By Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired)
I guess I am making a “confession” here of being a wimp, or maybe an enabler, for the majority of my life. But when people would ask me for a “favor,” I would almost always do it, even if it meant that I had to cancel plans of my own that I would much rather have done. In other words, by saying “yes” to my friends and family, I was saying “no” to myself.
Shopping on Mondays
After my husband died I cared for my stepfather during his long battle with cancer. In fact, I cancelled my “life” and my own grieving for my husband to voluntarily be there for him. I wanted to be there for him. However, after his death and a reasonable period of time, I realized that I had put my own business interests on hold to take care of him and my egg donor, and because of that, I had lost value in several large assets that I needed to take care of before they deteriorated more and became totally valueless.
The egg donor had a habit of wanting to go to town on Monday, for no particular reason except that was the day she had always gone to town since her retirement. One Sunday, I spoke to her because I had something very important to do on the following Monday and wouldn’t be available to take her to town to grocery shop on Monday, but could take her on Tuesday. I went to her house to tell her how I had neglected my own business interests over the last 18 months and now it was time for me to get cracking and take care of these interests and that I might not be available when she wanted to go to town, unless it was an emergency of course, and then I would cancel any plans, and that I would take her anywhere she wanted to go, but we’d work around my schedule of business.
She looked at me like I had asked her to jump off the roof, and she said, “But what if I WANT TO GO TO TOWN ON MONDAY?” I was a bit taken back by the tone of her voice and the look in her eye, but I patiently re-explained that it really didn’t matter if she went to town on Monday or not, that any day was okay to grocery shop. Still she looked at me wide-eyed, that I would dare put my needs before her desires.
That was a totally unsuccessful attempt to set some boundaries and actually caused her to become so angry that she immediately started the devalue and discarding, finding the Trojan Horse Psychopath and my psychopathic daughter-in-law to do her bidding and “jump when she said frog.” Because I had said “no” to her, she would punish me and replace me.
Wanting to help
Setting boundaries with others, especially “family and close friends,” has been a challenge my entire life. But I didn’t realize it, because I didn’t even know what a “boundary” was. I lived in the expectation that I was supposed to drop everything I had planned and meet the needs of my friends and family and if they were unhappy, it was my job to “make them happy.” If I did something for myself instead of doing something for others then I was being “selfish.” Saying “yes” to the demands of others was what I was put on this earth to do.
Was I tired? Were they hungry? Well, of course I’d get up and get them something to eat, no problem. Did they need a babysitter so they could go out on the town? Well, so what if I had worked hard all week and come home to my own house full of toddlers or teenagers, I’d cancel my plans and sit for their kids ”¦ no problem.
There are times when we want to cancel our plans to do something to take care of the need of someone we love, such as when my beloved stepfather got cancer. I didn’t even hesitate to cancel my “life” to be there for him. I moved across the pasture into the spare room in my parents’ home so I would be available in case he needed me during the night (he frequently did). I “closed down” my kitchen and told my son, our hired hand, and my husband that they could come to my parents’ house to eat, and they did. I was there for every doctor’s visit with my Daddy ”¦ and was glad to be. It was not an imposition at all. I also had household help for cleaning, a hospice aide for help with his personal care, and the neighbors and the church brought in enough food to feed an army, so I actually had to do little cooking. I was also able to take the breaks needed by caregivers to “just get away,” so it was, given the nature of the situation, ideal. When he finally passed away, he was ready to go and we were also ready to let him go, we did our grieving together.
So there are instances when we completely shut down our own lives to give care to another and that is perfectly okay. But when we are asked to do something though and we do not want to do it, we resent doing it, then we need to ask ourselves if saying “yes” to someone else means saying “no” to ourselves.
Resentment
When we give time, effort or money to someone and we resent doing it ”¦ when someone comes to “borrow” money and you know they will never repay it, and you want to say “no” but you are afraid of hurting their feelings or you feel trapped one way or another into “having” to “loan” them the money, then you are saying “NO” to yourself.
Even if the “cause” is good, such as a charity, but you don’t want to donate, yet you feel guilty for not donating, then you are “saying yes to others, and no to yourself.”
Someone said once that “No” is a complete sentence. That’s actually pretty profound if you think about it. We are all adults, and we know how to say the word “no,” but many times we won’t say it for fear of hurting someone else’s feelings, or feeling guilty for saying it.
Some people seem to know how to push your buttons to get you to do things for them, give them things, or allow them to literally walk on your back and you keep saying “yes” to them when you really want to scream “NO!” Sometimes we say “yes” many times and the resentment builds up (as it always will when you want to say “no” and instead say “yes.”) and eventually the resentment builds so high that one day they demand that you do such and such and you “explode!” You give them the tongue lashing that you’ve wanted to give them ever since you said “Yes” the last 15 or 20 times when you wanted to say “No” instead.
Enabling
Saying “yes” when you want to say “no” is a form of what many people will call enabling, doing for others what they should be doing for themselves. Taking responsibility for others’ needs when they are perfectly capable and able to meet these needs themselves. That kind of saying “yes” causes resentment. Me saying “yes, I’ll take care of you” to my stepfather didn’t cause resentment because I loved him, and I knew that he could not meet those needs himself. I was glad to provide them. Taking the egg donor to town every Monday, and ONLY on Monday when it wasn’t necessary and when she could have hired a driver, when I had serious business to transact, that would have been enabling.
I’m learning to say “no” to people now when I want to say “no,” and “yes” when I don’t mind saying “yes.” It takes practice and patience with ourselves but it makes life so much more peaceful when you have the courage and ability to say “no” and know that by doing so, if the person you say “no” to gets upset, you don’t care. It is okay for someone to be upset with you. It is perfectly okay to say, “No, I’d rather not do that, but thank you for asking.”
Kim,
I know what you meant: duper’s delight, which refers to a slight smile or smirk that liar gets on his face when he’s enjoying his lie.
The spath “tell” is like, “I’ve got a secret and you’ll never guess what it is because I’m SO SMART, that even if I TELL you and SHOW you, you would still never believe it or see it. THAT’S how smart I am!”
The spath thinks that it is smart to do something so AUDACIOUS and so REPULSIVE and SHAMEFUL that you won’t be able to believe anyone could do such a thing. Consequently, he knows you will fool yourself before you allow yourself to believe the truth about what he did. So he “tells” you and watches the look on your face as you self-deceive so that you won’t have to know the ugly truth. Spaths are obsessed with facial expressions and their meanings. They know facial expressions are about emotions so they like to do tests to see which expressions are elicited by which words and behaviors. The “tell” is one such test.
Your story about denying your spath’s behavior is similar to mine. But today, I realized that there is another component that I hadn’t noticed before. I noticed that when someone lies to me, I have a strange reaction: I pretend I didn’t hear it. Not only do I pretend to them, but also to myself. I even begin pretending before the liar is done speaking. I actually tune it out and “forget” what was said. That’s why so many lies I’ve heard, I can only remember them vaguely. I think it’s a self protective mechanism against being SLIMED BY THEIR SHAMEFUL BEHAVIOR.
You see, when I heard my spath lie blatantly, I would feel so embarrassed for him. That’s why I pretended to not hear, so that he wouldn’t have to be embarrassed by what he said and what I heard. Now, I realize that I was OWNING his shame for him because he was completely shameless.
I also think that the lies were – like a tell – a test. He would test to see if I would accept the MOST BLATANT LIES and if I did, that means I am taking responsibility for his shame. Spaths look for people who have an over developed sense of responsibility. That’s the perfect victim.
I’ll give you an example so you can see what I mean:
We were in a restaurant and the waitress approached. There was a bright yellow section of the menu and spath pointed to it and told us that it was red. We looked at him perplexed and said, “no that looks yellow.” Spath insisted that it was red. He kept insisting. Finally, the waitress and I, unable to comprehend his need to say it was red, tried to placate him by conceding that perhaps there was an orangish hue in some lights. Spath looked very pleased with himself. He sat there smirking. He knew we didn’t really believe it, but he knew we were owning the shame he should have felt. We didn’t want to hurt his feelings.
I propose to you Kim, that you might have been taking responsibility for his shameful behavior, feeling the shame and trying to protect him from feeling it.
Hi, Kimmie, I am sooooo glad to hear from you and that you are finally processing this nasty mess that has been laying there like a cancer on your heart! ((((hugs)))) Processing it, understanding it is the only way we can drain those abscesses like a big boil, it has to be drained before we can heal.
How is pinky doodle? How is your little house? I’ve missed you so much and am so glad to know you are doing well! (((hugs))) and God bless.
Skylar, I wish what you just posted wasn’t so precisely the truth. It’s shattering to read. Thank-you for saying it.
Parallelogram,
it’s shattering to know. I only figured it out today.
What I forgot to mention is the form that a tell can take. Usually it is a play on words, but it can be anything, such as a gift. My spath gave me a CD with the song, “Love Fool” by the Cardigans for valentines day one year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUIElvJRyNU
rinse and repeat in the river of denial..
guilty as charged…
Kim,
I have often heard that things surface when we can deal with them. So, congratulations to finally awakening to what he was doing and having the courage to deal with yourself about the denial. Kudos!
There was something the spath said (as the fake sister of the fake dead boy) about the fake mother of the fake dead boy (and no, I will never tire of the word ‘fake’ when recounting the escapades of the spath) that struck me as singularly odd and creepy at the time, and that, while standing at the stove tonight, I suddenly saw in a new light (I often get new info while cooking as I am relaxed.)
after the fake boy’s fake death, the fake sister said that their fake mother had spent hours with the fake boy as he lay dying. The fake sister was set up to lure me in deeper for a relationship with her after the death of the fake boy, and all contact with her was set up for the spath to not only feed from my grief, but to plant seeds that maybe, just maybe, he was really still alive. Of course, the fake sister’s fake husband said, it couldn’t be true….but i digress.
The fake mother had said of her fake dead fake son: ‘that she had given him the peace of a death.’
sigh.
this was supposed to sound odd, i was supposed to wonder and aid and abet his fake sister’s ‘delusion’…to what end one can only guess.
but tonight i realized that what she said WAS true. The ‘mother’ (creator) of the fake boy HAD indeed given him the ‘peace of a death.’
just like the times she slagged off fat men (the fake boy’s fake dead fake ex), and old people – the old people that were the fake relatives of the fake boy’s fake bf were really the spath and her husband.
may i find peace. may we all find peace in our minds, hearts and spirits.
One Joy,
A tell AND a WTF? moment rolled into one.
I’ll never tire of hearing you use the word fake either. It can’t be used ENOUGH in the context of the spaths. None of them actually exist. There’s no there, there.
In one of those moments of clarity, I said to spath, “I don’t actually exist, you know. I’m just a figment of your imagination.”
This was before I knew he was a spath. What I had intuited was that he really couldn’t “see” me, as a person. I was only what he wanted me to be so he could live out his fantasy.
He wasn’t real, so why would I be?
1steprs – friends lick you in the face..
hens 🙂 🙂 🙂 THAT’S the best kind of love.