Finding Your Voice

I remember the moment narcissism became real to me.

I was working for a large engineering firm, and there was a woman I worked with who seemed determined to make my work life miserable.

I was new, and looking back, I believe that made me an easy target.

She rarely looked me in the eyes. She never showed any interest in getting to know me personally. I remember her standing beside my cubicle talking about fantasy football and asking, “Who else can we get to join?”

Not me.

I was sitting right there.

It sounds like such a small thing. But when you've spent part of your life being excluded, dismissed, or made to feel like you're somehow the problem, you recognize that feeling.

So I started Googling.

I searched the behaviors. I searched the questions I couldn't answer. And eventually I found a word:

Narcissism.

Suddenly, I wasn't just reading about what was happening at work.

I was recognizing my childhood.

I saw patterns that felt painfully familiar from growing up with my mother. For the first time, pieces of my life that had never made sense began connecting.

Understanding narcissism gave me a name for what I had experienced.

What I didn't understand yet was how complicated it could become—the hurt, the manipulation, the unanswered whys, and what happens when you stop playing your assigned role.

Shortly afterward, I was promoted.

And the smear campaign began.

One afternoon, I walked toward the elevators and saw the women from my area gathered together. They were all going to lunch.

I hadn't been invited.

Years earlier, that moment might have made me question myself.

Instead, I was headed to work out over lunch. I walked right past them and said:

“Oh, you guys are going to lunch? Have fun!”

And I meant it.

Because I was beginning to understand something that would eventually change my life:

You cannot control what someone says about you. You cannot control who believes it. But you can decide whether you're going to let their version of you become your version of yourself.

I didn't defend myself against the smear campaign.

I didn't chase people down trying to convince them who I was.

And I didn't give up fantasy football, either.

I started my own league.

I'd lived through someone else trying to define me before.

This time, I was finding my voice.

I am The Watered Willow.

If you've spent years defending yourself, explaining yourself, or wondering why someone seems determined to make other people see you differently, there's more to this story.

Inside Roots, I share more of what I lived through—and the things that helped me stop participating in someone else's false version of me and start moving forward as myself.

Join Roots and keep moving forward with me.