From my family, I was conditioned to believe that if I felt good about myself, praised myself or felt confident it meant that I was conceited, selfish or self centered. I was “disciplined” a lot as a child for talking back (reasonable) and “having an attitude” because adults didn’t want to deal with me. I used to have no problem saying no or expressing my opinions. But over time, it was beaten into me that I’d be alone if I wasn’t agreeable or less mean. Truthfully, I could be hard on others but I genuinely dislike it when people are passive aggressive or try to evade accountability. I guess I was that person who will let you know very clearly that I see through the BS, and many people don’t like that and dropped me because of it. I think my ethnic background is also an easy way to pass that label off onto me so I’m very self conscious to not come across as “angry.”

I feel terrified of being mean or to be seen as that. I’ve learned a lot of self-deprecating inner dialogue and of course became a people pleaser and I trained myself to be less comfortable expressing my true opinions or believing myself when I felt something was off or if I didn’t like/didn’t want to do something but did it anyway because I feared losing the friendship more than being comfortable. Sometimes it’s hard to understand in the moment how to articulate my true needs and not feel rejected.

I still struggle to hang onto my boundaries and not reacting when people respond poorly to my no. I still feel like I have to people please my way out of it or I immediately stuff down my intuition and needs. So I get into the mode of “well if I just blame it all on me will you like/love/accept me then?” which is terrible and disempowering but I kind of don’t know how to stop that. I finally was able to say that out loud to my therapist after like 5 years of working with them. She mentioned this is manipulative.

What’s are some ways to overcome this?