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No-Equivalent5180

[VA] How to express that I'm on the verge of quitting due(without it being used against me)

Ok so I'm not sure where to start but I don't want to be too long but I've been clashing with my co worker turned lead/mini boss for about 6 months and I'm finally going to HR about it. She has a terrible tone, makes me feel stupid for just asking questions/trying to do things without her permission and is so hostile/has given me bad interactions that I genuinely feel uncomfortable going into work.

I've talked to my bosses about her but it usually goes from "she did this", to well "why is she like this"/"how are you treating her/what are you doing to make her talk to you like that?" "Is this a feeling or just is it an actual problem". The biggest example from the final incident that I'm going to be talking about tmrw where their responses were "Well she did she actually call you delusional or was it just implied?" after my co worker loudly said that I had made up an entire conversation. (She then went to our other co workers demanding to be told if she'd ever said anything like that to them, as if to prove I was lying about this conversation ever happening). There was no repercussion, they(bosses above us) didn't follow up with me like they promised and she never apologized. It's at the point where I don't trust my manager's ability to listen to my problems/concerns without them turning it back on me/making me feel incompetent/getting passive agression. It's also starting to cause me to doubt whether I'm a good worker and how I need to change myself to make her not upset.

My manager's do know it's an issue as I called out shortly after the incident and they asked me if I was calling out because of her. This the 3rd incident of her horrible tone to me and it comes after my expressing my worry about her tone, how her and I already clash without this new power dynamic, and how I didn't really want to work under her if her tone issues weren't addressed. I've been encouraged by multiple people to report her(two co workers, one former boss, therapist, and my family). I have at least two people who can attest to her tone being awful when it comes to me, as well as a former co worker before he quit (due to not wanting to work under her and a pay dispute), told me to get out while I still could because she was going to make life hell. I've expressed to my bosses that I do have some mental health issues and am neurodivergent but my therapist reminded me that it still doesn't justify how she's talking to me, this last one especially.

My therapist did also warn me to not mention being neurodivergent or having mental health issues to HR due to sometimes it coming back on the one reporting it all (I will note that this final incident did trigger me into an episode and caused me to have a breakdown). I do have BPD which causes me to be inherently paranoid but she does make contradictions when it comes to me, for example I've worked here for almost 2 years and it's stated that if dish and your section is clean then you can go home. Last night she tried to tell me yesterday that it wasn't the case, after this being an issue over the summer and when I called her out on how she was telling me to stay back, she back tracked and was like yeah no just go. Another example is that she has expressed to the cooks that she's not one and doesn't need to be back there unless needed(desperately). So when one of the cooks asked me to cover them, which I agreed to (I have worked in a kitchen kitchen and have been behind the grill before), the minute she saw me back there, she shooed me off and told the cook that if they needed cover to ask her. I'm really scared because I've never done this before, but I've told myself that I wasn't going to be a doormat anymore and I need to advocate for myself as it's my right(along with my therapist's and others support). I dread going into work, I don't feel comfortable working with her as I never know if I'm going to do or say something wrong and make her publicly shame me.

TLDR - pointers on how to tell HR I'm on the verge of leaving/want to leave because of my new boss(without them using that against me), I also did state in the email that I was afraid of retaliation but besides that I'm not sure what else to say(or do I just re state everything here?)

Posted Dec 3, 2025, 1:25 AM UTC

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