Kind of picking up with the idea from my last post [but don’t worry, it’s a new thought in case you didn’t read that one] –
Not only do all these definitions of words I’ve known for basically all my life not have to change based on one outlier. I also don’t have to change all my behavior based on him either.
I think I may have talked about this in some previous posts… But there are totally innocuous things that scare me more than they used to.
For instance, I am sometimes weirdly afraid of being nice. One of the (multiple) reasons for that is because I didn’t realize I was in like a death match for power or something. I thought I could just be nice to someone in my life I cared about.
But if I dared say something nice, or do something nice, it’s like we were in a broken video game. Instead of everyone’s power supply getting bigger (because I feel good for… e.g. getting a sick person snacks, and then he feels good for being thought of) and everybody wins – his green bar of power gets stronger and stronger, and for some reason, mine depletes.
He would use those instances I was nice as “examples” or “evidence” when he’d start telling me how I “chased him, because I’ve never chased a woman in my life. I’ve never had to. It was yooooooou who wanted me. [muaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha]” He would always be trying to exert power over me from innocuous ways to dangerous ways.
And it wasn’t just that. Sometimes he’d make me feel bad for things I shouldn’t feel bad about. If I’d be a little polite or nice, he’d get on me… “why would you say thanks for breakfast? Your croissant was $3.” And he’d roll his eyes and get almost annoyed that I even so much as said thank you.
And it wouldn’t just be a statement. He’d want me to explain why I’d dare say thanks for a “cheap” thing or whatever.
What? I said “thanks for breakfast,” and now it feels like I’m testifying in a court of law because it wasn’t a “nice” enough breakfast to say thanks for?
It. was. all. exhausting.
And/or I’d be made fun of for being nice. At first, it was seemingly fun teasing, but like everything else with him, it eventually turned into just teeeeearing me down. I could not do anything right – and that included being “too nice” to people in the world around us.
AND niceness is sort of what got me in trouble in the first place. I ignored so many red flags. I wanted to “see the good.” If he did something mean to me, I’d try to figure out what I could do to be even nicer… “If I’m just nicer he’ll be nicer to me.”
(And I know that’s the scared behavior of someone who’s been abused more so than it is just “niceness.”) But still. Niceness has almost become scary in some weird ways.
And we’ll pick up here tomorrow!