How to be assertive
Q: I am very angry. At the age of 40, I’m tired and fed up with my coping skills and my overall attitude. I walked on tip-toe around people as a teenager and this carried into my adult years. I have been “good” all my life, letting others, particularly distant and mean family members, treat me as they wished, usually with abuse and humiliation. I was raised to be obedient, obliging to others, and sorry or apologetic for almost everything I did. And this has made my life hell.
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I can’t take this any longer. I’m even thinking of walking away from my marriage. But I would miss my beautiful children, who adore me. If I leave, my problems only come with me. How do I teach my children to support and assert themselves, when I can’t do it myself?
When I try to assert myself, or correct something, I am always the one blamed, fired or ridiculed. I don’t want to win. I only want fairness, which I rarely receive. I got mental health counselling for four years. They said I was normal, abused in the past and misguided. Their advice was be kind to myself and go away, since there are others with more serious problems.
People make me feel useless, disrespected, unemployable or stupid. And I realize I am responsible for those feelings. My supervisor tells me I let people abuse me and doesn’t understand why. My husband doesn’t respect me. I came from a farm background. My parents used me for endless babysitting, sewing and cleaning, when I should have been getting more education.
You will probably tell me to read books on self-assertiveness. I read a few and that was enough. Whatever happened to my being an unassuming, relaxed, happy, meat and potatoes person? Well that is what I want to be and I can, if I rid myself of this scared, cowering, sorry character that I am. Even now, I feel I’ve done something wrong in writing this letter, and am being a bully.
A: You’ve sized up your situation quite well. Many people, especially women, have been brainwashed by society, family and often churches, to believe their role in life is to please others, usually at the expense of their own well-being. There is nothing wrong with taking care of yourself. But to do this, you have to learn how to disarm the enemy.
You show a lot of strengths in your letter. You also show a strong tendency to kick yourself in the butt, or allow others to do this for you, rather than patting yourself heartily on your own back.
You can learn to assert yourself in a healthy way when facing conflict situations. This is taught in Bower and Bower’s book, Asserting Yourself (Addison-Wesley, paperback). It gives you tools to develop and practise healthy ways of dealing with others, and also how to dodge and deflect the abuses that others may be hurling at you.
Check with your mental health clinic, the nearest mental health association, YWCA or family service agency about an assertiveness training course. It is a lot easier to practise new social skills along with others who know how you feel, rather than struggling on your own.
You said you were abused in the past. If you write me with details about this, I can direct you to some healing materials.
