More tears over supervisor (on behalf of keenbean)

S

I am absolutely at the end of my tether with my crazy supervisor. I simply cannot take it any more. We had yet another argument today, just a few weeks after the one where she shouted at me for getting engaged with my boyfriend. She has been horrible to me since I got back from my ski holiday last week and celebrated getting engaged. She still refuses to congratulate me. Today she gave me a draft paper back with 2.5 A4 sides of negative feedback and not a single positive comment. The issues with it seemed to be fairly serious so I later dropped by and asked her whether there was any point in continuing with the paper at all (it is not going to go into my thesis, we are just trying to get an extra paper out of some control data). Then all hell broke loose. She said she didn't know what had happened to my writing skills- I was 'so amazingly good' to start with and now I seem to be getting worse and worse and she was anxious about how I was going to write my empirical papers (my writing has never ever been an issue before). She then went on about the engagement thing and why I shouldn't have babies because it would mean coming off my bipolar medication and could make me very ill for a while so I wouldn't be able to work and might miss career opportunities. When I questioned her refusal to be happy for my engagement and pointed out that it wasn't nice to be shouted at, she said that she hadn't done any such thing, and then when I questioned that she said 'you're the one with the memory impairment, not me' (a reference to a memory impairment I have following ECT treatment for depression). She also said that my perceptions were all twisted, and when I said that my perceptions seemed to match that of the rest of the team (okay, I shouldn't have said that but I was really angry) she said that I was getting myself into 'deeper and deeper water'. That is just a very small selection of the thing she came out with. In the end I stormed out in tears before I said anything I really regretted. I feel so crap about all of this- she knows I am not well at the moment (fighting PTSD and thyroid problems still) and she chooses the very things she knows will hurt me and stabs them straight at me. I can't tolerate any more and am going to stay with my parents tomorrow for a few days until I feel calmer. My team-mates cannot believe the things she has said to me but of course none of us dare complain. I honestly don't know what to do now? Email and apologise (for what?). Wait for her to contact me? Sorry for huge long email but I am absolutely at my wits end and I cannot deal with a supervisor who puts my mental health at risk. Anyone please? Best, KB

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