Breaking Up with My Narcissistic Boss: Part Two: What This Does to Your Body...
A Personal Essay | Mental Health at Work
The professional’s guide to recognizing, surviving, and leaving a toxic supervisor — written from lived experience.
Let me be clear: this is not just theory. This is something I lived, survived, and eventually walked away from. I want to use my experience and my clinical lens to help you recognize what is happening to you, name it for what it is, and create a plan to get free.Whether you are questioning your reality in a staff meeting, walking on eggshells before a one-on-one, or crying in your car before you walk through the office door this is for you.
"Leaving a narcissistic boss isn't just a career decision. It's an act of self-preservation and sometimes, it is the bravest clinical intervention you can make on your own behalf."
Part Two: What This Does to Your Body
This is where I want us to slow down. Because before we talk about leaving, we have to talk about what has already happened to you physically, neurologically, and somatically because the body keeps the score, and your body has been keeping it for a while. Chronic exposure to a narcissistic supervisor creates what trauma-informed care practitioners call a persistent stress response. When you are regularly subjected to unpredictability, humiliation, or threat even perceived threat your nervous system reads this as danger and activates accordingly.
Common nervous system responses to prolonged workplace trauma include:
- Hypervigilance and intrusive thoughts
- Cortisol dysregulation and chronic fatigue
- Disrupted sleep and digestive issues
- Dissociation and emotional numbing
- Fawning responses
Many people do not recognize these as trauma responses because the source is a professional environment not something we typically frame as traumatic. But workplace abuse, especially when it involves a power differential, is a form of complex trauma (C-PTSD).
A note on Polyvagal Theory: Dr. Stephen Porges' work helps explain why we don't always "fight back." When the nervous system perceives ongoing social threat, it can shift us into a dorsal vagal shutdown — a freeze or collapse state where we become compliant, passive, and disconnected from our own needs. This is biology, not weakness. What looks like staying too long is often your nervous system doing exactly what it was designed to do: survive.
Tools for Regulating While You're Still in It
If you are not yet in a position to leave, you can still work to regulate your nervous system and protect your psychological integrity. These are survival tools while you build your exit strategy.
Somatic Grounding — Before difficult interactions, practice physiological regulation: diaphragmatic breathing, feet flat on the floor, naming five things you can see. This signals safety to your nervous system and keeps your prefrontal cortex online.
Documentation as a Containment Practice — Write it down not just for legal protection, but for your own sanity. Keeping a factual log of incidents, communications, and agreements helps counter gaslighting and keeps your sense of reality intact.
The Gray Rock Method — Give them nothing to feed on. Respond in short, factual, unemotional sentences. Offer as little personal information as possible. Become, as the method describes, as interesting and reactive as a gray rock. This withdraws the supply a narcissist craves.
Therapeutic Support — Find a therapist ideally one with training in trauma, workplace abuse, or narcissistic abuse recovery. For many people in these environments, therapy is not optional self-care. It is the thread that holds the rest of their life together.
If Part Two resonated with you, share it with someone else who needs it.
This blog is intended for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical or mental health advice. If you have concerns about your child’s emotional, behavioral, or developmental health, please consult with a qualified healthcare or mental health professional.