Dear JVR:

I am glad you posted and please do post again and again, as many times as you need and want to. I for one, will respond every time.

You asked how to say “NO”, how to develop the courage to say “NO” when you need to, and how to… be the true YOU.

Your father trained you to be submissive to him. In training you that way, he trained you to be submissive not only to him, but to everyone else, and so doing, he placed a handicap in you, such that prevents you from operating to your best interest.

Regarding your seeking to be the real, authentic you: human beings are inherently not meant to be submissive as a main way of being. Being submissive by definition means putting aside being your true self in order to accommodate someone else.

The answer, easy to come up with, easy to state here, one you already know is to stop being submissive, to say your no as often as you need to, and to assert yourself in your daily life.

The reason this is easy to state and difficult to implement is the Courage Factor. We don’t change what we know we need to change because we are afraid.

The root of your fear is in your training by your father: he punished you when you did not submit to him and rewarded you when you did submit to him. Like other animals, we humans are trained the same way- by negative and positive reinforcement. He punished you when you did not submit, inflicting pain on you (could be anything from a physical beating to a rejecting, disapproving look on his face), and rewarded you when you did submit (if in no other way than the removal of his rejecting, disapproval facial expression).

Courage is acting in spite of that fear. You can’t think your way into courage all the way to … acting courageously. At one point you take in the air, and jump, do it, say your no. You will feel fear before and after. And you will have to do it again and again and for a long time, still feel scared while asserting yourself.

This is the price to pay for changing for the better. You cannot learn to assert yourself if you are not prepared for the intensifying fear.

What do you think so far?

anita

Dear DVR:

It is difficult for me to focus tonight and would like to return to your thread tomorrow morning, 10 hours or so from now.

If you would like, can you specify what you want to change (people pleasing…), as in writing an objective, and then write ideas on how to achieve that objective…?

anita

Dear JVR:

This is my input after re-reading most of your earlier posts and the most recent one:

No wonder you are confused. And there is a way out of the confusion with time and work.

Your identity formed as a result and during the interactions with your primary caretakers, primarily your father. It is true for every child. A child does not develop mentally in a vacuum but as a direct result of interactions with the most important person or people in his life: parent/s.

Your identity, being submissive, developed as an automatic reaction to your father’s identity as the dictator, the domineering one. The two identities, that of your father and your own were not separate when you were a child and unfortunately, they are still not separate.

To separate your identity from your father’s, to become your own person, to see yourself as you are, you have to see him, your father as he really is. Your way out of your confusion is to separate the identities, to see him as he is. As he was.

You and him are like two pieces in a puzzle that fit: dominating and dominated. The fitting has to be dissolved.

You wrote in your original post: “this parental love from my parents were very brutal to an extent”- you called your father’s behavior toward you “love”- that is the thing you need to look better at, to see As Is. Was it love?

I will stop here so to give you time to read (re-read?) and respond. Was what your father expressed to you “parental love”?

anita

Dear JVR:

In your original post you wrote: “He always dictates and I always…finally end up doing exactly whatever he wants me to do.. Literally like a puppet… and all he said, was he was doing everything for my own good and I would get a good life and be respectable by everyone..”

Pay attention, JVR:

Your father created a puppet, a submissive person. You were not born a puppet… you were born to be assertive, your own person. He trained you to be a puppet. Regardless of his intentions, was his doing a loving thing? Is it loving to bring a little person into the world and then make a puppet out of him?

And then: he said “he was doing everything for (your) own good”- did it turn out that way? Has his training you to obey his commands turn out to be for your own good?

You are 39 and still in contact with your father. Has it been in practice for your own good all these years? Did he not notice it was not working for your own good and change his behavior?

He promised you that “I would get a good life and be respectable by everyone..” Did it turn out this way?

If you answer these questions honestly, following thinking and feeling about this, that will be your first step at extricating yourself from the puzzle-fit I mentioned before.

Please do post again.

anita

Dear JVR:

I just read the post you referred me to. I didn’t understand everything in it, but you did write that you were confused and not thinking straight. Of what I did understand, you asked: “won’t I alienate people, If I say no to them and they wont feel happy about it? I’m afraid that my list will grow shorter and I may loose genuine people? or am I still confused…”

This is my answer: in your (being submissive) efforts to not alienate other people, you keep alienating yourself.

The reason you are confused is because your authentic, assertive self is hiding in fear, and another part of you is trying to manage your life without the authentic part. It can’t be done satisfactorily, not for anyone. The results are confusion and distress.

No matter if and how many people you get “on your side”, if you don’t have YOU, you have nothing that matters.

You feel safe having your father around, having others, but you are not familiar with the kind of safety that will bring you well being. It is not that slippery safety in another person’s company. I am talking about the safety in your own strength, your own courage, your own confidence in yourself to be able to take good care of you.

The latter is the kind of safety you need to develop so that the authentic part of you will come out of its hiding.

You didn’t write much about that 1.5 year relationship, hardly anything at all from what I can tell…?

anita