Resolution 2014

My mother and I had an argument earlier this year and she told me to stop playing the victim.  She said that nobody believes that I am a victim.  At the time, this statement really hurt me and even made me scratch my head a bit.  What does that even mean, playing the victim?  I was thinking about it and wondered if someone had really done something mean or bad to you, weren't you by nature then a victim of their behavior?  As usual, I tried to defend myself from her mean spirited comment but inside, I took what she said to heart.

Now, months later, it has dawned on me that I do indeed identify myself as a victim of others' bad behavior and attempts to control me.  I was an abused child and so most of my life has been spent being miserable and having no power to change things.  When I was little this was by default.  A child doesn't really have any real power to make the abuse stop.  But as an adult, I am just now realizing that it is only me that can do anything about that now.  I am quick to defend myself against injustice but I always roll over and accept my fate in the end.  It is learned behavior.  I think they call it learned helplessness where you quit trying to change things because you have been taught by past actions that you can't do anything to make them better.  So you remain a victim.

 I am a people pleaser by design and have spent most of my life not being okay with people being angry with me or criticizing me.  I have stuck by my abuser for the most part and even protected her when I was younger.  My friends all eventually got sick of me coming to them to talk about my mother because when they would tell me that I was being abused and that her behavior was wrong, I would immediately resort to defending her.  It was frustrating for them to say the least.  Now I am 43 and I still feel like I live in a cage much of the time and that I am a victim of circumstance.  I do things and accept things all of the time that I don't really want in my life because I feel like I have no choice.  I deny that I have any real power over those who would control me.

It's December 30 today and being so close to the New Year, I have been thinking about what sort of resolution I would make for 2014.  It finally dawned on me that I have more power than I thought I did.  I think I have finally realized that I can choose what I want to have in my life more often than not and that it's okay for me to assert opinions that are unpopular and to do things my way even when others do not agree with me at all.  I think it's time that I get over my need to be popular and accepted and instead, I need to focus on what it is I really want my life to look like.

There is one situation in particular where I feel like I've been held hostage for the last few years.  There are some people who did some very harmful and nasty things to me and to my children that I have been doing things for out of some sense of obligation and out of a fear that I would be called a bitch and a bad person if I ever stopped doing it.  A couple of months ago, I got brave enough to talk to one person in particular about how much this was bothering me.  I confessed that I had a resentment against them and said that I needed time to not have to see them for a while.  But then I started feeling guilty and like I was a mean, bad person for trying to take care of myself when I knew that my decision would be a negative one for them.  So I went back to the relationship and continued doing the same things I had been doing that always stressed me out, made me anxious and flared up the strong resentment I felt.  I should have walked away when I had the chance but like always, I caved out of the fear of being wrong.

Well, as much as I have tried to forgive and forget, and wish away and pray away the resentment, it is still there stronger than ever.  I think this is because I feel like I was never really allowed to walk away from the harmful behavior while it was going on and so I learned to deal with it and pretend like everything was okay.  Well I realize now that for whatever reason, it's really not okay.  What happened was wrong and it was painful and it did permanent damage to me and to my family.  I have not gotten over it despite an apology from the one that caused it.  I think maybe it's because I had to explain the hurt and in a way to ask for an apology from them.  I think maybe things would be different if this person would have realized on their own how horrible what they had done was and if they had come to me and acted like they were sincerely sorry for what they had done, maybe I could have forgiven and forgotten then.  If they had offered me time and space to be alone and deal with it, I think I could have gotten over it.  But that's not the way it happened and the truth is, I am still not okay that any of it even happened at all.  The damage cannot easily be undone, in fact, it can never completely be undone.  There is no way for me to get those years back and I can't erase my children's minds and have them forget the things they were told about me.  Yes, things are better now but that is thanks to me and not thanks to these people who caused the harm in the first place.  The apology was just too little, too late.  I am tired of feeling guilty about this and I am tired of being resentful.  I think I am finally willing to do something about it.

So for my New Year's resolution this year, I am going to practice doing things that make me happy even when other people do not agree with me.  I am going to stop having these people in my life because the truth is, I really do not them there at all.  I relive all of the past trauma every single time I have to be around them.  It's like a sort of PTSD.  I don't think I really owe them anything and if anything, it is they who me.  I can't stand the way this hatred and disgust makes me feel any more.  They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  That is exactly what I have been doing.  Every time I have to see them, I try to psyche myself up to make it all okay but it's just not.  So for this new year, I am going to try to go with my instincts and fight off the fear that comes from years of learned behavior.  I am going to cut all contact with these people for my own sanity and I am going to just watch and see if that makes things better or not.

 I don't want to go too far in the opposite direction and never do things that I don't want to do.  I mean, I am a parent so I will still have to cook and clean when I don't feel like it and give baths and play Barbies.  That's not what I am talking about.  I owe it to my family to do these things because they are my family.  I have an obligation to them to care for them and I don't mind that at all.  But for other things where I don't actually have to be responsible for someone else, well, I am simply going to stop accepting responsibility for making them happy.  It's not my job any more.

 I know that it won't be easy.  I am so used to doing it the other way and I hate the guilty way it makes me feel but I have tried and tried to do it the other way and it hasn't worked for me yet.  So I have to try something different if I want to be happy and healthy and I do have an obligation to my children to be those things so that I can set a good example for them and be the best parent that I can be.

There are some situations that I am in where I truly do have no control.  There is one in particular with my husband regarding our money.  Since I haven't been able to find a job and am not on the bank account, there is really nothing that I can do to change the way things are.  I can't make him treat me like an equal partner but I can find us a marriage counselor and try going that route.  If I want things to get better, I think I need to focus on what I can do instead of on what I can't.

So today I am going to send a note cutting loose a couple of friends who I feel have done me harm and I am going to find a counselor for my husband and I and make us an appointment.  I am sort of excited and curious about this new way of doing things and I wonder if I will get instantly happier and feel more free.  I may and I may not.  It may be hard to make and enforce decisions I make solely on my own well being instead of putting other people's feelings ahead of my own.  It will probably make me feel bad, anxious and scared but as my therapist would tell me, this should only be temporary.  It will pass.  I think that as I start creating a life for myself that more closely resembles what I really want, it will be very empowering for me and that I will find myself feeling freer and having more joy.  Maybe more of my creativity will even come back, who knows.  I have never really done things this way before for any length of time so it does feel like embarking on an adventure of sorts.

I hope that things turn out well and that all of this movement will make me a better, stronger and happier person in 2014.  I hope it will make me a better role model for my girls and a more energetic and enthusiastic parent.  I'm not happy that my Mom said what she said but I do see now that she had at least half a point.  She may be super critical of me and emotionally and verbally abusive at times but I think she brought something to my attention that I needed to take a look at and for that, whatever the reason or the intent, I am grateful.