Whether you say yes or no to other people is far less important than whether you say yes or no to your own emotions, needs, desires, and endless capacity for love.
The details are different, but I've been grappling with trying to figure out how to approach my relationship with my parents and so far it looks like keeping my distance for the most part and finding small ways to stick up for myself when we're together, without putting too much energy into it. I've got to say, the thing that's been so hard for me has been accepting that this is probably just how it's going to be, it's probably not going to get better than this. They've never been able to understand and tend to my emotional needs but part of me still thinks this could change despite all evidence. It's really heartbreaking. I guess I'm just sharing this because it's what this letter brought up for me, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that.
You're not alone in that. I'd just add this: it's easy to forget that your parents' inability to understand your emotional needs (stemming from their inability to understand and deal with their own) inevitably leaves a wound. Your self-esteem, your ability to push forward under your own steam, will be underdeveloped or even absent. So, when your parents leave your life - either when they die or if you separate yourself from them - it's tempting to think, omg I've got it made, I'm free! Yes, you are free, but with this disabling psychic wound. So don't be blindsided if your freedom isn't accompanied by 'success'. This is what I'm learning: you need to provide yourself with what was lacking first. And it will never be like it would have been had it come naturally, in childhood. It will always feel a little 'artificial', something you've learned in later life. As if most people were taught to drive by their parents when they were young children and it formed an indivisible part of their adult persona. Your 'driving skills' won't ever feel like that - but it's ok.
Wow, I feel like I need to sit with this for a while before commenting on the discussion prompts. The idea that, instead of running away, you can keep doing something but do it in a different way ON THE INSIDE is very wise. Because that's the only place you can actually change. And the "way" is compassion and truth and acceptance of the whole picture.
One of my favorite movies is Terrence Malik's Tree Of Life, because it makes me feel that sense of zooming into the tiny precious dancing details of life, while simultaneously having the very big picture view of life you get at the moment of death, which all together creates compassion without negating the hurt or sadness.
LOVE THIS: "Let her take the photo. But do not smile. Wait for your face to manifest how you’re feeling in the most natural way possible. And when she says, “You need to smile,” say very calmly, “I am doing what’s natural. What’s natural always looks best.”
CAUTION CAUTION on this: "I want you to witness your mother’s sudden rush of gratitude for how loving and mature and empowered you’ve become."
Possibel? Maybe. My experience? ANY GENUINENESS TRIGGERED MOM'S NARCISSISM KNIVES. For me it was really sad. Spent long months revisiting interactions with my heart's eye on being loving: best answer became NO FUKKING WAY I'M BEING VULNERABLE AGAIN.
This is a legitimate and very real concern. Sometimes vulnerability and authenticity actually provoke intensely angry or critical reactions. Sometimes a relative will encounter open, calm words as a manipulative form of attack. Observing reactions without engaging, giving yourself a lot of time alone to process what you notice, and refusing to spread shame and blame around the way others do are three ways to reject the twisted logic of emotionally abusive microcosms. I understand and agree about not being vulnerable when all it does is trigger narcissistic aggression.
The sadness is real. You want people to grow and they absolutely refuse and choose to recast your gift as an insult. I'm sorry for what you've been through. Thanks for sharing here. Your words of caution are helpful and important.
NARCISSISM, Malignant Narcissism shades into more destructive forms of Sociopathy if not confronted. 1. I suspect many families have members who recognize the nutso (techical term for a moral pathology) quality of their loved ones but have no avenue to affect it. 2. Learned helplessness accompanies childhoods lived under the pall of malignance. Not guaranteed cause lots of us have freed ourselves from that pall, but ‘normally occurring learned helplessness fostered by the nutso parent’ whose mantra often is: ‘Can’t be having with my kids thinking for themselves!’ 3. I’m convinced the Oligarchic/Autocratic wins in the USA and parts of Canada, are possible because enough voters endured the lies and abuse that characterize Malignant Narcissism during their formative years. And have only awareness of their long suffering, not of the ongoing psychological disturbances they carry. 4. The greed-suckers (yeah perjorative terms on purpose: these folks are fukking with my world and deserve to be properly vilified) who produced Project 2025 are Sociopaths in the main, and many Psychopaths: acting to harm as large a population as they plan to requires Psychopathic character. Seriously, we’ve been sheep in our living; watching (in Canada) the now fake Conservative party lunch with Nazis and carry coffee to the terrorist Proud Boys. 5. My hope is we learn the processes these perps use to co-opt our vulnerable voters, ourselves too. Learn so we can counter them, can read articles like you write Heather, follow Mae @mmbrussell.bsky.social. Read Joyce White Vance and Heather Cox Richardson. AND NOT GIVE UP.
As usual Polly's advice is great. You can do whatever you want! I hope LW finds the balance that is right for her.
For me, I have struggled for years trying to get my family to treat me well and make real apologies to me. They were emotionally abusive and controlling my entire childhood, good old Catholic conservative bullsh*t. I have a specific memory of being about eight years old, looking out the back door of their house, needing to run away but knowing I'd never get past our street, I had nowhere to go. Well, after working for decades I've finally got the resources I need to do it, and I feel so much pure shining freedom in finally giving my eight year old self what she required. I cut all contact, I'm quitting my oppressive career and mortgage that they pushed and brainwashed me into, and I'm going to art school, where I always belonged. I'm collecting ideas and advice like this at the moment, each one feels like a cheerleader helping drown out all the voices of warning. It will be hard and I can't wait. Thanks Polly and commenters for cheering me on all these years. Love to you all <3
Oh my. I feel for the person asking this question. I am you too. I have that shame. I have that conflict. I have born witness to those contradictions in my relationship with my mother and in myself. I hope you find a way forward. I buried myself to make peace because trying to speak out caused too much pain. And now, I’m trying to find a way back to honouring my own honesty and integrity and sense of self - and noticing the shame. Sending you the biggest hugs for your journey - and hope you find your balance.
And thank you for the wise words. They are beautiful, true, hard to hear and brought tears of all those hidden emotions to my eyes
This was a big help to read. Also, my mum has ripped up pictures of me before, when she’s angry. As much as it’s super shitty, I don’t feel as alone now having read this, so thank you.
"you’re also teaching your body that it doesn’t need to absorb and metabolize other people’s projected self-hatred and shame or their wild misunderstandings of you. You don’t have to soak in the cruelty or even indifference of a world that encounters your independent needs as morally corrupt and repulsive"
A side note regarding joy- Nick Cave asked last year for readers of the Red Hand Files to tell him where they find their joy (I'm paraphrasing). He said he was going to publish the best reply but then he decided to publish them all as a mighty resource of joy advice. Here:
Thanks so much for the link. What a treasure! I’ll keep returning to reading and re-reading these comments in this dark and scary time…..thanks so much, once again!
Feel this one, big time. If I don’t accept my mothers version of our relationship (and whole family), which is very heavily curated on social media where my sister and I are suspiciously absent (I am off all platforms, my sister is blocked from my mothers account, further confirming her version of reality is hidden from her own children), I have nothing to lose. It is her version and not mine.
The evidence and truth is something I no longer debate. I do participate in some pictures, but I have released any need to correct. The evidence of my lack of actual and virtual engagement in her life is the real truth. I empathize and see how letting my mother have her reality is a form of grace. It also costs me nothing since I can let her reality exist alongside mine. They don’t ever intersect. And in the off chance that they do, I am happy to confirm my reality for others who may ask. Otherwise, I have chosen to not waste any more of my precious energy on it. I can focus elsewhere in a reality where my truth is free to breathe.
Dear Overwhelmed, your mother has constructed quite an awful thing. Most families have photo albums but this enormous, docketed, labelled dossier is nothing less than The Family Files. It's her proof, to be dragged into court on a wheeled trolley, that she's been a good mother who has raised a good child in a good family, so help me God. There it all is, every goddamn event, proof positive. Except, of course, everyone but her can see it's nothing of the sort.
I don't believe you should cooperate in the further production of this montrosity. It's nothing more or less than a huge stopper, to be pushed into your mouth should you ever try to talk honestly about what your life has really been like, or, perhaps, for her to suck on for comfort if no-one else will believe her.
My family doesn't have a dossier, but it has an agreed-upon version of events that takes a deeply rose-tinted view of the past, and paints a picture of a normal, successful family with an occasional problem, rather than the deeply problematic, alcoholic series of events I experienced growing up. I refuse to believe in the rose-tinted story; this of necessity distances me from my three brothers, who do. It's sad, I guess, but not as sad as deceiving myself about my past.
It's difficult to see how you can continue to put up with this constant building of a myth. I disagree with Polly; how can it be an act of love towards your mother? It damages you, because it's a weapon that can be used against you in future. Any refusal to believe in the photographed version of your life might be taken as evidence of how ungrateful you are. You'll never be able to talk about how things really were, because that would mean acknowledging that the dossier is a facade.
The hard thing to accept, perhaps, is that you may never get to have that honest conversation. Your parents may die still trying to perfect their version of events. Mine did. I suppose that's the main thing you have to decide: do you hope still to talk to your parents about how it really was before they die? Does this matter to you?
If so, I don't see how helping them add yet more layers to a carefully curated lie can possibly help; what chance can there be of honesty with this huge confection sitting there between you?
If not, can you make some sort of peace with your past without involving them? Perhaps via talking to your spouse, and/or via therapy? The taking of photographs continues, and it continues to upset you. I think it would be damaging to you to let that continue without any sort of resolution of your feelings about it.
Only if you can find that resolution can you let her take her photographs - but, as Polly says, you don't have to smile. I would go further: smiling would be - for me at any rate - an act of self-harm. And, when they pass, burn the dossier. Your truth is within you.
You make such important points on how this material is used to create a fantasy. The option to say no and get distance is absolutely always there. Maybe for the letter writer, the best way of feeling good right now is to simply sit with all of the options available to her WITHOUT deciding. Consider distance, try on saying no, imagine not smiling. Sometimes it's beneficial to just decide NOT to decide. The stress of making a choice is replaced by a kind of meditation and peace with all of the imperfect possibilities. Stepping back from the imperative to DO SOMETHING and allowing some time and space for reflective inaction might feel much more informative than choosing a strategy now.
Most of our hardest decisions become easier once we slowly ease stress, time constraints, and shame of the picture, reminding ourselves that there is no correct answer and we can take our time and allow our conflicted feelings to sort of drain out of the picture until there's more clarity and peace.
This is such a good thread. I feel so much for you, LW, I want to transmit you the strength - or grace - to refuse to be pictured in this way. I feel it robs you of your self (the way it's often said many Native Americans regarded photography - whether or not that's a myth).
My strong gut reaction is to rebel against it, to be defiant. But I also feel Polly is right; it's not always about doing, you have to switch to 'receive' first, before you transmit anything.
I'm also struck by the difficulty of cultivating this sort of, not passivity but self-awareness, while also being able to fuel creativity in your life, whether via an actual art of some kind, or feeling satisfied that you are creating a meaningful life for yourself, or for your children. That takes such a lot of energy, and it is hard to contain that potential within yourself while retaining the ability to put a distance between your emotions and your actions. Creativity wants emotions to lead directly to action; delay weakens the impulse. In a phrase, the difficulty involved in both situations is, how not to lose yourself.
After all, Overwhelmed, what else is your mother doing except creating, creating, creating, with little or no gap between emotion and action? It seems unlikely she'll stop, but you don't have to let her literally call all the shots. Mom, you get NO/ONE/TWO photos with me in them today, and I will smile if I want to, not if I don't. Use them wisely. Don't ask me for more, this is my compromise with you; if you don't respect it, neither will I.
Thank you. So many people frame relationships as a choice between passive acquiescence and direct confrontation. It's common to feel like you have to either start a war or surrender. Sometimes it's more helpful to pull back, reflect on what you observe, reexamine your values and principles, and also resolve to directly state your beliefs *when asked*.
For years, I felt like my job was to engage, persuade, and win approval for my budding confidence, ideas, and sense of self. Looking for a thumbs up from close relatives never really did anything but made them reflexively disapprove, and make me seriously angry. Once I stopped DOING as much, and refocused my efforts on my internal peace and understanding of what was happening around me, it felt much more relaxing to simply hold my ground without necessarily debating or doing battle.
Instead of constantly draining my energy, I take care of myself, reflect, observe, and occasionally ask questions and also state very directly what I want moving forward, based on what I value. It's less about who's fucking up and more about understanding other people's motives and also expressing what I'm personally trying to bring into the picture with my attitude, actions, and words.
Firm boundaries are crucial to this. It's not so much that you're running around saying NO constantly as you are reminding yourself "I can say no, I can step away, I can call it off, I can spend tonight alone, I can read a book, I can write down what I'm seeing, I can say nothing, I can do nothing." That sounds so simple but if you were raised to always engage, always show up, always debate, always defend, you're constantly in this battle stance that stresses you out around the clock. Refusing to live that way is a big part of finding a path forward that feels more confident and calm and less haunted by shame and anxiety.
The details are different, but I've been grappling with trying to figure out how to approach my relationship with my parents and so far it looks like keeping my distance for the most part and finding small ways to stick up for myself when we're together, without putting too much energy into it. I've got to say, the thing that's been so hard for me has been accepting that this is probably just how it's going to be, it's probably not going to get better than this. They've never been able to understand and tend to my emotional needs but part of me still thinks this could change despite all evidence. It's really heartbreaking. I guess I'm just sharing this because it's what this letter brought up for me, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that.
You're not alone in that. I'd just add this: it's easy to forget that your parents' inability to understand your emotional needs (stemming from their inability to understand and deal with their own) inevitably leaves a wound. Your self-esteem, your ability to push forward under your own steam, will be underdeveloped or even absent. So, when your parents leave your life - either when they die or if you separate yourself from them - it's tempting to think, omg I've got it made, I'm free! Yes, you are free, but with this disabling psychic wound. So don't be blindsided if your freedom isn't accompanied by 'success'. This is what I'm learning: you need to provide yourself with what was lacking first. And it will never be like it would have been had it come naturally, in childhood. It will always feel a little 'artificial', something you've learned in later life. As if most people were taught to drive by their parents when they were young children and it formed an indivisible part of their adult persona. Your 'driving skills' won't ever feel like that - but it's ok.
Wow, I feel like I need to sit with this for a while before commenting on the discussion prompts. The idea that, instead of running away, you can keep doing something but do it in a different way ON THE INSIDE is very wise. Because that's the only place you can actually change. And the "way" is compassion and truth and acceptance of the whole picture.
One of my favorite movies is Terrence Malik's Tree Of Life, because it makes me feel that sense of zooming into the tiny precious dancing details of life, while simultaneously having the very big picture view of life you get at the moment of death, which all together creates compassion without negating the hurt or sadness.
one of my favorite movies as well. you described it beautifully.
LOVE THIS: "Let her take the photo. But do not smile. Wait for your face to manifest how you’re feeling in the most natural way possible. And when she says, “You need to smile,” say very calmly, “I am doing what’s natural. What’s natural always looks best.”
CAUTION CAUTION on this: "I want you to witness your mother’s sudden rush of gratitude for how loving and mature and empowered you’ve become."
Possibel? Maybe. My experience? ANY GENUINENESS TRIGGERED MOM'S NARCISSISM KNIVES. For me it was really sad. Spent long months revisiting interactions with my heart's eye on being loving: best answer became NO FUKKING WAY I'M BEING VULNERABLE AGAIN.
I've found Julie L. Hall real helpful. https://narcissistfamilyfiles.com/
This is a legitimate and very real concern. Sometimes vulnerability and authenticity actually provoke intensely angry or critical reactions. Sometimes a relative will encounter open, calm words as a manipulative form of attack. Observing reactions without engaging, giving yourself a lot of time alone to process what you notice, and refusing to spread shame and blame around the way others do are three ways to reject the twisted logic of emotionally abusive microcosms. I understand and agree about not being vulnerable when all it does is trigger narcissistic aggression.
The sadness is real. You want people to grow and they absolutely refuse and choose to recast your gift as an insult. I'm sorry for what you've been through. Thanks for sharing here. Your words of caution are helpful and important.
NARCISSISM, Malignant Narcissism shades into more destructive forms of Sociopathy if not confronted. 1. I suspect many families have members who recognize the nutso (techical term for a moral pathology) quality of their loved ones but have no avenue to affect it. 2. Learned helplessness accompanies childhoods lived under the pall of malignance. Not guaranteed cause lots of us have freed ourselves from that pall, but ‘normally occurring learned helplessness fostered by the nutso parent’ whose mantra often is: ‘Can’t be having with my kids thinking for themselves!’ 3. I’m convinced the Oligarchic/Autocratic wins in the USA and parts of Canada, are possible because enough voters endured the lies and abuse that characterize Malignant Narcissism during their formative years. And have only awareness of their long suffering, not of the ongoing psychological disturbances they carry. 4. The greed-suckers (yeah perjorative terms on purpose: these folks are fukking with my world and deserve to be properly vilified) who produced Project 2025 are Sociopaths in the main, and many Psychopaths: acting to harm as large a population as they plan to requires Psychopathic character. Seriously, we’ve been sheep in our living; watching (in Canada) the now fake Conservative party lunch with Nazis and carry coffee to the terrorist Proud Boys. 5. My hope is we learn the processes these perps use to co-opt our vulnerable voters, ourselves too. Learn so we can counter them, can read articles like you write Heather, follow Mae @mmbrussell.bsky.social. Read Joyce White Vance and Heather Cox Richardson. AND NOT GIVE UP.
As usual Polly's advice is great. You can do whatever you want! I hope LW finds the balance that is right for her.
For me, I have struggled for years trying to get my family to treat me well and make real apologies to me. They were emotionally abusive and controlling my entire childhood, good old Catholic conservative bullsh*t. I have a specific memory of being about eight years old, looking out the back door of their house, needing to run away but knowing I'd never get past our street, I had nowhere to go. Well, after working for decades I've finally got the resources I need to do it, and I feel so much pure shining freedom in finally giving my eight year old self what she required. I cut all contact, I'm quitting my oppressive career and mortgage that they pushed and brainwashed me into, and I'm going to art school, where I always belonged. I'm collecting ideas and advice like this at the moment, each one feels like a cheerleader helping drown out all the voices of warning. It will be hard and I can't wait. Thanks Polly and commenters for cheering me on all these years. Love to you all <3
Oh my. I feel for the person asking this question. I am you too. I have that shame. I have that conflict. I have born witness to those contradictions in my relationship with my mother and in myself. I hope you find a way forward. I buried myself to make peace because trying to speak out caused too much pain. And now, I’m trying to find a way back to honouring my own honesty and integrity and sense of self - and noticing the shame. Sending you the biggest hugs for your journey - and hope you find your balance.
And thank you for the wise words. They are beautiful, true, hard to hear and brought tears of all those hidden emotions to my eyes
Don’t wait until you’re 72 to realize YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT. don’t waste the last 30 years like I did before the pain crushed me.
I couldn't just read this to myself, I had to read it aloud. Some of it was hard for my body to accept. Now I feel quite beautiful. Thank you.
This was a big help to read. Also, my mum has ripped up pictures of me before, when she’s angry. As much as it’s super shitty, I don’t feel as alone now having read this, so thank you.
This is so beautifully articulated
"you’re also teaching your body that it doesn’t need to absorb and metabolize other people’s projected self-hatred and shame or their wild misunderstandings of you. You don’t have to soak in the cruelty or even indifference of a world that encounters your independent needs as morally corrupt and repulsive"
Still trying to embody this
Thanks for this great advice!
A side note regarding joy- Nick Cave asked last year for readers of the Red Hand Files to tell him where they find their joy (I'm paraphrasing). He said he was going to publish the best reply but then he decided to publish them all as a mighty resource of joy advice. Here:
https://www.theredhandfiles.com/joy/#
There are hundreds and hundreds. Mine is about 3/5 down. TL/DR summary of all the advice: 'It's the little things.'
Thanks so much for the link. What a treasure! I’ll keep returning to reading and re-reading these comments in this dark and scary time…..thanks so much, once again!
Feel this one, big time. If I don’t accept my mothers version of our relationship (and whole family), which is very heavily curated on social media where my sister and I are suspiciously absent (I am off all platforms, my sister is blocked from my mothers account, further confirming her version of reality is hidden from her own children), I have nothing to lose. It is her version and not mine.
The evidence and truth is something I no longer debate. I do participate in some pictures, but I have released any need to correct. The evidence of my lack of actual and virtual engagement in her life is the real truth. I empathize and see how letting my mother have her reality is a form of grace. It also costs me nothing since I can let her reality exist alongside mine. They don’t ever intersect. And in the off chance that they do, I am happy to confirm my reality for others who may ask. Otherwise, I have chosen to not waste any more of my precious energy on it. I can focus elsewhere in a reality where my truth is free to breathe.
Dear Overwhelmed, your mother has constructed quite an awful thing. Most families have photo albums but this enormous, docketed, labelled dossier is nothing less than The Family Files. It's her proof, to be dragged into court on a wheeled trolley, that she's been a good mother who has raised a good child in a good family, so help me God. There it all is, every goddamn event, proof positive. Except, of course, everyone but her can see it's nothing of the sort.
I don't believe you should cooperate in the further production of this montrosity. It's nothing more or less than a huge stopper, to be pushed into your mouth should you ever try to talk honestly about what your life has really been like, or, perhaps, for her to suck on for comfort if no-one else will believe her.
My family doesn't have a dossier, but it has an agreed-upon version of events that takes a deeply rose-tinted view of the past, and paints a picture of a normal, successful family with an occasional problem, rather than the deeply problematic, alcoholic series of events I experienced growing up. I refuse to believe in the rose-tinted story; this of necessity distances me from my three brothers, who do. It's sad, I guess, but not as sad as deceiving myself about my past.
It's difficult to see how you can continue to put up with this constant building of a myth. I disagree with Polly; how can it be an act of love towards your mother? It damages you, because it's a weapon that can be used against you in future. Any refusal to believe in the photographed version of your life might be taken as evidence of how ungrateful you are. You'll never be able to talk about how things really were, because that would mean acknowledging that the dossier is a facade.
The hard thing to accept, perhaps, is that you may never get to have that honest conversation. Your parents may die still trying to perfect their version of events. Mine did. I suppose that's the main thing you have to decide: do you hope still to talk to your parents about how it really was before they die? Does this matter to you?
If so, I don't see how helping them add yet more layers to a carefully curated lie can possibly help; what chance can there be of honesty with this huge confection sitting there between you?
If not, can you make some sort of peace with your past without involving them? Perhaps via talking to your spouse, and/or via therapy? The taking of photographs continues, and it continues to upset you. I think it would be damaging to you to let that continue without any sort of resolution of your feelings about it.
Only if you can find that resolution can you let her take her photographs - but, as Polly says, you don't have to smile. I would go further: smiling would be - for me at any rate - an act of self-harm. And, when they pass, burn the dossier. Your truth is within you.
You make such important points on how this material is used to create a fantasy. The option to say no and get distance is absolutely always there. Maybe for the letter writer, the best way of feeling good right now is to simply sit with all of the options available to her WITHOUT deciding. Consider distance, try on saying no, imagine not smiling. Sometimes it's beneficial to just decide NOT to decide. The stress of making a choice is replaced by a kind of meditation and peace with all of the imperfect possibilities. Stepping back from the imperative to DO SOMETHING and allowing some time and space for reflective inaction might feel much more informative than choosing a strategy now.
Most of our hardest decisions become easier once we slowly ease stress, time constraints, and shame of the picture, reminding ourselves that there is no correct answer and we can take our time and allow our conflicted feelings to sort of drain out of the picture until there's more clarity and peace.
Good God thank you for this
This is such a good thread. I feel so much for you, LW, I want to transmit you the strength - or grace - to refuse to be pictured in this way. I feel it robs you of your self (the way it's often said many Native Americans regarded photography - whether or not that's a myth).
My strong gut reaction is to rebel against it, to be defiant. But I also feel Polly is right; it's not always about doing, you have to switch to 'receive' first, before you transmit anything.
I'm also struck by the difficulty of cultivating this sort of, not passivity but self-awareness, while also being able to fuel creativity in your life, whether via an actual art of some kind, or feeling satisfied that you are creating a meaningful life for yourself, or for your children. That takes such a lot of energy, and it is hard to contain that potential within yourself while retaining the ability to put a distance between your emotions and your actions. Creativity wants emotions to lead directly to action; delay weakens the impulse. In a phrase, the difficulty involved in both situations is, how not to lose yourself.
After all, Overwhelmed, what else is your mother doing except creating, creating, creating, with little or no gap between emotion and action? It seems unlikely she'll stop, but you don't have to let her literally call all the shots. Mom, you get NO/ONE/TWO photos with me in them today, and I will smile if I want to, not if I don't. Use them wisely. Don't ask me for more, this is my compromise with you; if you don't respect it, neither will I.
loved this so much
This was so incredibly helpful. I definitely need to process this and make it part of my life.
Thank you. So many people frame relationships as a choice between passive acquiescence and direct confrontation. It's common to feel like you have to either start a war or surrender. Sometimes it's more helpful to pull back, reflect on what you observe, reexamine your values and principles, and also resolve to directly state your beliefs *when asked*.
For years, I felt like my job was to engage, persuade, and win approval for my budding confidence, ideas, and sense of self. Looking for a thumbs up from close relatives never really did anything but made them reflexively disapprove, and make me seriously angry. Once I stopped DOING as much, and refocused my efforts on my internal peace and understanding of what was happening around me, it felt much more relaxing to simply hold my ground without necessarily debating or doing battle.
Instead of constantly draining my energy, I take care of myself, reflect, observe, and occasionally ask questions and also state very directly what I want moving forward, based on what I value. It's less about who's fucking up and more about understanding other people's motives and also expressing what I'm personally trying to bring into the picture with my attitude, actions, and words.
Firm boundaries are crucial to this. It's not so much that you're running around saying NO constantly as you are reminding yourself "I can say no, I can step away, I can call it off, I can spend tonight alone, I can read a book, I can write down what I'm seeing, I can say nothing, I can do nothing." That sounds so simple but if you were raised to always engage, always show up, always debate, always defend, you're constantly in this battle stance that stresses you out around the clock. Refusing to live that way is a big part of finding a path forward that feels more confident and calm and less haunted by shame and anxiety.
Oh my God yes.
So grateful for these additional paragraphs.