Narcissist Behavior Q&A

🎓 A professor or senior holds my future over me

Mentorship is one thing; abusing power over your grades, recommendation letters, and job prospects to force personal demands and errands is quite another.

The short answer

With grades and recommendation letters at stake, facing it alone can feel impossible. Start with records, and learn your school's process.

Scenes like this

  • Declining personal errands or drinks brought your career into the conversation.
  • Raising the problem earned a warning that you'd never survive in the field.

How to tell the difference

Is the demand something teaching or research requires — or a personal demand propped up by grades, letters, and job prospects?

When this happens, try this

  • Preserve the personal-errand demands and the threats of consequences carefully, by date, in recordings or text.
  • If facing it alone frightens you, get confidential advice first — the campus ombuds or Title IX office, student counseling, or a graduate student union.

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