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[The December Days theme this year is "Things I Used To Fully Believe About Myself." Some of these things might be familiar, some of them might be things you still believe about yourself, and some of them may be painful and traumatic for you based on your own beliefs and memories. The nice thing about text is that you can step away from it at any point and I won't know.]
#5: "My Needs Are The Lowest Priority."
I do have opinions on things. You can see them here and elsewhere. And while I often take the joke from Whad'Ya Know about how all of my opinions are well-reasoned and insightful (needless to say, they are not the opinions of my employer, partners, or the general society), for a lot of the quotidian things in life, or the things that marketing departments want to convince us we should all have specific brand loyalty about, I don't have an opinion, or it's not a strong enough one that I want to put it in contention with someone else's opinion. (Or their allergies and/or dietary requirements.)
( This often makes me pretty easy to be around )
This statement I don't believe fully any more, but it's taken a lot of help to get to that point, from professionals and others. I still am pretty flexible on a lot of things, and I'm still okay with doing 4 happiness things that bring others 10 happiness. It can still be a struggle, though, to look at something, do the research on it, think about what uses I could put it to (or where it would look great as a decoration), decide the price is okay for it, and then actually hit the purchase button for myself. Even for things that I know I'm going to enjoy, because I still have a very tuned sense that my needs and wants go to the bottom of the pile, as the most able, most flexible, generally most privileged person in the situation and because of the possibility that such resources could be used in the future for some other, more worthy, more helpful and selfless thing. Because someone else could use those resources more now, as well. But I've also been able to make progress on recognizing my own states of mind and body and when those need breaks or rest, and I have people around me who recognize and respect the indirect no, and who will put things on lists for the future, or who will explain the severity of the situation up front so I can make better decisions about now or soon. And, occasionally, who put their feet down and tell me that I have to take time for myself as well and shove on me hard to go do enjoyable things because they've seen me do a lot of self-sacrificing for the good of everyone. It's been helpful to have them for climbing out of the wreckage of the bad relationship, and for reframing (and reminding me of the reframing of) the habits and beliefs that I had acquired as survival mechanisms in that relationship. It is still a work in progress, but progress has been made.
#5: "My Needs Are The Lowest Priority."
I do have opinions on things. You can see them here and elsewhere. And while I often take the joke from Whad'Ya Know about how all of my opinions are well-reasoned and insightful (needless to say, they are not the opinions of my employer, partners, or the general society), for a lot of the quotidian things in life, or the things that marketing departments want to convince us we should all have specific brand loyalty about, I don't have an opinion, or it's not a strong enough one that I want to put it in contention with someone else's opinion. (Or their allergies and/or dietary requirements.)
( This often makes me pretty easy to be around )
This statement I don't believe fully any more, but it's taken a lot of help to get to that point, from professionals and others. I still am pretty flexible on a lot of things, and I'm still okay with doing 4 happiness things that bring others 10 happiness. It can still be a struggle, though, to look at something, do the research on it, think about what uses I could put it to (or where it would look great as a decoration), decide the price is okay for it, and then actually hit the purchase button for myself. Even for things that I know I'm going to enjoy, because I still have a very tuned sense that my needs and wants go to the bottom of the pile, as the most able, most flexible, generally most privileged person in the situation and because of the possibility that such resources could be used in the future for some other, more worthy, more helpful and selfless thing. Because someone else could use those resources more now, as well. But I've also been able to make progress on recognizing my own states of mind and body and when those need breaks or rest, and I have people around me who recognize and respect the indirect no, and who will put things on lists for the future, or who will explain the severity of the situation up front so I can make better decisions about now or soon. And, occasionally, who put their feet down and tell me that I have to take time for myself as well and shove on me hard to go do enjoyable things because they've seen me do a lot of self-sacrificing for the good of everyone. It's been helpful to have them for climbing out of the wreckage of the bad relationship, and for reframing (and reminding me of the reframing of) the habits and beliefs that I had acquired as survival mechanisms in that relationship. It is still a work in progress, but progress has been made.
