# HSP needs help with choleric personality types



## WillJoIam (9 mo ago)

Hi, community!
I hope this is the right thread to post. I'm at a loss as I've searched and searched and can't find help. I am a HSP, INTJ, and melancholy/ sanguine with a (almost) PhD in developmental psych and severe anxiety when triggered. I realized a few years ago I needed to stop making close friends with choleric personality types. This has spared me from lots of ongoing trauma I was experiencing. Please note: I am friends with everyone but just hold myself in more reserve with overt cholerics. I quite possibly have aspects of choleric myself which may count for some of the friction, but overall, I have narrowed it down to my HSP trait. There is a lot of advice on how to deal with HSP and how to deal with cholerics, but I can't find anything about how a HSP can find ways to work with cholerics. I have a new boss that is highly choleric and does not deal well with me at all. I am out of ideas on how to safely work, spare me trauma, and meet her expectations without losing my job and without compromising myself or my integrity. Any advice, resources, therapists taking on patients in the midwest D) would be greatly appreciated!!!


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## Handsome Dyke (Oct 4, 2012)

How about you just talk to her about your specific concerns.


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## WillJoIam (9 mo ago)

Saiyed Handsome **** said:


> How about you just talk to her about your specific concerns.


Hi, yes, I have approached her and have gotten back a disintegrating relationship that was very thin to begin with. For example, she asked me to pick a special project so I did, and she got upset with me that I didn't pick all of them. I approached her about feeling like I needed to do them all then, which was unsustainable and she became upset at that. Another time, I told her the temperature on the team was feeling left out (she is a new manager to us because our team joined her team and she chose to keep us separate but then required we all attend her team's meeting where we got no direction, etc.) and I offered a solution to her - a separate team meeting from her original team, so that we could get to know her and vice versa. She agreed to it, but then the whole time, in front of the whole team, she talked about how this solution was inconvenient and she didn't want to do this solution. Instead of getting to know the team, she talked for 2 months for 2 hrs each month (two one-hour meetings per mo) about her and her team's victories, advances, and how she created all the processes that makes the team successful. After several months of trying to break barriers and get to know her, she continues to push her agenda which is often at a much higher standard than the one the department has set. No matter what I do, she strongly pushes the power dynamic of the authoritarian when the culture of this workplace is meant to be collaborative within the hierarchy. It's become stressful for an incredibly low-stress job. At one point I sought HR clarification on something she was trying to push (after I expressed to her my concerns and she wouldn't hear them and wouldn't discuss the matter). HR sought clarification from the department heads, but it also ended up redressing the whole management team. The policy was clarified, but since she has held me to account that she was redressed. In the same situation, she was violating employment laws which I expressed my concerns to her and she back pedaled but she still holds it against me months later. I haven't done anything unprofessionally or inappropriate towards her to warrant the kind of treatment I'm getting. I've always started with expressing my concerns and trying to have a discourse with her to resolve situations directly. With her authoritarian style of management and from her stories when I've tried to get to know her, I can only glean that the friction is the choleric personality type. I hope that helps address your comment. If I misinterpreted or misunderstood, please let me know. I'd love to continue to work at my place of employment but I don't see how when relationship management is so paramount in the workplace.


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## Handsome Dyke (Oct 4, 2012)

You have specific problems with this person. Typology provides a generic perspective on interpersonal issues. Whatever you do, looking into choleric personality types is unlikely to be a productive approach to solving the problem. 

Given how difficult this person seems to be, I'd talk to whomever has authority over her (if anyone), quit, ask co-workers for advice, or try again to talk to her and emphasize that her working style has been hampering productivity.


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## WillJoIam (9 mo ago)

Saiyed Handsome **** said:


> You have specific problems with this person. Typology provides a generic perspective on interpersonal issues. Whatever you do, looking into choleric personality types is unlikely to be a productive approach to solving the problem.
> 
> Given how difficult this person seems to be, I'd talk to whomever has authority over her (if anyone), quit, ask co-workers for advice, or try again to talk to her and emphasize that her working style has been hampering productivity.


Thank you for your counsel. Thank you for taking the time to read my posts, too.


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