A Recovering Yes Girl
Hello...my name is DramaQueen...and I'm a Recovering Yes Girl.Yes was my favorite word. It it always associated with positivity. Yes; affirmative. No; negative. What a crock of doody.
Hey DQ, can you meet me here? Can you do this for me? Can I talk to you about this? Do you have a minute, I just need you to...BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.
And my answer was always some form of yes: sure; no problem; ok; yeah; of course...and so on and so forth. Before I knew it, I was giving people all of me, and saving none for myself. All my time, all my energy, everything. All because I was afraid to say no.
Now when I use the term afraid, I don't mean literally scared something bad would happen to me. I was scared that people wouldn't need me for anything. If I say no, that means that I can't be depended on. That I am not a reliable person. And, oh God forbid, what if no one likes me???
So I felt in order to be liked and respected, I had to always be available. Never mind that I needed some of that time for myself; I had to be there for everybody else. Never mind that I was tired and burnt out; I had to muster up some energy to do something for someone else.
Thank God I have recovered.
My head starts to hurt as I think of all the things I said yes to and didn't want to: agreeing to a job that I know no one else wanted to do because it was so tedious and inconvenient, letting him proceed condomless "in the heat of the moment", countless long-term houseguests, too many five minute bar conversations that went on five minutes too long...the list is endless.
I read an article once by one of my favorite authors on this very subject. She too was a recovering yes woman. She said she took many steps to recover, and part of it was asking herself a few questions before saying yes:
What am I being asked to do?
Who is making the request?
Who will benefit from this activity?
What do I want to do?
What will happen if I say no?
What will happen if I say yes?
I can tell you which was, and sometimes still is the hardest one for me: What do I want to do? The answer is often so clouded by people-pleasing influences; old habits are hard to break. I guess learning to say no is truly a process. I am recovering, but I slide from time to time. But I think one cannot truly be happy unless they do what they want to do, not what other people want them to.
Now I can better understand why it is so hard for teenagers to Just Say No - although for me, it seemed to be a whole lot easier then than it is now.
posted by DramaQueen @ 4:20 AM
2 Comments:
I FEEL YOUR PAIN!! I am still trying to get past this part of me. Constantly putting other people b4 myself. I think that in your situation it proves the kindness in your heart. But we should never give too much, because when we do, there is nothing left for the most important person, us. I found myself saying yes constantly because I am ALWAYS afraid, yes even to this day. That I am not adequate. That I am not up to par with everyone else. I can be so indecisive, because I am afraid that I am making the wrong choice a lot of times. But I am asking for guidance in understanding just how WORTHY I am, and how I am smart (duh)enough to make the right choice.. You are definitely on the right track, I hope that I can get there, because I hate to say it, but when you get right down to it, all you have is you. If you give it all away, then what do we have left?
Lova YA!!!!
I like no. I'm comfortable with no. I'm glad you have gotten to the nirvana of no.
Also, turn on your thingy that keeps the spammers of yo shit. Cause really I ain't got no kids who blog and I need them to stop spamming your good shit.
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