My 'boss' was an absolute pyschopath who was a direct cause in my, let's just say, poor mental health over a period of years. I'd rather say not say anything to them ever again, but horrible interactions with them replay in my mind constantly. Imagine spending thousands of hours doing your best to make someone happy just to be treated like the worst piece of garbage who ever existed. That's what my 'boss' was like.

I hope you're in a place now where you can start untangling their behavior from your sense of self

I've experienced this too. Luckily, I switched roles, so I don't have to engage with him so much anymore, but I still get his aggressive attitude every once in awhile.

He's made woman employees cry. He's randomly shouted at others for thinking they were being "smart". He's also made me and another coworker contemplate quitting on multiple occasions. Dude has two moods: 1. Unreasonably happy. 2. Explosive anger.

When I had to work with him full-time, my mental health was getting absolutely destroyed. Imagine a whole 8 hours of someone indirectly/directly calling you stupid, shouting profanity, and just being super passive aggressive. Oh, and not forgetting the threats of being fired. He made it seem like the CTO was discussing it, but I think it was him trying to get me fired.

I felt like shouting at him the most hurtful words I could think of and quitting every single day.

I've just been working on side projects hoping one of them eventually replaces my salary (trying to find a different job in this economy is really unlikely). I don't want to work with people like this.

I worked indirectly with such a boss, and just a few months of exposure to that toxicity was enough to leave scars.

Sounds like my ex

[dead]