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It felt like something was ripped out of me.I started a job this past April. Everything was going so well - I got along great with my colleagues; I found the work challenging and fulfilling; it was in a nice building biking distance from home, everything was great. A little too great. The anxiety monster in my head started to wonder when it was all going to go wrong.Just three months after I started my job, I got a new manager. From the beginning, something was off about her. Her actions didn’t match up with her words. She had a habit of making a lot of assumptions, and then forming (very often mistaken) judgments based on these assumptions. When I, or another team member, would try to correct her, she refused to listen and would continue to repeat her mistaken judgments. She was conflict-prone and seemed to escalate disagreements. In the beginning, she was open with me about her intention to manipulate people. The situation became very stressful to me as I could feel my work of the past few months being undone and the fabric of the team loosening.After three weeks of this, I went to her boss with my concerns. He put on a good show of appearing to take it seriously, but took no action. I spent an evening carefully outlining my main concerns in a constructive way to bring them to her directly. It was evident to all that she was struggling with the team, and I wanted to help her succeed, so I took a conciliatory angle and addressed my points. I also made it very clear that I would not participate in any attempts to manipulate people.I should have seen it in that meeting. As soon as I began to critique her, there was a noticeable shift on her face. The mask slipped. She abruptly began projecting and gaslighting (this I see in retrospect but didn’t understand at the time). She accused me of doing all of the things she was doing. That I was “keeping the team” from her, that I felt like I was the true manager and wouldn’t let her lead the team. There was no evidence for these claims, but she would continue to repeat them in the coming few months. Each time, I would ask her for specifics about what behavior I should stop, and she was never able to offer an answer. Just that I was “resisting” her.As time went by, the situation gradually escalated. One week would be calm and the next week volatile. She continued picking fights, dividing people against each other, escalating tensions. After two months, I had a meeting with her and her boss where she offered contradictory critiques of my work and fabricated instances of my supposed insubordination, laying little traps for me to fall into in front of him. It was in that meeting that I finally realized what I was dealing with: a pathological narcissist. A very dangerous person.I knew at that point that she was targeting me. I was far from the only person having issues with her, and I had no conflicts with any of my other colleagues. Conflict resolution is a key component of my job and something at which I am rather skilled. For conflict resolution to succeed, however, both parties must come to the table in good faith. Mediation with a compulsive liar and narcissist will always fail.Once I realized what she was, I avoided direct confrontation with her. I knew from previous experience with people of similar temperament that by then it was too late for me to get her to stop targeting me, so all I could do was focus on doing my job well and ensure I had a direct line to her boss so that my performance would be fairly represented. I foolishly thought this would be enough. I underestimated her.Others in the team were aware of her behavior and also shared their concerns with her boss, who continued to do nothing. At a certain point it became clear that he was sharing all of our feedback with her, sometimes immediately after receiving it. She would know everything we had said, and sometimes even who said it, within hours. In one meeting, I shared a piece of information with him that I specifically requested he keep confidential. The very next day, she came up to me to tell me what she had heard from him - it was the comment I asked him to keep private. At that point I knew there was no longer any point in raising these issues with him. He was either brainwashed or a willing participant in her abuse of us.I went to HR. Others went to HR. She made derogatory comments speculating that one of our (very kind, reliable, and thoughtful) colleagues had Aspergers Syndrome and how could she be expected to work with “such a difficult person.” She would share other confidential information from private meetings with colleagues. I brought this to HR.She set out to divide people from each other, especially to isolate me from the team. I thought she might be succeeding as I started to feel a distance with some of them. Eventually, people started talking with each other about the content of their private meetings with her and it turned out she was doing this with everyone. She would tell people that others in the team were talking about them. In particular, she would ask them about the specifics of what I was doing day to day. This was the final validation of what I thought had been going on from the beginning, but had no confirmation. I was relieved in a sense that it wasn’t all in my head, but scared that she seemed to be mounting a deliberate smear campaign against me, built entirely on lies. I went to HR again to express my fear that she was singling me out and targeting me, and to ask for advice to protect myself. They said they would handle it with her and her boss.In November, our company rolled out an internal anonymous survey system where we were expected to share feedback about our jobs, the company in general, and our manager’s performance. The manager and her boss would see this feedback. We were required to fill in these surveys and most people used it as an opportunity to give negative feedback about her performance as a manager. I remember fearing the backlash of this - a narcissist is injured easily and reacts with unparalleled fury.I wasn’t wrong. She became increasingly unhinged, sending emails late at night to the team ranting about how they could provide such negative feedback when she had gotten them new laptops and raises that year. She also started closing in on me. I became aware from someone else that she seemed to think all the negative feedback came from me and one other team member with whom I was closely allied. This was absurd - our team was 18 people and 16 surveys had been completed.She started taking tasks away from me and cutting me out of meetings and communications. I felt something was coming.We had a one-to-one meeting one fateful morning. It was in this meeting that she finally revealed herself in all her psychopathic glory. She accused me of manipulating the team, of sabotaging her, of being hateful and disrespectful to her, and many more things that I simply did not do. She claimed I was the one resisting everything she did and not allowing her to manage the team (again she was unable to provide any specifics about this.) She claimed people in the team had been escalating to her and her boss that I was out of line and not allowing her to do the job of manager. At one point in this meeting I just watched her in shock, thinking: so this is what projection looks like. It’s all by-the-book, the gaslighting, the word salad, the utter lack of empathy. I have never in my life witnessed such pure evil (and I hope I never do again.)By chance, the night before this meeting, I read up on gaslighting and how to handle it, so I was armed with the intent to simply enforce my boundaries in this meeting. Each lie she threw at me, I would respond something like: we have a different experience of that situation and I know what happened. Your powers of perception are not superior to mine, and I trust my experience of the situation. That set her off completely and she stated that we could not both serve in the team anymore, so she would escalate the situation to HR.I went to the bathroom and sobbed. I was close with my colleagues and I confided in them what happened - by that point nearly everyone was aware of her toxic behavior so this was an escalation but not out of character for her. I also went to her boss to tell him what happened, and I went to HR for the third time.A few tense days went by. I had another meeting with HR where some vague comments were made that “something must happen.” My best friend works in HR (at another company) and said this should be a good thing - there were many complaints to HR about her and none about me, so it should be clear what the path forward is.A meeting appeared in my calendar one day, scheduled by her with someone from HR in attendance. Mediation had been suggested, so I wondered at the purpose of this meeting - I would have expected to be informed what to expect from mediation, not just have a meeting spontaneously added to my calendar. I had an anxiety attack as soon as I saw the message come up. I was a mess by this point. During the day, I found out there was a meeting with some upper management about the “situation.” One of the people in this meeting was a friend of mine who normally would have shared some details of what happened, but he abruptly went home right afterward. Something was wrong. Meetings for the following day started disappearing from my calendar.When I came into the meeting room, she was seated next to the HR representative on the same side of the table. This didn’t seem like a good sign.She informed me that I would be removed from the team and company effective by the end of that week (the meeting was on a Wednesday at the end of the day.) Every single thing out of her mouth regarding the rationale for firing me was either a lie or a distortion. Some new things she had never said to me before. Some of these things would have been easily refuted if only they had spoken to others in the team about the situation, but they didn’t. They simply took her word that I was the problem in the team and must be removed. She was fighting back a smile in this meeting and looked ecstatic that she finally had me against the wall.I remember walking back from the meeting room to my desk. It was strangely silent and I walked slowly, feeling all the moisture disappear from my mouth. The first person I saw was someone I had shared my fears with a couple weeks earlier and was aware of the situation. I told him I was fired and his eyes immediately went red and wet. He told me to go home.I went back to my desk. Some of my colleagues were nearby. I interrupted them and said, “I was just fired.” I didn’t feel like I was speaking, I felt like I was outside of my body. They were outraged and immediately went upstairs to confront HR themselves. Others gathered around me and comforted me. I was just in shock. I gathered my things and left with one of my closer friends in the team. We saw more people in the lobby and talked a bit about the situation. They all hugged me.I had a panic attack that night. I couldn’t sleep at all. I didn’t go to work the next day. Later on I learned that my whole team, my wonderful, kind hearted, truly good and principled team, met together to strategize about what they would do. They had called for a meeting with her boss and a member of the senior leadership team that was scheduled for that afternoon. From what I learned later, they all shared their own stories of my manager’s toxic behavior, her lies and manipulation of all of them.The rationale her boss gave for my firing was more lies, and nothing that had been mentioned in my actual firing meeting. He said I was underperforming, that I didn’t have any experience when I came into the job, that I had been put on a “performance improvement plan” and failed to meet my objectives. None of this was true. My team didn’t believe it for a second either, and they all spoke up in support of me. Even people I had barely worked with defended me. People who were normally unemotional and stoic were in tears. It’s hard to express how moving and gratifying it was to discover that they did this for me. He also mentioned the point that he had received negative feedback about me, and they all denied ever having given such feedback - it was all secondhand from my lying manager and he never bothered to verify anything or talk to anyone else about the situation until after I was fired.The result was that the very next day, my last day in the team, my manager was fired and sent home immediately. And yet, her boss stubbornly refused to reverse my firing. I guess this was to avoid any further damaging of his ego. His own boss was largely unaware anything was going on at all in our team and then walked into a meeting where 20 people shouted him down about our toxic manager and my value to the team. It couldn’t have looked good for him.So, from one day to the next, I went from working in a job that I loved with people I loved, multiple ongoing projects, to just being alone in my house with nothing to do but cry and distract myself with Quora and Instagram and Netflix. I had no time to even wrap up or hand over any work - like I was just easily disposable, like everything I had done was worthless. I slipped into a deep depression and had no motivation or focus to do anything but lie on the sofa fighting off tears.But more than that, I had never in my life been targeted in such a way by a true psychopath. I was, and still am to some degree, terrified that she might still come after me. For the first week, I was peeking out my front window half-expecting to see her. I had more panic attacks - I had never had one up to this point. I live alone so the only way I could manage it was to look in the mirror and talk myself down.It’s been a month now. Today was the first day I didn’t cry when I woke up. I cried writing this, of course, but today was ok. I got to the second round of job interviews for a new position and I plan to apply for more in January once people are back from holidays and there are more listings. I still just want my life back but I know I have no choice but to move on.There is some consolation in the fact that her boss is now without any allies in the company. Perhaps he will resign or have his position eliminated in the coming months. I hope he realizes that if he had just listened to me in the beginning, his own career wouldn’t be in such jeopardy now and this all could have been avoided.She tried very very hard to isolate me from my team and my friends and she failed - if anything she just strengthened our bond. And one day, this will just be a crazy story for me to tell. It was my job to protect the team from outside interference, even if that meant protecting them from their own manager, and in a way, I succeeded. When she was closing in on me, I told a friend that though I was not the first person she targeted, I planned to be the last. And I was.I am everything that she will never be. I am empathetic, I am kind, I lead by supporting people and creating emotional safety for them. This is one of the most painful things I have ever had to go through, but I escape with my dignity intact. I don’t regret anything I did, and I will never regret confronting acts of cruelty and abuse of power. Everyone deserves honesty and respect in the workplace.

If you don’t cut your wrists, I will kill your parents.It was a beautiful sunny day, two weeks ago.I was at the playground with my children, watching them playing, enjoying their summer. In a couple days, we were about to leave to our seaside vacation. My head was full of thoughts about all I had to finish before our trip, work with my clients, and preparations for a new busy school year, starting in fall.As my boy was pretending to be a train conductor, huffing and puffing, as he drove a playground train, my daughter sat on the large net swing with a little girl she met a couple weeks ago. I will call her Kaja. They were very cute, sitting there, chatting and giggling.My daughter is 6, and her friend 7 years old. After the girls met on the playground and became friends, I spoke to the girl’s father shortly and got to know a little about their situation.The girl lives in another town with her mom, and sometimes comes to visit her dad. I did not ask, but supposed that Kaja’s parents were divorced, and hoped that the arrangement is not too hard for her. She did seem happy and lively, as she ran around with my little girl, hugged her and played.The evening came, and I went to the swing to tell my daughter it was time to go home. As I approached her, she asked Kaja if it would be okay if she told me about their secret talk. Kaja reacted strongly, waving her head, whispering NO, eagerly.As we walked towards home, her little brother running around us, I said to my daughter:Honey, is there something that you want to share with me?She nodded, but made an anxious face. I continued:Remember when we talked about good secrets and bad secrets?She said, recalling our talks:Good secrets are when your heart feels happy, like when you hide a birthday surprise from your brother, and bad secrets are when you feel sad and scared.What do we do with bad secrets?It is not okay to keep them, because they make us feel bad; we should tell them to mom or dad.I smiled, proud of my little one for remembering that important lesson. I asked her:It seems to me that the secret Kaja wants you to keep is not one that makes your heart happy. It is okay to tell me, if you want, and I will not betray your trust.Visibly relieved, she sighed and started telling me everything. In the begining of her story I smiled, thinking to myself of times when I was a child and was telling scary tales with my little friends, stories about ghosts and monsters, that gave us an adrenaline rush (and made us sleep with our lights on, afterwards).However, as her story progressed, my heart froze inside my chest.Mom, Kaja said that there is this monster who has big eyes, like this - she showed huge circles on her face - and big mouth that goes from here to here, all the way - and she showed me a line going from one ear down to the chin, and back to the other ear. His mouth is just a line, and you can’t see the teeth, just a red gap.I said that it sounded really scary, and reminded her that monsters don’t exist. However, she eagerly continued:No, he really exists, Kaja said. He comes to you and then he tells you things you have to do. You HAVE TO do them, because it is very dangerous if you don’t listen to him!Here I became concerned, because the story eerily reminded me of the Blue Whale Challenge. I was right. The next sentence froze my insides:He tells children to cut right here - my beloved child stretched her little arm, making a wrist cutting motion. I stopped breathing. She continued, innocently, unaware of what she was saying:If you don’t cut right here, and push hard, he will come and kill your parents and your little brother.That night I sat with my daughter for a long time, after we read bedtime stories. We talked about seaside vacation, starting school in fall, missing her friends, about a really exciting book we are reading, about the shells she wanted to collect at the seaside. And we talked about Kaja and her story.She was less freaked out about it, having shared it with me, and realized that it was just a scary tale. I asked her how she felt when she was talking about this with Kaja, and she said that it was really scary, and that she felt bad. I asked her what she will tell Kaja the next day at the playground. She said that she will tell her that she does not want to talk about such things, any more.We tickled, giggled, hugged and kissed, and she went to sleep.My heart stayed awake and unsettled for a long time.The next day I went for a massage. The massage therapist is my high-school girlfriend, a really kind person. I told her about the creepy story Kaja told my daughter, and I described the big-eyed, huge-mouthed monster. As I finished describing him, my friend stopped, looking at me with horror.Oh dear god, Iva, it’s MOMO! - she exclaimed.I had no idea what she was talking about, but her expression startled me, and I asked her to explain.She told me that, like Blue Whale game and Slenderman challenge, Blue Whale (game) - WikipediaSlender Man stabbing - Wikipediathat there is now a new thing on the Internet, designed specifically for kids, and it’s called Momo.She recognized my description, and promised to send me links so I can read up and take action if my daughter or her friend Kaja have stumbled upon him.Momo is a fictional character whom kids add on whatsApp, and “he” starts sending them tasks they need to complete. If they do not, they get threatened, and the threats are extreme, often involving murder of family members if his existence is not kept secret and they do not do what he asks.As I came home, I imediately went into research mode. As soon as I researched “Momo challenge”, I found him.When my daughter described what Kaja said the monster looked like, I imagined something like Batman’s Joker.What I found was far more sinister. I am not easily spooked, but my blood froze when I saw the image of the virtual monster. I wondered what children feel when they see this image, and start believing they are followed and threatened by her.I read and researched about Momo challenge, finding out that a 12-year-old girl commited suicide in Argentina after “meeting” Momo, and that many more are affected, resulting in anxiety, depression, insomnia, personal data theft and blackmail. There are campaigns to raise awareness among parents and children, in order to prevent tragedies resulting from this sick game.That evening we went to the playground, and found Kaja alone. She said her dad went away for a while, leaving her with her mobile phone at the playground, and she will call him to come pick her up when she wanted to go home.As I looked at that little girl with her cell phone, her father far, and mother even farther, things started making sense.She took her phone, and invited my daughter to come play a game on it with her. My girl looked at me, knowing my response. I said:Girls, go, run and play, use your imagination, but you absolutely aren’t allowed to play on the phone.Kaja was disappointed. As my daughter looked at her phone, she hid it fast. I asked her about it and she said - at 7! - that there are messages there that no one is allowed to see. I was thoroughly alarmed.They did play, even though Kaja took her phone out from time to time “to check something”. I was around them all the time, with a watchful eye.Time passed and it was time to go home.Kaja was calling her dad, and it took quite a while for him to come. I stayed with her to make sure she got home okay.When her father came, I told him I needed to talk to him, asking if I can call him later. He said sure, inquiring what it was about, but I did not want to speak in front of Kaja. I did say, though, that I thought she was too small to be left alone outside.After I put my little ones to sleep, I called Kaja’s dad.I had to collect myself before calling him, because I was furious.I needed to reach him, so I could help his child, however, my first instinct was to yell at him, telling him what I thought about his neglect and behavior.I knew that attacking him made no sense, and that it would result in denial and defensiveness, so I spoke as if we were allies in a mutual concern for our children and wish for their safety and well-being.I spoke to him about what my daughter told me, and what I found out about Momo and similar viral challenges, threatening our children. I said that we must be very careful about it, and I always used the word “we”, keeping away from any blame or accusation.His reaction angered me. He said that Kaja never told him about anything of the sort, and that as far as he knows, Kaja spends her time on the cell phone watching youtube videos.I was startled and told him that WE should be careful about youtube as well, because there are really horrific things there, very inappropriate for children. I said that WE should always monitor our kids’ Internet use (not telling him that I in fact thought that they have no need to be on the Internet or have their own cell phones at 7 at all).He said that there is NO NEED TO BE CONCERNED about youtube, because all such content is protected by warning, and hidden from those younger than 18.I did not know what to say to him.Youtube is full of music, cute puppy videos and cartoons, sure. But youtube is also full of gore, horrific images and extreme content, deeply inappropriate for children.He flat out denied any possible danger from it.I tried a bit more, but he was deaf to any of my reasons, concerns or efforts.He wrote me the next day, telling me that he spoke to Kaja and she said that she never spoke of any monsters and had no idea what he was talking about.His daughter hid from him.He let her hide.She wanted him to care enough to look for her.She wanted him to care enough to find her.He doesn’t.She is alone.IF YOU LET YOUR CHILDREN HIDE FROM YOU, AND DO NOT MAKE EFFORT TO LOOK FOR THEM, MOMO AND SIMILAR MONSTERS WILL FIND THEM.DO NOT FOOL YOURSELVES.IF YOU WOULD NOT OPEN THE DOOR OF YOUR HOUSE AT 3AM, AND LET YOUR CHILD ROAM THE BACK STREETS, THEN BEHAVE THE SAME WAY WITH THEIR INTERNET USE.BLUE WHALE, SLENDERMAN AND MOMO DON’T EXIST, BUT THE MONSTERS BEHIND THEM ARE VERY REALLET’S KEEP OUR CHILDREN SAFE.EDITAs I was looking for photos of Momo for this answer, I stumbled upon a horrifying story of an 18-year-old Indian boy who hung himself a couple days ago (!) because of the Momo challenge.Rest in peace, Manish, I’m sorry you were so alone and could not find your way out of this.

Frankie's occupation, indeed, her true calling in life is to look after yours truly. She looks out for my safety at all times. This is quickly followed by my wellness, and trailing behind, but not too far, is my happiness.This wasn't her first career choice. No, that first one was chosen for her by someone I'd still like to meet. I'd like to both thank them and punch them in the face, or balls, if they have any.Her first job was survival. Her and her brothers, Johnny. When they were abandoned in our old neighborhood, maybe 2 dozen houses at the edge of a large and dangerous forest, Frankie stepped up. Their beauty caught anyone's eye first. It still does. Frankie would get just close enough to distract, but not close enough to be caught, so Johnny could go engage in his choosen profession, Thief. It was how they ate. How they survived. Until they moved in with us, that is. Well, they still stole for a little while after that. Oh the complaints! But honestly, there was always something just a little bit humorous about a pair of dogs outsmarting some of our slower neighbors.Fast forward ten blessed years. Good years for them. Great years for me. Frankie and Johnny’s infamous teamwork has rather aged out. They haven't had to steal for years, not for survival anyway. Sport was another matter. Johnny could steal food right off the plate in my lap, and I'd never catch it, unless they both wanted me to.But Johnny started going off by himself maybe a year ago. No one understood at first, not us dumb humans anyway, but Frankie knew something was wrong. She altered us that all was not right with Johnny boy. As it turned out, Johnny has canine dementia. Very early, thank heaven. We can't stop it, but we can slow it down, and prepare.Well, now what's a Frankie to do? Half her team often isn't paying attention. He drifts off into his own, thankfully happy place, and Frankie cannot follow or bring him back. What's a Frankie to do?Border collies are smart. She figured it out. Me! I needed looking after. I needed to know when to eat, when to feed them, when to go to bed. While Frankie does frequently put me to bed, through a variety of behaviors that are astonishingly effective, kinda early sometimes…to see that light come back into her eyes, I gladly go to bed at 7 pm.Her job isn't yet done. I had, once, a habit of reading in bed for hours. No more. I get a Frankie in bed with me, laying right next to me. Her head often sharing a pillow with me. Her paws touch me, caresse me, gently poke me and play with me, all the while talking to me. Happy, contented, relaxing me, she grunts, groans, moans, and this chittering sound I have never heard a dog make before. It's the most precious thing, a happy sound. Her last job is to see me to sleep. Once I'm out, she retires to her own sleeping spot. Close enough to be on hand for nightmares or thunderstorms, or even just my frequent middle of the night awakenings. My husband, a great man, isn't too happy to be awoken at 4 am, but Frankie thinks it's great.Frankie looks after me in other ways. She keeps me safe from squirrels, our other cats and dogs, ( but never Johnny ). These past few weeks when I have been ill, she has been watching over me and keeping me company. When she was loath to leave my side for even a meal, this dumb human finally figured out it was time to go back to the doctor. Now as I get a little bit better every day, Frankie is still supervising, but not under foot. She's outside right now protecting my bird feeder, because she knows I like it full.So my Frankie's job is me. Oh, am I blessed!