u/Weekly-Republic2662

I have had traumatizing experience with white women’s tears. I am usually a confident person and used to never be scared of this white woman. I always knew that she wasn’t the sweetest person, but I thought maybe because that was how she talks. She has a condescending tone to almost everyone. However, four months ago, everyone at work was complaining about our workload. I joined the compliant and made one comment that came off as a little harsher.

Anyway, this white woman brought it to our POC supervisor. She did not mention my name but said exactly what I said and emphasized that it wasn’t nice. The POC supervisor de-escalate the situation and said it wasn’t inappropriate. The white woman was so distressed and almost cried, saying it was mean etc. After the meeting, she walked out almost crying with frustration.

I went to throw up and have been afraid to disagree with her ever since. What kind of therapy do I need?

Every where I work, there’s always one white woman who finds her way to attack me for no reason. They’re usually condescending and like to make snarky comments but can’t take it when you give them a similar energy. They’d cry and try to paint you as mean or aggressive.

There are some who are “kind” to me, but they only like me when I listen to them and basically obey them. They treat me as I’m inferior and I have to listen to them because they’re the boss. They’re so unexpected, too. One day they’re nice and the next day they explode. They get away with it because they’re have other white people supporting them. Even BIPOC leaders are scared when these white women act emotional.

How do you handle them? I mean, I can handle them without getting myself in trouble, but I’m so tired of having to hold in to survive. I want to tell them to f*ck off.

During my first professional job after college, there was an older white woman who was leaving the job. I barely started the job. She basically accused me of joining two BIPOC subordinates to verbally attack her when I wasn’t even in the same room as them. My boss (another white woman) tried to fire me and had a bunch of white people who were in similar positions to interrogate me. Anyway, I reported everything and left shortly. This experience left me traumatized.

I’m now in graduate school and recently had an older white female classmate who basically reported to a professor of something I said. She did it infront of everyone but didn’t mention my name. It wasn’t inappropriate, but I basically complained to other students that the program was too disorganized. The professor said students were welcome to give feedback, and it made this white classmate so angry. She almost cried and could barely breathe.

Witnessing this experience was so traumatizing for me. I almost threw up after the incident ended. Why did my body react this way even when my name wasn’t mentioned?

My PI is well-known in the field, and every member of my committee was brought on through her grants — she selects them herself. They’re not hired by her, but they’re on her grants. She is genuinely kind and supportive of me personally. But I have always felt uncomfortable with how she approaches research.

Over two years of working with her, she has never once asked me to conduct a literature review. Her first instruction was to run analyses without thinking about confounders or mediators. There is no real research question driving the work. Instead, each week I am expected to present data, and she responds by asking me to add, remove, or swap out covariates, or to restrict the population further. One week she might ask me to limit the sample to women, then to women in rural areas, then to women in rural areas who don’t exercise — narrowing it down until something reaches significance. The research question shifts every week. Afterward, I write it up as though I had hypothesized that finding all along.

This is not how I was trained to think about research. During my undergraduate and master’s work, I collaborated with well-regarded researchers who always started with a question or asked me to ground the work in the literature first. I have also published two systematic reviews in respected journals before starting my PhD, so I have a clear sense of what methodological rigor looks like — and this is not it.

What frustrates me most is that I finished an entire dissertation chapter this way and genuinely do not understand my own paper. When colleagues or faculty ask what my research is about, I struggle to answer, because the question changed every week until something was statistically significant.
The one saving grace is that my PI has agreed to let me write my other two chapters with different committee members who approach research properly. She only asks to be listed as a co-author. Those committee members know what she is doing is problematic — but since they depend on her funding, they don’t push back. I need my PI for the future because she’s well-connected, genuinely likes me, and has secure funding for me until I graduate. How do I respond to others without giving away too much? I don’t want to practice HARKIng and p-fishing?

My parents are unemployed and very poor. When my sister was 17, I gave her my fully paid car that was brand new. I never changed the title due to my relocation. Anyway, she’s 20 now and refuses to go to the DMV with me for me to transfer the car to her. She moved out and is very irresponsible. She always goes out to party. Technically, the car is under my name.

I want to give the car officially to her, but she doesn’t want to take her time to go to DMV. I’ve been asking her for three months to go find a time with me. I’m a medical student, so my schedule is super busy and she’s giving me attitudes that she’s busier than me. She expects me to schedule the appointment and work around her schedule.

I went to the workplace and tried to tow the car, but the car was missing. I assumed her boyfriend dropped her off. I called my parents and they blamed me for even trying to tow the car. They told me I should love my siblings blah blah. I’m very worried about being liable for any damages she may cause. I just want to give the car away, and I also expect her to work around my schedule since I’m busy.

My friends and husband are telling me to just report it as missing and have the police drop it off to me. What should I do?