Standing Up For Myself
Day 12 of 365 - Man Break
I"ve been doing a lot of reading and one area I need a lot of work on is standing up for myself. I just can't. I'd rather endure countless hardships then tell anyone that anything they are doing is bothering me and then have to deal with their disappointment in anger.
Which is why today I was so proud of myself because I stood up to my co-worker. This woman is a constant talker. Her desk is very close to mine and she spend hours and hours each day talking to her three kids and bazillion family members. It drives me bonker. Not only is it generally annoying but I can't get my work done because I am so distracted by her.
So even though I was nervous and actually shaking I said to her "Would you mind keeping your personal calls to a minimum or take them to another room? It is very distracting to me and I can't get my work done."
Well the girl lost her mind. She ranted and raved and said "Do you not want me to talk to clients. Is that distracting for you? You spend just as much time on personal calls as me (completely untrue by the way). " and on and on. Defending herself, blaming me, justifying that she didn't have any work to do right now and that was why she was spending so much time on the phone.
So even though I was proud of myself, I felt a little depressed afterwards because a) she is never going to change - she is justifying everythign she does as okay b) no one really backs me up at work c) she's super pissed at me (which is actually more of a blessing because she won't talk to me - Phew).
So this is what prevents me from standing up in the first place. I'm afraid the person will get mad at me, nothing will change and I should just suck it up.
I"ve been doing a lot of reading and one area I need a lot of work on is standing up for myself. I just can't. I'd rather endure countless hardships then tell anyone that anything they are doing is bothering me and then have to deal with their disappointment in anger.
Which is why today I was so proud of myself because I stood up to my co-worker. This woman is a constant talker. Her desk is very close to mine and she spend hours and hours each day talking to her three kids and bazillion family members. It drives me bonker. Not only is it generally annoying but I can't get my work done because I am so distracted by her.
So even though I was nervous and actually shaking I said to her "Would you mind keeping your personal calls to a minimum or take them to another room? It is very distracting to me and I can't get my work done."
Well the girl lost her mind. She ranted and raved and said "Do you not want me to talk to clients. Is that distracting for you? You spend just as much time on personal calls as me (completely untrue by the way). " and on and on. Defending herself, blaming me, justifying that she didn't have any work to do right now and that was why she was spending so much time on the phone.
So even though I was proud of myself, I felt a little depressed afterwards because a) she is never going to change - she is justifying everythign she does as okay b) no one really backs me up at work c) she's super pissed at me (which is actually more of a blessing because she won't talk to me - Phew).
So this is what prevents me from standing up in the first place. I'm afraid the person will get mad at me, nothing will change and I should just suck it up.
Replies
Wow! This sounds so much like me! I have a very very hard time standing up for myself. I spent most of today at work reading a book about assertiveness. What makes it a million times worse is that the times I have attempted to stand up for myself, it\'s backfired drastically. Like when I decided not to allow my ex slumlord steal my deposit after illegally changing the locks bc she was mad at me one day. I wrote her 2 letters demanding the return of my illegally withheld deposit. I had all the laws on my side, and all the proof. I threatened to sue her if I didn\'t get my money in 2 wks. She responded by immediately filing a $5000 lawsuit against me out of the clear blue. She made up all kinds of lies about how there were all these \'damages\' to the apt (yet she returned half of the deposit to my ex, who stayed after I moved out, claiming our deposit was somehow in his/her halves, telling him the place looked fine...suddenly, 6 months later, it wasn\'t fine and I should be the one responsible, not my ex, the last to live there). Long story short, even though I had been the victim of a lunatic who broke almost every landlord/tenant law there was, and legally she owed me double the withheld deposit, and restitution (a set minimum by law for each occurrence, there were several) for all the laws she had broken, I ended up losing and having to pay her even MORE money than she had already illegally stolen from me. It was the most ridiculous thing imaginable, nobody could believe it. It took so much courage for me to stand up for myself against someone who I was the victim of, who had clearly broken several laws (and even admitted it), and then I became the victim of our retarded legal system, which didn\'t even enforce the \"minimum\" punishment for these laws. It set me back so far in my recovery and made me even more afraid to stand up for myself. Now I\'m deathly afraid of court and our legal system. Not to mention becoming the victim of a NPD police officer who I went to for help w/ my stalker, who turned out to be another sexual predator himself. My fear of standing up for myself has intensified 100-fold. Because I am such a walking doormat, I attract so many bullies/abusers who constantly pick on me to make themselves feel better bc of their insecurity issues. We gotta figure out how to be assertive so this stops happening. Good for you for standing up to your coworker!!
I just had some ppl move into cubicles next to me, one of them talks NONSTOP, like your story. Except it isn\'t so much on the phone as it is w/ the ppl around her. She will leave her cube, go into the cube next to her, and talk to that girl for HOURS, literally! It\'s so annoying. I put headphones on all day to block it out.
You did the right thing, and you did it in the right way. She had a completely inappropriate reaction. Is there a supervisor or someone you can report her to for making personal phone calls all day?
It is funny how when you are not in a \'romantic\' relationship that these behaviors manifest themselves in other aspects of our lives.
I had that experience twice this week. Of not taking care of myself and going full on into people pleasing mode with friends since I am not in a romantic relationship to pour those behaviors into.
It is fascinating to see how entrenched these unhealthy behavior pattersn/coping mechanisms are entrenched inside of me. I thought after one year of intensive therapy coupled with 12 step work that I would be better, but I guess one year is nothing compared to the decades that I have spent honing these behaviors.
It is going to take a lot of time and effort to re-wire ourselves.
SusyP, I know! I thought 1 year is a long freaking time to pour so much energy into self help work. Reading hundreds, if not 1000s of hours of this stuff, becoming aware of my issues, actions, and thought patterns. But after almost 2 years, I realize I have such a long way to go. I\'ve come a long way and would never allow those type of men into my life again, but I still have a lot of healing to do before I can get where I want to be and even think about another relationship. It\'s so exhausting.
I realized today that learning how to be assertive is the key. I spent the past couple days reading a book on assertiveness and it even mentioned having to overcome our inner voice which could have been programmed wrong in childhood, and that once we do, everything will change...once we learn how to assert ourselves instead of being doormats.
It\'s funny you should say that AgentSmith - that\'s exactly what I was thinking lately from the last book I have been reading \"The Nice Girl Syndrome\". I highly recommend it. Asserting yourself is like empowering yourself because you know you can stand up for you while at the same time not giving pieces of yourself away to please others. I know that when I stand up to people there is going to be backlash. It\'s just when it happens I want to turn right back around and crawl under the rock again and not make any waves. But I realize now I cannot be afraid of other\'s reactions. I have to keep standing up and keep standing and keep standing up. It takes practice and it takes time to truly feel like you have the right to ask for what you want, or to share your feelings or be yourself. The whole point is to keep pushing yourself until it feels comfortable instead of uncomfortable. It\'s so easy to fall back into old patterns because that\'s what we are used to and that\'s what we are comfortable with.
And Susy you\'re right. It\'s not an overnight thing. It takes so much time and persistence to do this! And when you\'re tired or mad or sad it\'s so much easier to slip into these patterns. I often feel the same way as you guys that there is so much to learn - so much to change - but I have to believe we will get there:)