It Wasn't About Being Nice

As a reminder and for new readers, I started this blog to share things I encountered as I overcame toxic environments. I hope sharing will make it easier for other people who are doing the same. Toxic environments were portrayed in my books “The Blood Moon Sealed my Fate” and “Escape Under A Waning Crescent Moon.” Although these books were fictionalized, they were inspired by some stories that impacted me, stories that had turned me into a 100% doormat before I began to heal. I’m not a counselor. This blog is the story of my journey.

My first step was to share what I learned late in my healing journey that would have benefited me greatly if I would have learned it sooner. So far, I have talked about strengthening boundaries and avoiding magical thinking expectations and blame. I will end this topic by sharing warning signs I learned to avoid.

I admit I made mistakes in every toxic environment I escaped. Secular and pastoral (in a progressive church where magical thinking is rare) counseling helped me understand what my mistakes really were. They were rarely what controlling people who were angry about me regaining control of my life said they were. I believe we have to correctly admit the mistakes we made in order to change.

In my case, controlling people used logical fallacies to try to convince me I was a monster who was destroying their lives by changing. (Information about logical fallacies can be found at https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/) Those same people, along with most everyone else, had ridiculed me for being “too nice” all of my life. One group even said I had the word Victim on my forehead. Each time I achieved some personal growth, they removed a letter. I became ictim, then ctim, then tim, then im. At that time, a couple of them admitted they had lost control of me, making me no longer useful to them. These are not the lifelong characteristics of a monster. The mistake I made was being so nice that it was an object of ridicule. The mistake I made was being too trusting. The mistake I made was being a victim.

Being nice and trusting are admirable qualities. If you have these qualities, don’t let people say things that re-victimize you because of it. The person who took advantage of your nice, trusting nature is the person who should make amends and take responsibility for their actions. Overcoming being nice and trusting is for your own self-protection and not because you are the cause of the problem.

Another mistake I made was not admitting the truth about some of my environments. Some call it codependency. Some call it enabling. After years of working with me, my counselor said I made her believe in empaths. People repeat what is familiar to them until they learn how to stop doing that. I was exposed to a lot of troubled people in my youth, and I had great empathy for them when people responded to their misbehavior with mistreatment. Therefore, I spent the years prior to my healing giving that empathy to anyone who acted like those people had acted. Whatever you call it, it was a mistake when I was supportive of people’s inappropriate behavior. That allowed them to hurt me, other people, and themselves.

As I healed, I learned to avoid some of the warning signs I will talk about in the rest of this blog post (in addition to the boundary and magical thinking issues I talked about in previous posts). I am not a counselor. If anything you read in this post or this blog overall is uncomfortably painful, I recommend you talk with a counselor about those feelings.

Gossip was a root of every dysfunctional environment I healed enough to get away from, especially if that gossip took the form of triangulation to get people to take sides. As I said in a previous blog post, healing often happens in layers. After healing helped me stop speaking gossip, I had to learn to stop listening to it as well. Once you set those boundaries, you may receive backlash in the form of increased gossip. Keep in mind that anyone who is talking about everyone else is most likely talking about you, too. You were probably always the target of gossip, but the anger at your new boundaries just makes it more apparent. At least this time the gossip is because you are doing something you can be proud of instead of because an insecure person mis-perceived something as an offense. If you need support until someone else becomes the target, find a TRUSTED sounding board who will not share your confidences. If it is happening in an organization, you can talk to a person in leadership. They have responsibility for their organization and need to know what is going on.

I made the mistake of ignoring abuse. I had to learn that the first thing you must do is get yourself safe. In an airplane emergency, they tell you to put your oxygen mask on first and then help others. It is the same with abuse. You must get yourself safe first. If the people you offer to help reject your offer, you can’t help them. The abuser and/or the abused can only be helped if they want help, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore it. I recommend making reports and then asking the agencies you make the reports to how they recommend you be involved and follow their advice. If children or the elderly (watch for signs of abuse in care facilities) are involved, I believe it is our moral obligation to make reports. Just like with gossip, you are likely to receive backlash if anyone finds out you made the reports. Ask the agencies you report to how to protect yourself from backlash and follow their advice. Keep in mind that if reports are never made, abuse may continue forever. Making reports may create change even if it doesn’t do it right away. If change doesn’t happen, the situation will always be volatile; therefore, you are likely to receive backlash for some mis-perceived offense at some point any way. Making reports may create enough positive change to protect you from that.

I was guilty of not being honest enough with people who had active addiction, which can take many forms including alcohol, drugs, sex, religion, etc. When anything becomes so important the person will protect it over the welfare of the people in their lives, it may be addiction. When that person’s wants become more important than your needs, it may be addiction. My counselor said there’s a saying, “How can you tell when an addict is lying? Their lips are moving.” Addicts have to be willing to become vulnerable enough to drop all of their defense mechanisms and look honestly at themselves before they can heal. There is information on addiction recovery resources for both the addict and their loved ones on the Resource List posted previously in this blog.

I made the mistake of staying close to people who took a lot but didn’t give back. These people got angry if I had a need that was more pressing than their wants. They used guilt to make me feel like I was the bad friend when I needed to do anything for myself. Before I began to heal, I believed them. Believing them made me try harder to be what they expected me to be. Since I have health conditions, that nearly killed me. When I began to work on personal growth, they said I was a bad friend for setting a boundary to protect myself from their anger. If someone gets mad or disappears every time you need them after you’ve given them everything, it’s time to re-evaluate that situation. If someone tries to make you feel like the bad friend for not accepting their anger in an abusive form, it is time to re-evaluate the situation. This can also happen with people who try to give you things you don’t need or want, so they can make you feel like you owe them something. Gifts should never have strings attached. If the strings are tied so tight that they trigger and remind you of what they think you owe them when you say no, it’s time re-evaluate. Avoid people who use guilt or any other manipulation to push down boundaries after you set them. Don’t defend yourself. Remind them of the boundary without saying anything else until they either accept it or push so hard you are forced to walk away.

I was guilty of giving to people who had more than me and my family instead of stewarding my time and resources so that the greatest needs were met first. This gave people with an attitude of entitlement a belief that my resources belonged to them. Although I was always a devoted daughter, I know there were times this kept me from doing as much for my parents as I wanted to.

I was guilty of letting empathy lead when logic should. As one example, I accepted a job offer after a woman cried through the entire interview while confessing her religious discrimination against anyone in the company who didn’t share her beliefs. I confessed earlier in this post about giving empathy to people with mental illness due to my habit of repeating the familiar. I hadn’t recovered from that yet when I took that job – and I admit I was stupid to have taken it. I achieved enough personal growth while in that position that I took my first steps away from repeating the familiar when I left the company. I was offered a different job, but I chose to resign. The main reason I resigned was I could no longer respect the company enough to work for them after the codependent way they had handled her. While in the position, I daily found it difficult to get my job done due to the number of employees who came to my desk to vent about how badly she had treated them (employees who turned their stories on a dime when they could be told in a venue that could have made a difference), due to her constant shenanigans, and due to how poorly the company handled it even after one human resources employee showed me an 18 inch thick file about her bad behavior. I continued to grow when someone in her family mailed me a letter that explained her history of borderline and narcissistic personality disorders along with a copy of the book “I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me, Understanding The Borderline Personality.” That is the first time I learned about those disorders, and my counselor helped me learn enough to heal from there. A lot of counseling helped me realize that my true mistake was letting my empathy rule in the beginning of that situation. The people in that situation can use me as a scapegoat and put the blame on me for that environment that had been dysfunctional long before I came around – if they want to stay stuck and not heal. I had to admit it was empathy over-ruling logic before I could truly heal that part of myself.

I was guilty of allowing people to lead me toward their agendas instead of toward resolution. If a conversation is spinning in circles instead of resolving anything, it is better to excuse yourself from it. As one example, I was a caregiver for almost twenty years. At the beginning, I attended medical massage school to prepare myself for a career that allowed me enough flexibility to be a caregiver. It is a very difficult program that is designed to prepare you to pass a very difficult State Board examination. Between that and caregiving for two people, I was buried in responsibility. One person was upset they couldn’t get in touch with me, so they asked a friend to have me call. I wrote his name on my ever-lengthening To Do list. One night when I couldn’t sleep, I worked on that list. When I came to his name, I wrote him a letter since it was 2 AM and an inappropriate time to call even if I would have had his phone number. I apologized for my delay in responding and let him know how busy I was. I thought he would be happy to know I cared enough to respond at my earliest ability even though I was drowning in responsibilities. To my surprise, he wrote back and attacked me. He said the friends who relayed the message told him I wasn’t interested in talking to him anymore. Common sense should have told him he misunderstood them or they were being dishonest (or he was being dishonest) or I would have never sent him a letter. I responded at the expense of the little bit of sleep I was getting for a couple of rounds of letters, mostly to try to stop the gossip and triangulation he was already starting, before I had time to let my counselor read them. She was appalled when she read them and told me to cut contact. She said I was never going to resolve anything with this man who was obviously trying to manipulate me into meeting his agenda. My mistake was I should have ignored him as soon as he attacked me, because anyone who can’t show support instead of attack when you are drowning in life and death responsibilities is not someone who should be in your life.

I slowly learned that truth always rises to the top. Many kind-hearted people reached out to help me see more clearly than the gossip after I left toxic environments, such as the letter and book from the family of my old boss. In some cases, miraculous things happened. A miraculous thing happened after I cut ties with this man. His mother was a caregiver for his father. I met her when our mutual caregiving roles brought us to the same place. After she figured out why my name sounded familiar, she helped me understand what had happened between me and her son. She shared how her son had judged her every decision and mood while she was buried with caregiving responsibilities, with those judgments usually coming when he came to her house to ask for money without any regard for their medical bills. She said she cut him off financially to force him to stand on his own two feet for a change, because she felt a dose of reality might make him less judgmental of her reality. She said that change caused him to go off on her like he had gone off on me. She said anyone who found themselves unable to make him feel worshipped got the attack we had both received from him. Her words helped me heal and laid the foundation for me not to repeat the familiar in similar situations.

I too often made the mistake I made with this man of defending myself when I should have walked away. Too often I defended myself in the form of letters. In every case, it was an attempt to bring positive change to a toxic environment that was hurting people I loved. In most cases, it was an attempt to stop gossip and triangulation before it caused more harm. I know people ridiculed my letters, because I saw them ridicule other people’s letters of closure. At least I had enough courage to face the situations head on instead of miring them down in the gossip and triangulation that were common for those places long before I came and long after I went. In some cases, it was to try to bring a closure I used to think people needed. I now think closure can be achieved just as effectively by walking away. If you can’t resolve something with someone by talking it out, you are not going to resolve it by writing a letter or any other means of communication. I have never even thought about writing a letter in my functional environments, and the more I heal the more of them I find myself in. In most of my current environments, conflict is resolved by people talking it out and finding a mutually beneficial resolution. Letters are not needed, and spending hours talking it out while you defend yourself for not conforming to the other person’s agenda just don’t happen. Healthy people don’t communicate that way. I got healthier and then went out and found healthy people, so I could stop repeating that mistake. I am happy to report that two people took my letters to heart, got the help they needed, and are now in functional environments, too. I share those functional environments with one of them, and I shared them with the other one until he passed away.

I was guilty of accepting people who judged or ridiculed sick people or their caregivers even though I’ve experienced enough illness in my life that I would never do that myself. This was due to me repeating the familiar. I once stood up to a woman who screamed at a dying man in the house next door to hers each time he coughed. I witnessed her do this for a year or more before I said something. I was in the early stages of my recovery then, but I found the courage to stand up to her due to something that had happened to me earlier in the week. I had attended a wedding I was too ill to attend, because I was thinking of the needs of the non-driver I had committed to drive to the wedding. I was in so much pain, I cried silently through the entire wedding. When it was over, I excused myself to go to the hospital. I was given a morphine drip my pain level was so high plus my blood sugar was in the 30’s. Both of those things could have caused the tears. No one checked on me to see if I was okay, but I learned a rumor that my tears meant I was crazy started spreading as soon as I left. Knowing how bad that hurt, I stood up for that man – finally. Standing up to her led to triangulation gossip that created chaos. It was horrible at the time, but now I’m grateful for it, because it led me away from those people before they were splatted all over the newspaper a year later in ways that set communities in my city on edge for a long time. As I said earlier, the truth always rises to the top. I realized while I was a caregiving what allowed me to be in those situations. I was taking a person to the hospital for the last time a few days before she died. As we were leaving her house, everyone was placing demands on her. Her last words in the threshold of her own home were, “If you knew how bad I feel, maybe you would have a little compassion.” At that moment, I realized I had been repeating the familiar when I ignored that woman abusing a sick man, because that is how some environments from my youth were.

One last piece of advice I will give is if you have ever had boundary issues, make sure you get three estimates every time you have any type of work done – home repair, auto repair, yard work, maintenance, etc. During the year following the end of round-the-clock caregiving, I was so tired I was vulnerable again. I allowed myself to be snowed by contractors. My mistake was exhaustion allowed me to be led into taking the first estimate instead of seeking more estimates. I was taken advantage of in ways that almost destroyed us when piled on top of caregiver exhaustion and medical bills. I learned from that experience that any time we are exhausted, over-whelmed, or anything that causes us to be weak, it is easy to fall back on bad habits and let our boundaries down. Ask someone you trust to be your strength during negotiations and chaotic communication if you're not strong enough to do it yourself. I also repeated some mistakes with people that year as well, and it continued until I regained my strength. I will have to be on my guard for the rest of my life to make sure my boundaries stay strong, and I will have to be extra diligent when something is making me weak.

During my journey, I learned people do judge you buy the company you keep. I always had functional environments that embarrassment led me to keep separate from the dysfunctional ones. The number of functional environments grew and the number of dysfunctional environments decreased as I got healthier. It seemed that every time functional met dysfunctional, people from the functional environments asked me what a nice girl like me was doing with people like that. (There’s that nice label again.) I didn’t realize how bad I looked until I had healed enough to see someone I saw as a good person getting close to an extremely harmful borderline narcissist from my past. I pulled away from her for a while, because I couldn’t believe she could be as good as I thought she was if they were friends. I suddenly realized that is how people used to see me. That woke me up.

Negatives can become positives. If we learn from the mistakes we make that bring painful things into our lives, we can change and walk away free from the weight of it. We might even find ourselves grateful for how the lessons improved our lives. We can even forgive (from a safe distance where necessary). As I said in a previous blog post, forgiveness is rarely about the other person. Most of the time, they don’t know if you’ve forgiven them, especially if they are too proud to ask for forgiveness and instead invest their energy into convincing others it was your fault through triangulation gossip. Forgiveness is more about your peace of mind so that people’s transgressions against you don’t continue to hold power over you.