For someone with chronic guilt issues, having to decide when to stand up for herself is a toughie. And when that person has a tendency to wear all her faults, vulnerabilities, and innermost emotions right there on her sleeve, it’s even harder to know where and when to start drawing lines. 

My first response is always to launch into a diatribal monologue that exposes my every feeling toward creating whatever boundary needs to be created. I need empathy and sympathy, I need the person I’m defending myself against to know my every single reason and my every possible sentiment on the situation, I need to express my every motivation for doing what I’m doing and I need to defend why I’m choosing to defend myself, as if to justify my strong-arminess (new word alert!) to everyone on the planet and convince this person I’m defending myself toward that I’m not a bad person, I’m just looking out for myself. It’s the ultimate in passive-aggression and yet it’s so difficult for me to make the move, to stop whatever’s hurting me with a definitive “NO!” 

It doesn’t make any sense. If someone was attacking me physically, I wouldn’t say, “Um, I’m sorry to tell you this, but that knife is really frightening me and, if you don’t mind, would you just put it away and leave me alone? I’m sorry to thwart your plans, but I really just don’t feel like being stabbed today.” I’d bellow, “GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!” and kick and scream for my life. 

But when it comes to emotional pain, I’m somehow a giant wuss when it comes to defending myself. I feel guilty telling people to back off their agendas, that what they’re doing hurts me, that their actions have very deep repercussions to me that aren’t healthy to my mental state.

I don’t know, maybe I assume my mental well-being isn’t as dire a thing to protect as my physical well-being… Well, that’s just effing ridiculous. If I’ve learned anything about myself, it’s that my mental condition is the thing that has to be the most guarded. It’s pretty damned fragile. 

Maybe I assume that people don’t take my mental state as seriously as I do… But in The Four Agreements lifestyle, I’m supposed to be not caring what other people think of what I need.

Maybe I feel like I deserve to feel bad, especially when it’s from people that I’ve hurt previously… 

…Well, now I think we’re on to something. My sponsor’s been telling me for years that I can’t be held hostage for the mistakes I made years ago by myself or anyone else. But, the minute someone I’ve previously hurt needs or wants something from me, I bend right over and let them take it from me in hopes that this redeems me from whatever it is that I did to them. Even if this person has openly forgiven me, I’m the most vulnerable to him/her because I desperately want to prove myself as a better, selfless, more giving person. In fact, I don’t think I’m more giving to anyone else than I am to those I feel I’ve wronged. 

And this has definitely caused me a lot of heartache. For the first few years after I started The Steps, I’d let both family and friends remind me of how much I sucked as often as they needed to to help them express themselves. I learned to let go of trying to control everyone around me and let everyone react to me the way that they wanted, which really hurt but felt like I was finally doing something right. As those close to me slowly learned that I wasn’t going to slip back into destruction mode, they started resting a little, letting things go, really forgiving and forgetting what had happened. And then I started going after that Step 9 with a vengeance, seeking out every single person I’d ever hurt and trying to make things right. Even people I didn’t necessarily care about heard sincere apologies from me and could have had me jumping through hoops had they only asked. I wanted so desperately to prove to myself and those who knew me that I was actually changing, getting better, working toward a better life that I totally immersed myself in seeking redemption. 

I’ve talked about it before, but in the years since I’ve become the kind of person who admits she’s wrong even when she might not be. I’m the first one to tap out of a fight, assured that I’m just being an asshole again and I’m constantly offering apologies, admitting to my obviously ever-present flaws, generally apologizing for any hint of burden or trouble I’ve ever caused anyone. Somewhere along the line, I stopped seeking redemption and started apologizing for being alive.

I am a modern day Eeyore. 

So, recently, when I found myself being indirectly hurt by the actions of someone I’d hurt in the past, I was stumped. My first reaction was to spill my every emotion on the matter, how I felt guilty, how I cried about it, how I was angry at being hurt, I was frustrated for being put in an easily-manipulatable position, I was miffed about feeling taken advantage of and disposable, I was pissed for having my kindness being complicated and overextended, I was pissed for having my feelings and vulnerability taken for granted, I was scared to defend myself but I’d bitten my tongue long enough, yada yada yackety schmack andsoonandsoforth. Knowing me, I could have belabored it for hours, explaining my motivations for saying “No”, delving into the very depths of my psyche and my past and how it all resonated and what it should mean to this person who was causing me pain.

And then, of course, I immediately felt guilty for wanting to say anything at all. Who was I to stop this person’s agenda? I’d screwed things up for them before, why not feel some more on my side? Maybe this person had things to express, things I needed to hear! Maybe my pain hadn’t been rehashed enough! Maybe there were things I needed to feel more so I could extract more lessons and more humility!

My mind sloshed back and forth between the two extremes for a while until I was sufficiently terrified to do anything at all. Resolved to just keep my mouth shut, I surrendered myself to whatever pain may come in hopes to keep the boat steady and on course. 

Until something kicked me in the ass:

THIS IS THE FUCKING LESSON, DUMBASS.

And I strapped on my big girl stompy boots, wrote a letter unabashedly defending my emotions and needs, and sent it without a second of regret. 

Score one for me. I think my new resolution is going to be trying out assertiveness. I certainly need it more than weight-loss, even if I was 250 lbs.