When you’re generally a Nice Person who wants The World To Be A Good Place, you might do this thing that’s making the world a pretty horrible place for your own self.
You might be trying to stop other people feeling bad.
And you do that by wearing their bad feelings. Oops.
I do this. For years, I’ve said and thought things like:
“Oh I’m sooooo <INSERT NEGATIVE ADJECTIVE HERE>” so that the other person wouldn’t have any bad feels. I’ll give you an example. I have a friend who gives unsolicited advice. She doesn’t do it all the dang time, but these unwelcome packages can drop in from out of the blue.
And I am gentle with my friend, and tell her I’m feeling overwheelmed, anxious, maybe a little depressed and overly sensitive to criticsm.
However, I’m sure that’s true. It certainly doesn’t make me feel great, to tell myself I’m anxious and depressed and overwhelmed and overly sensitive. So I did a 180 on this and told myself I wasn’t anxious and depressed and overwhelmed and overly sensitive. And you know what happened?
I considered that maybe my friend, when she is handing out unsolicited advice, is being annoying, insensitive, disrespectful and just plain rude.
Could this be possible?
I cut back on our communication for a bit and found that I felt much better. Less anxious, for SURE. I didn’t cut her off completely because she’s not an arsehole, it’s only her unsolicited advice that I don’t appreciate.
I then had a bit of a Deep Think and realised I do tend to, when faced with shitty behaviour from others, start to hyperbolise my reactions and admonish myself for them. And nobody asked me to do this.
So I decided to stop. It’s an ongoing thing. I’m now “letting” people feel like
- Shitty communicators
- Disorganised flakes
- Overdemanding princesses
Because maybe that’s how they are being. And if that’s how they’re being, then it’s THEIR shitty behaviour and THEY need to deal with it and I need to STOP pretending that I am
- A bit thick
- Demanding and inflexible
- Neglectful/selfish
By making excuses for their shitty behaviour they will never sort it out for themselves, they’ll carry on as they are. Being shitty to other people and not realising.
Their shitty behaviour is not mine to fix. And neither is mine theirs. For yea, I am not perfect (my ex mother-in-law will be so pleased to see my write this, I have the feeling she thought I was ALL shitty behaviour).
Fuuuuuck, interacting with people and being a decent human takes energy!
