(10/12/14)

Things To Talk To My Therapist About.

• The disrespect I receive from everyone in my life besides my mother and my best friend, Veronica. I am a strong woman, and it's absolutely infuriating when people talk down to me, patronize me, take advantage of me, pity me, and generally downsize me and my person as a weakling, child, sob story, or a dumb broad. I'm beyond this. Why can't they see that?
• How do I change this treatment I receive? How can I prove that I'm a strong woman who works hard, gets shit done and doesn't need help? Or advice, or opinions, unwanted thoughts, unwanted gestures of goodwill? Especially from men. I'm so sick of receiving little favors and rewards and gifts from people because they underestimate me. I'm not a ditz. And I'm not weak. I've lived on this godforsaken earth for about twenty years now and they've been filled with absolute shit. They've been nothing but fucking shitty, and I've received nothing but unfair, and hurtful, and indifferent treatment from it all.

BUT that isn't my life anymore. I'm not a sob story. I'm not a victim, so why does everyone treat me like one? Why can't I have control over this?

How I Can Change My Image At Work:

• Act more professional. Focus more on the job and less on the fact that my coworkers are family members, and friends. Less humor, less nonchalance. Less forgetfulness. I'll treat my aunt like my boss, since she is, and my cousin like my coworker. And I'll work hard on being more mindful of the little things I'm always forgetting.
• Keep attitude in check. Don't snap at anyone. Don't have too much fun with anyone. Just focus on doing the work, then leave.
• Keep personal opinions to myself. Don't vent about irritating people. Don't point out other people's flaws, and consequently, how irritating those flaws are to me. Stop dissing Mike Nye and Robert. And Chris from Pace. Be professional.
• Don't let other people project their personal opinions on myself, either. If my emotionally unstable aunt decides to forget her boss role for a while and act like the hormonal, temperamental woman that she is, I shouldn't let that affect me. I shouldn't allow her to steal my work time in order to vent about her personal problems to me. I'll focus on my work, be polite, and remind her that I have duties to be taken care of. I'm her employee in the office, not her niece.

Although if we're going to be honest, I wish she wouldn't vent to me about her issues outside of work either.

How To Change My Image Outside Of Work:

• Don't let people vent to me if I don't want it. I've realized new things about myself lately, and one of them has been that I don't like hearing about other people's personal problems. I don't like hearing about the issues they haven't taken responsibility for and fixed themselves. I don't like listening to them sound helpless, weak, insecure, and on-guard, like I'm about to judge them for their flaws.

If I'm being completely honest with myself, I've spent too much time trying to uplift other people anyways. And I've taken it way too personally when it doesn't work on them, as if it's a judge against my own character to not be able to help people that way. As if them remaining completely unchanged by my efforts marks me as a cold, unsympathetic, unreachable person.

I think that, by now, I'd rather be that than someone who is trying too hard or caring too much. It's not my fault if they can't find themselves comfortable around me, or at ease enough to vent about their problems. That's their problem. I'm completely happy with them keeping their bullshit to themselves and letting me live my life in peace.

• Spent time with strong, proud, self-content women. And men. Hanging around weak people forces me into the Giver role, forces me into being Person B (a listener, a helper), or into assimilation. There's no room for confidence and strength in a dead zone like that. No one would empathize with me. I'd be isolated and alone. I need to breathe. I need to grow in a healthy environment with healthy people, even if they're completely unexpectedly healthy, like Veronica. She uplifts me. She boosts me with confidence, she makes me feel healthy and normal. Better than normal, she makes me feel like a rockstar. She makes me proud of myself, and that's what I need. Strong-willed matriarchs like my mother are also good influences.
• Don't let people talk down to me. When that happens, I need to either put my foot down, or leave. Easy as that. I am not obligated to stand there and take it. Basic manners stop at some point, and common courtesy flies right the fuck out the window when someone decides to step on that and turn me into a rug. I'm not a rug. I'm not a dumb girl who needs to stand there in wide-eyed wonder and nod and hum as someone strokes their own ego by giving me "mind blowing" or "life saving" advice about something that is completely mediocre and commonly forgotten. It doesn't matter how forgetful I am. I'm a person, not an opportunity or an idea. I'm not just a chance to make someone feel better about their self. I need to just say, no.
• Do more things for myself. Go shopping for myself more often. Work on my projects more often. Find ways to make myself feel in control, confident, self-assured, determined, and straight-laced. I need to remind myself daily that this is my life, I am fostering beautiful creations and products with it, and I am valuable. I am smart. I am creative. I am passionate and brave and strong and determined and I can do the things that everyone thinks I can't. I need to remind myself that what other people think about me doesn't control me, doesn't own me, doesn't define me. Their thoughts are wrong. Mine are right. No one knows myself better than I do.