I'm on a conference call with my work right now (thankfully I work from home remotely, so I'm the only one not there in person). We're discussing administrative issues at our agency. One involved another agency in our area with whom we're supposed to collaborate, but in reality we are competitors and have been for decades. My boss is ranting right now about a meeting she is going to next week to support a third agency who is funding our competitor, but working to pull that money for contract noncompliance and give it to us instead.

My issue is that my boss is an incredible narcissist. She is indulging in her fantasy right now of how this meeting will go. How the topic will be introduced, what she'll say, how everyone will react. They'll all know that she's got the upper hand in everything. Specifically, two people there will know she's got a smoking gun that shows inappropriate/illegal interaction between our competitor and the agency with the funding. She is so grandiose in how she's talking about what she's going to do and how everyone will know exactly what's going on and how superior she is (we are), how she could bury them with that she knows, etc.

It's super triggering for me. I often play through those kind of scenarios in my head, particularly when it comes to things that strike me as unjust. For example, someone just posted in another forum about someone's little girl saying something seriously racist to her. My brain started spinning with all the ways I would/could have handled it, what I would say, how they might react, etc. I hate when this starts happening - it makes my stress rise, my cortisol/adrenaline spike, and I get seriously anxious.

So this is the feeling I have now, because of listening to my boss. And the frustrating part is that I KNOW she won't go through with this. Her delusions of grandeur and importance are exhausting to live through. I value my job, particularly the flexibility it offers me. And my boss LOVES me and is incredibly supportive of me and my work.

I don't know why I let this particular habit of hers get to me so much. But it happens at almost every group meeting I call into. I'm so relieved I don't have to be there in person, but I need to come up with some way to manage the stress I feel listening to her go through these vindictive mental fantasies of hers...