.............A truthful fiction in the first person
....................................by Stanley
......I am a worm that has turned – thoroughly sick of being used. All my life I have been helpful, listened to other people’s problems and wished them well. But how rarely did anyone ask me how I was – except in a perfunctory way when it was obvious they didn’t really want to know.
......My cry of rage came when it hit me that my kindness and generosity had been taken advantage of for too long. Enough already!
.....I had suspected that most of my friends and colleagues took me for granted; taking, but seldom giving. I knew it, but something always prevented me from rebelling. I made excuses for people, wanting to think the best of them. I was fixated on being helpful. But somehow I knew that I had got myself into a bind where their expectations of me were perfectly justified: yes, I had always given the impression that my selflessness was perfectly natural to me; so what more natural than that they should believe in the impression I had always given them.
......And what more natural than that they should be shocked when I rebelled, when I made it clear that I existed too. Mind you, when I did make it clear, my inner rage came through. I wasn’t very nice when said I had listened to their problems far too long. In fact, I was quite nasty. And when they criticised my abruptness, I lost it – oooh temper, temper! I came away shaking and doubting myself.
.....My former ‘friends’ started to drift away. I didn’t seem to be the flavour of the month any more. They must all have thought I’d changed for the worst for some unknown reason. They were right in thinking I was not the person they thought I was.
.....I discovered there is no way you can change from being a people-pleaser to being-real without rage. This is because rage is what I felt all the time, deep down. When I was being so nice to everyone I was hiding my rage, even from myself. Rage at my long neglect. My real self was raging so I had to be nasty to be real. There’s no way of skipping that stage. Of course I was nasty, rage is never reasonable. To try to rage reasonably or raging alone is to still fear showing anything else but the nice person. The nice, helpful person was my trap. And now the one thing I fear is being in social situation where my former self will trap me again. I can’t tell you the anxiety I feel about slipping into the nice person again. I know myself. I am not so far out of the woods: certain kinds of people can turn me into an agreeable, smiling nobody. I will lose myself again. The dread of being taken over by my old self is quite frightening.
......I know how it all came about. As a young person I learned that the only way to get even a modicum of approval was pretend to be what they wanted. I deleted myself and substituted a clone and it has taken me 40 years to recover. But with the encouragement of my therapist and some new friends I know I will make it. I can already feel the difference.
....................................by Stanley
......I am a worm that has turned – thoroughly sick of being used. All my life I have been helpful, listened to other people’s problems and wished them well. But how rarely did anyone ask me how I was – except in a perfunctory way when it was obvious they didn’t really want to know.
......My cry of rage came when it hit me that my kindness and generosity had been taken advantage of for too long. Enough already!
.....I had suspected that most of my friends and colleagues took me for granted; taking, but seldom giving. I knew it, but something always prevented me from rebelling. I made excuses for people, wanting to think the best of them. I was fixated on being helpful. But somehow I knew that I had got myself into a bind where their expectations of me were perfectly justified: yes, I had always given the impression that my selflessness was perfectly natural to me; so what more natural than that they should believe in the impression I had always given them.
......And what more natural than that they should be shocked when I rebelled, when I made it clear that I existed too. Mind you, when I did make it clear, my inner rage came through. I wasn’t very nice when said I had listened to their problems far too long. In fact, I was quite nasty. And when they criticised my abruptness, I lost it – oooh temper, temper! I came away shaking and doubting myself.
.....My former ‘friends’ started to drift away. I didn’t seem to be the flavour of the month any more. They must all have thought I’d changed for the worst for some unknown reason. They were right in thinking I was not the person they thought I was.
.....I discovered there is no way you can change from being a people-pleaser to being-real without rage. This is because rage is what I felt all the time, deep down. When I was being so nice to everyone I was hiding my rage, even from myself. Rage at my long neglect. My real self was raging so I had to be nasty to be real. There’s no way of skipping that stage. Of course I was nasty, rage is never reasonable. To try to rage reasonably or raging alone is to still fear showing anything else but the nice person. The nice, helpful person was my trap. And now the one thing I fear is being in social situation where my former self will trap me again. I can’t tell you the anxiety I feel about slipping into the nice person again. I know myself. I am not so far out of the woods: certain kinds of people can turn me into an agreeable, smiling nobody. I will lose myself again. The dread of being taken over by my old self is quite frightening.
......I know how it all came about. As a young person I learned that the only way to get even a modicum of approval was pretend to be what they wanted. I deleted myself and substituted a clone and it has taken me 40 years to recover. But with the encouragement of my therapist and some new friends I know I will make it. I can already feel the difference.
..........(The above is not a biography or autobiography but a fictional composite)
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