I will be 50 years old in September, which seems so hard to believe! And it has taken me nearly that long to learn a lesson that I think everyone can benefit from. Here it is: We teach other people how to treat us. For example, if you feel that you are a worthwhile person, people are going to treat you like you are worthwhile. The converse is also true. If you believe that you are a doormat, then people are going to treat you like a doormat. Well, I have made the decision to take myself back!
I have spent most of my life believing that I deserved to be treated like a doormat, and I am just now figuring that out. My self-esteem has been so low that I truly believed that I deserved the negative things that happened to me. If someone made fun of me, and hurt my feelings, I believed that it must somehow be my fault that someone would say something mean to me. And, even though I knew in my heart that what they said about me wasn't true, I convinced myself that everyone else would believe it and there was nothing I could do to change their perception of me.
My first husband was abusive and I was convinced that I deserved it, that it was somehow my fault. Because I didn't leave the first time that it happened, I told him loud and clear that he had my permission to do whatever he wanted. The first time he laid hands on me, we were in college and still dating. I don't even remember what it was that set him off, but the end result was me lying in a parking lot, bruised and bleeding. One of his friends found me there, got me back to my dorm, and begged me to leave him. But because my self esteem was so low, my response to this beating was to marry him! With this action, I gave this man permission to treat me like a piece of dirt on his shoe. Luckily, after 4 years of dating and three years of marriage, I finally found the courage to leave him.
Now, this is a very dramatic example of something that many of us live with everyday of our lives. Have you ever had someone say something really mean to you, but then immediately afterwards they tell you it was just a joke? I have had that happen to me many times. I would smile or laugh on the outside, but on the inside, I was devastated by the comment. I gave my so-called friend permission to make fun of me, laugh at me, and then I reinforced that bad behavior by laughing right along with them. I was so desperate to have a friend, any friend, that I gave them permission to treat me like a laughing stock.
Finally, I have learned that I am a valuable person, and that I deserve to be treated with respect! Each and everyone of us deserves to be treated well, and we don't have to take being treated so badly. I used to think that I didn't have a choice about how people treated me, and that is just wrong. I have learned over the years that I am someone who deserves to be treated with dignity. I have taken back permission for others to use me as an emotional punching bag. It isn't easy, believe me. People don't like to change, and some people refuse to. Those people are no longer a part of my life. I can't change what has happened to me in the past. But I can change what happens to me from this point on. And it has only taken me 50 years to learn this lesson! I hope you learn in sooner.
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