I’m writing about a situation that just happened today at my office regarding Halloween decorations. (If this is helpful context, I’m a mid-level manager at a nonprofit).
A few members of my team brought in fun, low-key Halloween decor (think, purple construction paper bats and a few faux pumpkin heads), which I complimented. However, another colleague, who is slightly senior to me (and not in my department), brought in an absolutely terrifying “doll” that stood a few feet tall with a grotesque expression and dressed/styled like the girl from The Ring.
I suffer from automatonophobia—a severe case—for my entire life. I have managed it through therapy and can handle some triggers to a degree, but I was very uncomfortable knowing the doll was anywhere in our building.
The doll was originally hidden in a supply closet as a jumpscare but then was moved from office to office. I was “caught” twice by it in just 18 hours, let out a small (involuntary) scream each time, and immediately verbalized that I did not like the doll and to please keep it away from me. I was so distressed afterwards that I refused to leave my office for the rest of the day to eat or even to use the bathroom.
A sympathetic colleague warned me later that afternoon that the doll had migrated again to a very public area of our workspace. I asked the owner of the doll to come to my office to chat, so that I could privately request that he remove it from the building or at least from the public space. However, the doll’s owner didn’t know that was to be the topic of discussion and … you guessed it … came down to my office with the doll in hand.
After being on edge and close to tears all day, I had a full-blown panic attack — hysterical, loud sobbing and hyperventilating. My coworkers were deeply apologetic (this is well outside my realm of behavior in the workplace) and immediately removed the doll from the building once I explained my phobia. A concerned coworker filled in our boss (she works remotely) and she called me right away to check on me.
I’m worried now that this is becoming “a whole thing”! My colleagues are incredible people and I truly have no ill will towards them whatsoever, but am left with two questions I hope you can help me with:
1) Was it out of line to bring such a grotesque “decoration” into the workplace in the first place? I presume others were unsettled as well (though certainly not to the same degree).
2) How can I, as an ambitious woman who strives for professionalism, move past this deeply embarrassing moment of crazy-crying over a doll in front of my colleagues? Am I forever the hysterical doll lady now? What should I say to my coworkers about what happened (people down the hallway heard my screams and sobs and were undoubtedly disturbed)?
Oh no, I’m sorry.
As a general rule, people shouldn’t bring super macabre or frightening decorations into the workplace. Too many people are unsettled by it. I don’t think I’d say your coworker was out of line to bring in the doll, but it wasn’t wise or thoughtful. And really, once you said you were uncomfortable and asked for it to be kept away from you, that should have been a clue to everyone to stop using the doll to scare people. I’m more bothered that he kept it up after you said something than that he brought it in to begin with. (And he was really out of line to bring it with him when you asked him to come to your office later.)
As for how to handle it now: if your coworkers are at all decent people, their thoughts are probably mainly “Oh no, poor Jane, I hope she is okay, that was clearly awful for her” and not “wow, Jane is prone to hysteria and now I will have to worry that anything could set her off.” That’s especially true if they’ve worked with you a while; their experience with you will tell them that this was an aberration, not a thing that should now define you.
And sure, there could also be a bit of “Whoa — I had no idea doll phobias could be such a thing!” And that’s okay. If they didn’t know, now they do. There’s probably more than one person in your office who will be more aware of phobias as a result and that’s a good thing.
I do think it would be smart to talk to people who witnessed or overheard your panic attack with a brief explanation and apology for disturbing them and some reassurance that you’re fine and don’t expect it to happen again. (As always in cases like these, you’re not apologizing for having a phobia but for the disruption itself, and for general relationship-smoothing purposes.) This shouldn’t be a big thing — it’s just something like, “Hey, I’m sorry about the other day since it must have disturbed you. I’ve had a lifelong phobia of certain types of dolls. By definition phobias aren’t rational so I won’t try to explain it, but it’s not something that has ever come up at work before and hopefully it will never come up again.”
Really, though, the way you’ll get past this is to continue being the calm, professional person you probably were outside of this one incident. I get why you’re embarrassed — big unexpected displays of negative emotion or seeming to lose control are embarrassing when they happen at work — but people know who you are and will see who you continue to be. Keep being your normal self and you should not forever be the hysterical doll lady.
#panic #attack #Halloween #decoration #work #Manager
