Thursday, September 17, 2015

Getting Used to Rejection



Is Rejection All That Bad?

I've thought about rejection too. There is a battle within myself, where I just want to be me, and don't want to censor my speech so much, but then there is that fear too where you think, "I have to keep my mouth shut or these people will hurt me." One gets weary of walking on eggshells and wishing they could just be themselves and not be hated or rejected. I'm tired too of people talking to me like I am a child or like they have to "correct" me.

So sometimes I think, "Should I just be me, and let the cards fall where they may?" or Should I keep trying to censor and walk on those eggshells for protection? Sometimes I feel like the balancing act is going to kill me and I actually waver between the two places. The artist part of me feels like saying to hell with it all, and letting everything hang out. That is the happier me believe it or not. Some may say that has already been done on this blog but the part of me that wants to be safe, feels like crawling into a hole and talking to no one and living as a hermit.  We can't expect to be everyone's cup of tea but who wants to have a long list of enemies too?

I actually envy the people like my husband who aren't afraid of rejection and don't let the opinions of others sway them. More happiness can lay in that route even if it is a risky one. How do you get to that place of not caring what others think? It's a better mode to be in. Self-censorship for writers and other artists can suck. Our happiest moments are together in the way that we don't have to hide anything from each other. My husband doesn't realize this was one part of his personality that absolutely pleased me. I saw something I wanted freedom in too.

Rejection always hurt me so badly. I spent years where no one loved me at all. One therapist called it emotional deprivation syndrome. I suppose an informal name for those who grew up without any love but didn't become attachment disorder orphanage types. I remember being four years old and thinking "No one loves me!" and what a sad feeling that was. This feeling of course lasted for years. It would haunt me even  far later in my twenties wondering why I didn't have a boyfriend yet, and why did I have to be so alone unlike everyone else? Obviously my mother put a long line of people before me. I just didn't matter. I used to wonder, "Why am I number 56 in a crowd?".

At the same time us ACONs were not taught to be alone. We were rejected but told our acceptance by others meant everything so we didn't even enjoy our solitude but saw it only a cross to bear. In other words we were trained to scurry and beg while having doors slammed in our faces.  Sadly for many of us the lack of a loving mother or parental figure left us without a basic human block of love and comfort which forms a foundation in babyhood. When I was in my 20s, I was afraid to be alone at all. I had been trained to think that the measure of my life was my acceptance and status in life and being defined by other people. As I grew older, I did not mind being alone. The me of today will spend hours alone even willingly, to sit and think. It is sad, that I worked so hard just to have people around me in my life. This of course led to more rejection because people fled from the desperation and neediness.

The me of today doesn't want to work anymore. I'm tired. Relationships only work out in a spontaneous fashion and the forced ones are doomed for absolute failure.  My going no contact was part of this not wanting to work anymore. I knew in my heart the family barely tolerated me and loathed me. They never smiled and all were annoyed when I phoned or called them. It is useless to leave yourself in any one way relationships, this is something every ACON needs to learn since we were trained to be the ever giving one in the one way relationship with our narcissists.

I knew intellectually going out into the world trying to be liked was the easiest way to get your butt kicked. It's true, if you go out with a "Please like me" face and stance, that is the soonest way to get kicked in the teeth. Vulnerability calls out the wolves. This is something many of us overcome but then there are new hurdles. You then meet the people who want to turn you into a project and don't see you as human but just another charity.  Rejection in various guises sometimes never seems to end for the ACON. How do some seem to be loved so naturally why so many of us hungered for it?

Lately I think just take the rejection. It is what it is. You aren't controlling it. Get used to it. I can't be one of those people who conforms. It's not me, it's impossible. Rejection can be a noose around your neck, that tells you that you have to be someone else. That sucks. Why bother? I never have had a situation where I have managed to change someone's mind about me. If you are rejected, it's game over. Walk away. Don't be the puppy begging for a pet, because you are more likely to get a kick.

It's so sad, I spent so many years trying to overcome rejection, but it was wasted energy. It gave my rejecters too much power over me. Why should I give in and go cry and become this boring person they seem to demand me to be? If I woke up and became the daughter my mother wanted, I'd be my sister and nothing would be left of my real soul.  I can't be someone else, it isn't working so what other choice do I have but to be me? To be authentic?

Joan in her article above mentions self referencing. I just started doing this two years ago. Where I ask, "What do I like?" "Who do I like?" "What do I feel?" It's turning the world on the axis. I don't walk around criticizing anyone either. Unless they kicked me in the teeth like the narcissists and project friends talked about on this blog, it's not something I get into. I don't go around trying to use or hurt or control anyone. One thing I noticed about the most real people is they let others be real, they aren't always about criticizing and telling you what to say and do and telling you to conform.

I loved how Joan mentioned Jesus...."There was a fella nailed to a cross that never did anything wrong, so I don't expect much either. 

That one stood out to me. Jesus obviously was "rejected". What did He do wrong? Nothing.  He was sinless. So even if Jesus Christ Himself couldn't please all those people who do I think I am?

Joan is right we need to separate ourselves from the big mouths of our narcissists. I ask myself why did I give all these people a place to judge me like they did? Even the project friend had many troubles of her own and not what one would call a perfect life. So who was she to call me a selfish human being? How selfish can someone be that has managed to be married almost 20 years? Is it fair for someone who has been divorced twice to judge someone concerning their selfishness? Would a man put up with me if I was the most selfish being on earth? The day she said that, I went and told my husband, I know I can be selfish at times because I am so sick, but I had to survive. He told me I was not selfish. My mother judged me for being fat, and screamed at me for gaining and not losing weight. I had a severe rare illness putting hundreds of pounds of fluids and altered fat cells on my body. It wasn't my fault. So what did she know? Nothing.

This is one thing we have to do is break down their rejection. Who are they to reject us? We need to look at them. Are they perfect? Do we have to accept their opinions? No, we do not. Our narcissistic parents made us think our criticizers were our gods, and we were to measure everything by their values and standards. What about our own standards and values? Many who reject me, I do not agree with theirs standards and values towards life. Many seem to only care about superficial things like status and wealth. I am not like them so will they be pleased by me? It is doubtful. 

I am realizing to be happy, and to come out of depression, that there is a common thread on the days I am happier as opposed to the sad and depressed days. I am happier when I can be authentic. I am happier when I can talk about things and not be judged or told what to say or not say.  I am happier when the people pleasing meter is shut off. I am happier when I can explore my Aspie interests and the rest. I am happier when I am not worried about rejection and not worried about people pleasing and not thinking something is "wrong", "bad" etc with me because so many people rejected me. Who were they?

I have realized what an absolute source of happiness my marriage is, because I can be me in it. Sometimes I think even that is rare in this society. When you grow old in a marriage and even hit a rough spot, the love can grow to a certain place when you realize that this is a safe place for you to be you in and him too. Where one sticks together through thick and thin. No rejection but someone who truly loves and cares for you. Doesn't it mean something to have known true love during one's human life?

So there are people in this world who do not reject me. The ones who did and do reject me can hurt us, but Joan is right we can survive it. We both can see beauty. Our narcissists did not. I don't mind being rejected by someone who cannot see beauty.

10 comments:

  1. Thanks Peeps. I sometimes feel like I would prefer a punch in the face rather than face rejection. I sure can relate to what you said that we were constantly rejected then trained to believe that acceptance was the most important thing. So we couldn't enjoy our solitude. Yep, I feel that way too. I was also trained to believe that everyone had to accept me. But I was rejected by my family. Well, I could never be myself, my personality was molested but whatever, they are crazy.

    I know what I believe about rejection, that its ok, its normal really, but when it hits me anew I'm upset about it again. I just have to keep reinforcing the reality of rejection to myself. Teach myself the truth about it.

    The one thing about self-referencing that scares me is that I might be wrong. But that's life. I could make wrong decisions and that's ok too. I am happier when I can explore myself too. And figure stuff out, on my own. I'm not always going to be right.

    I remember thinking that my criticizers were gods too. I was trained to believe that. That was crazy. We really didn't stand a chance in our FOO's. Going out in the world trying to be a pleaser is deadly. I have experienced the viciousness of people. But I still had to please them? Like they were better than me. That I had no worth, and everyone knew best.

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    1. Hi Joan me too. At least the punch would be over quicker and you could defend yourself without the constant decriers.

      Yes that mixture of constant rejection and then being told acceptance was everything put us in a prison cell of the soul. To unlock that prison door, I'm rethinking many things. I could never be myself. I once had a teacher tell me, "You should be yourself" and I shocked her when I said, "But I can't be, they hate the real me."

      I have to teach myself the truth about rejection too. Self referencing can be scary, we can makes mistakes and more. At least on our own, there is no more narcissists and toxics to stand and jeer. Most of them set us up for failure and planned mistakes anyhow.

      I realized I put my criticizers in this elevated position, and put up with too many people trying to correct me or trying to tell me what to say or not say. I wish I had said something to the woman who told me "Move on", because even there I was being told not to talk about something I wanted to talk about. She doesn't realize that is one reason the project friendship collapsed in a heap. All the criticism and constant "corrections". Nothing was good enough. People can make you feel like dirt while they have a smile on their face.

      The me of today can re-examine this and say, "No I don't like what was said, and can own my emotions and say, "I had the right to say, no one should have treated me that way".

      Nope our FOOs set us up badly. I keep thinking how I kept trying to please all those people believing everything they said about me. Some of the narcs obviously seem to want us to eat rejection forever but still come begging like puppies. Should they be surprised that one day we grow old and smart enough to walk away?

      Yes the people pleasers get slammed in the face. I have to work on thinking quicker on my feet when some of these people are rude to me or try to play censoring "superiors". That needs some work in me, but I also am learning that I don't want to be around people who seem to want to muffle me every chance they get.

      Many people are vicious, and they eat up the people pleasing and use it just to grind you into the dirt far harder and make themselves out to be better, and then tell everyone else you have no worth and that everyone else knows better then you--you summed that up right.

      This is how rejection can spread like a virus.

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  2. My mother rejected us and everything we did and I didn't realize it until I was a full fledged adult. Anything I/we attempted was met with this dismissal of "oh you don't want to do THAT" What it really meant was that SHE didn't want to do it and would hide her cutting us off at the knees in a cloak of looking out for our best interests. No wonder we all question our sanity.

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    1. Yes this happened to me too. Even the good things got rejected. I still remember the day she sneered at my new hobby of stamp collecting which I still enjoy quite a bit. All of us had to form our own minds even in going with what WE liked, it's like they wanted to own our brains and allow us none of our own interests. I agree it had to do with what SHE didn't want to do. It had nothing to do with your interests but hers. Realizing this put a lot of things in a new perspective for me.

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    2. Exactly! It's painful to think of your interest in stamp collecting being diminished, Peep; If only those momentary sneers didn't last in our minds... The ones I know sneer and smirk just because they need to wipe the smile off your face and stomp on the joy in your heart. They only seem to do it to "targeted" people though. Favored Precious GC could be collecting dog doo and the N would twist THAT endeavor into pure genius, AND claim you're the mean one for not liking the dog doo collection. -- Lora

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    3. Hi Lora, she did that with everything so was used to it. Once I showed her a comic and she said "What is this for?" She would have me do art projects but it was by her tastes for presents. I could do it, and didn't mind but having the other art looked down on bothered me. I agree about the GC's collecting dog doo and they'd be proud and happy. My sister has no hobbies or interests and I think it is because looking over her shoulder and worrying "Mommy" would be displeased she took the route of least resistance.

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  3. And the problem is; her interests were all about pitting everyone against each other and getting out of working. Two endeavors I am proud to say I avoided

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    1. Hey think of the time devoted to the screw-a-thons, gossip and more. She would have no time for any hobbies. Pitting people against each other takes hours of phone calls and organization too.

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  4. I don't mind using my name, but anonymous was all I could get open! I have just walked away from my dead mothers' family, because the patriarch, my aunt has turned all of them against me. It's as if I am insane, and they are very careful what they say in front of me. It has taken yrs. for me to see that they do not want anything to do with me. It hurts tremendously, but I have walked away from all of them. Cousins, two aunts, an uncle; all of which I have poured out my love to, and gotten rejected, and stabbed in the back! My aunt is a christian, and I have seen her blatantly lie to others, and to me. How foolish I feel, continually giving of myself, and never taken in. And I even hate the way that sounds, like I am so "giving." But I know that I have, really tried, but my aunt, who is perfect (in everyones eyes) has gossiped about me, and made me out to be a monster. I cant take the pain, anymore. God help me.

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    1. That's horrible your aunt turned everyone against you. Well my aunts [except my nice one who died] have turned out to be pretty useless and were enablers that made the narc monster even meaner. I was treated like I was insane and treated with distance and they measured every word out to me and yes I figured out my family wanted nothing to do with me too. My mother had convinced them I was no good and not worth the time. So yes I had to walk away too. I haven't seen any relatives in 10 years and for father's side it was 25 years so why bother? Your aunt is no Christian just a fake version there of. Things worked for me with my mother, the same exact as your aunt. I know it hurts. Praying for you.

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