“Good afternoon, Ma’am, I’m calling to tell you about some suspicious activity we are detecting on your Windows computer.”
“That’s funny, Sir, but I don’t even own a Windows computer. I have heard about this scam operation you guys are running here and so I’m going to hang up on you right now.”
Beat.
“I’m sorry.”
I started seeing a therapist. It’s all quite new and after a few sessions the two of us are still trying to feel each other out, but she has already helped me in so many ways. So many. She’s going to try to help me deal with my severe anxiety and emetophobia, of course, but in order to get there, she’s going to have to dig through layer after layer to figure out all of my ins and outs.
Like an onion, I guess.
While peeling back just one of my many layers, she stumbled upon something that kept recurring over and over in my tales. I’m somewhat of a wet blanket, it seems. I have an innate need to please the people in my life, and therefore can barely say no to anything.
If you need something picked up—I’m your girl.
Oh, you want someone to work overtime on something—you got it.
What’s that? You need a ride somewhere completely inconvenient for me? Of course!
You want to see that movie I really don’t want to see at all? Let’s buy tickets. In fact, let me pay and I’ll get there early and get seats for everyone too.
Will you just take some pictures of my grandparents? At their house? At 8 in the morning? Why not?
I also have this thing that I do. I allow people in my life—in my work and in my family—to continually tear me down and let me down, and then instead of being able to express my sadness/frustration/disappointment, I suppress—and sometimes whiney email my husband—and then go back for more. It’s somewhat of an abusive thing, really.
So my therapist would like me to start being a bit more assertive. She has encouraged me to take baby steps with this one. She is well aware (already) that I’m not exactly capable of coming right out and calling people out on the big stuff, not yet. So I can start small, with, say, telemarketers and scammers.
Only clearly I’m not capable to doing that quite yet.
But I’m working on it.
I really am.
One baby step bootstep at a time.

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