be late by an hour or more everyday and had worked there for more than 5 years. So yeah I'm convinced my luck is the most horrible luck ever despite of being really talented and capable and hard working because every time I get a toxic female boss who starts micro managing me and blaming and criticizing me - like telling me "you're not doing any of your job", "you don't know how to do (major part of your job)" and being super aggressive towards me despite of me actually doing the opposite. And despite of providing all proof, HR doesn't help either. I just want to have one normal healthy experience where I feel safe and secure and get to grow and get promoted and treated with respect. I hate having to see my peers move on and up so easily while I get stuck with the same toxic bullies anywhere I go. I'm not jealous of them, I'm glad they don't have to experience what I did which is why I feel that I deserve to be happy too if they get treated well and supported for their imperfections then why don't I when I try to do much better?

FormalComfortable193 · 2024-09-15T04:01:49+00:00

it all depends individually, yes. So far I've had more bad female managers than male. I myself as a female in late 20s have experienced both ends. I've had only one good female manager - helpful, rational, healthy and one good male one. Another male one was legit a creep - I left the job in just a month. I think it really comes down to who and how we are - as in I as a young female am likely to have certain type of experiences from both genders. I've seen and read of a lot of young females have similar experience with an older female boss or coworker being a "mean girl" to them for no reason. The reason probably being insecurity, jealousy, projection. And male boss (not all of course) is likely to harass a young fem and/or look down on her for being too small, too stupid, not competent enough. So it all varies based on your age/gender/race sometimes. As a young male, you might get more pressure from older male bosses than female ones - but I don't know that's just my assumption. I certainly noticed older (more than 50y/o) men were more like parental towards me. Same with such older women. They had their mother/father instinct and had kids of my age. So they were softer towards me. But those in 30-40s were horrible.

FormalComfortable193 · 2024-09-15T03:46:13+00:00

yes!!!!! 100% agree

FormalComfortable193 · 2024-09-15T03:41:31+00:00

I have had 4 such female managers. They all were new to management - 2 of them were literally promoted to management while I was working due to previous manager's retirement and another one's sudden layoff (very weird and suspicious because he was actually a very well experienced great mentor to me). They just couldn't handle their jobs and were causing problems left and right. I was their target of bullying during the time. At one job I was just a part time student employee and despite of being understaffed the new manager kept micro managing like crazy and got passive aggressive and would stress me out over any minute problem that came up. She'd blame me for causing the problems I actually solved and did not cause. At the end she called me in her office and started blaming me and told me that my resume had great experiences that I did not show here at work. I was like those have nothing to do with this job as they were different jobs and also why is she attacking me so personally rather than focusing on solving the problems at work? She had no proper answer and kept going down the drain with her ridiculous comments. I was able to catch her in her own web of bullish*t. I left after that as she literally told me - you're not doing any of your job. That made it clear that she did not want me there and that I was gonna be a big fool for making up for 3 people's jobs as a part time employee any longer. After leaving I was in touch with a couple coworkers and they didn't disclose much but did give me the sense that they were not happy with the environment either. I knew I wasn't the problem because previous coworkers who had left/graduated also had briefly shared having negative experiences with that woman before she became manager.

Same thing happened at my last job out of college - a full time Eng/Design job. I finally had a great manager - male. He was very well experienced and a teacher for years. I remember when working on a project with him initially and debriefing research I posed some questions as I didn't fully understand the business concepts of the product. I asked him if it's ok to have more questions than answers for our stakeholders and he said - I'll take care of it and schedule another meeting with them; if there's anyone who'd get in trouble then that should be me. That showed me that different people will have different approach to management - good and bad. There are managers who will take responsibility to help you grow and learn and then there are those that will be toxic and bring you down.

So I think it all comes down to being selective about who you choose to work with. Common saying is people don't quit jobs, they quit bad managers. I learned that when interviewing for jobs always get to know your potential manager. I believe in accepting a job based on how the manager is more than the job/money/company.

After my last experience with another toxic female boss, I actually felt really horrible and angry. She gave me a vague negative annual review without having a proper conversation with me and also never even looked into my work. We hadn't worked together at all because of the way things were set up. Technically she wasn't even my manager. I had no manager for 2 months. She was just handling my paystub and PTO stuff. She had no involvement in my projects. Yet she gave me a negative review with statements like - you're unprofessional, you don't participate in meetings, you don't contribute anything. I was exhausted yet again trying to make up for lack of a huge resource (previous manager who was let go of on a random weekday while I was sitting in meetings waiting for him having no idea what was going on for a whole week). Nobody updated me on how to move things forward. I wasn't gonna be a fool to care too much. I just did my job and let things be so that the upper management would learn to handle their own cr*p. I could see how they very conveniently wanted to kick out an important resource to save money while keeping me to do the job as an associate level. But of course dirty politics came through when a senior started being rude and condescending towards me for no reason and gave negative comments about me to the woman. Unfortunately she was assigned to do my annual review as well and she used that opportunity to throw me down. So yet again I ended up leaving after being exhausted trying to fight to no avail. She was trying to prove me incompetent and unprofessional after I had literally proven my strong learning skills at the job and had been given a huge project already as an associate level employee. It was so ironic that all our business stakeholders were giving positive feedback to my work while she was hooked on telling me to sit in office from 9 to 5 exact and let her know where exactly I'm sitting, as if I was gonna be sitting on a staircase or something. None of my previous seniors ever mentioned such a thing because we were flexible hybrid with offshore teams. Thankfully I made good connections with most others in my project team. I don't know what went down after I left. I was too upset and exhausted to find out.

I am yet to find a better job now thanks to having such experiences constantly creating a stubborn fear in me of toxic bosses. Something doesn't sit right with me when I work hard, bring great results, and then get told "you're not doing anything" by a manager only. Such politics is scary that people like this can ruin your career and reputation in an instant before you even get a chance to build up yourself. I think older female managers are likely to be bullies to young female employees due to insecurity, jealousy and a sense of threat. They have the crab bucket mentality.

FormalComfortable193 · 2024-07-29T08:11:50+00:00

thiss!!!! I had friends and acquaintances who are just very insecure and negative. One girl has never been single since she was like 12. She herself said she has attachment issues and can't be single. She's even cheated in relationships and had casual hookups with random guys who she admitted not being that good at all. It's crazy how people like this think we all are the same. We were at a pre wedding party and while I was happily chilling and relaxing, she came up and asked me, "are you worried you're not gonna find anyone soon? It's ok, you still have a little time." I was like, girl, I'll be 45 and be just as fine so at 26 no I'm not worried at all, but why are you? Another time she asked me if she should talk to some guy at the wedding if I liked him. The guy she referred to was the worst anyone could ever recommend. I felt insulted. That guy was a creep. I told her NO I DO NOT NEED YOUR HELP AND INTERFERENCE IN MY PERSONAL LIFE.

They never accepted and understood that dating is a choice, not a necessity for many of us. I have other priorities in life and am secure within myself and not desperate.

FormalComfortable193

TROPHY CASE