Sarah had a habit of arriving religiously to work at 5:00 am and leaving sometime around 8:00 p.m. or later. It was what she had known for the past 13 years. It was comfortable. Or was it?
She advanced in her career with hard work and dedication. After all, this is what we are taught about moving ahead. Work hard and reap the rewards. She was in a supervisory position and she had many people who sought out her expertise. She was paid well for what she thought was important work, even though she did not have a college degree.
She had weekends off, but Saturday was needed as a day of recovery. She managed to string together 5 days of nothing but work and sleep. She was exhausting herself physically, emotionally, and mentally in the process.
She continued to smile and continued to push. She was a good girl. She always did what was expected of her and what she expected of herself. She didn’t know any differently. She bought into Heaven’s reward: We will be paid in the end for our sacrifices and self-denial. We expect our good deeds to be paid off. Someone must be keeping score. Although she did not realize it at the time, she was wishing her life away.
Sarah was well liked. Of course she was. Who wouldn’t like her? She did everything anyone ever asked of her. She loved to please people. She liked being liked. She called it being “nice” to people. She had bite marks on her tongue from all the things she never said. She learned to take it. She learned not to rock the boat. I call it “go along to get along”. This was her new normal.
She had been divorced for a couple of years. She married barely out of her teen years to a man she thought she would grow old with. She envisioned sitting in rocking chairs with him on the porch with grandchildren draped at their sides. Then life happened. She gave birth to three children over the course of the marriage. She soon learned her husband was emotionally abusive and degrading. He had several affairs. It took a toll on her self-esteem throughout the years. Her husband was a role model. Not an ideal role model, but a role model nonetheless.
Her children learned how to treat their mother from their father’s harsh words and actions. Her children also learned to treat her poorly because of what she allowed and, more importantly, what she tolerated from others.
Years later, her adult children continued to step all over her, demand way too much, and were ridiculously self-entitled. On Sarah’s only two days off after a 70-hour workweek her granddaughter would spend every Saturday and Sunday with her because Sarah’s daughter “needed a break” from being a mother.
Discovery.
Sarah came to me for therapy. Initially, she was unable to even identify her problems. She knew she was “really anxious” and unable to work. Her low self-worth was so ingrained in her that she didn’t recognize it as a problem. She had nothing good to say about herself and couldn’t identify any of her strengths. In fact, she was convinced she didn’t have anything meaningful to offer.
Through therapy we learned that she had lost herself along the way. Perhaps not just losing herself, but discovering that she never really knew who she was to begin with. She went from being a daughter and living with her parents to being a wife and mother with little transition time. More importantly, she had no time alone. She had no time to discover herself. She had not only forgotten what she enjoyed, but it had been so long that she truly didn’t remember ever enjoying anything. She went to work because she had to help support the family. Her new responsibilities left her very little time for interests or hobbies. She was in an abusive marriage. She put on excessive weight and used food as a way to comfort herself. Behind the smile that Sarah showed the world were debilitating self-esteem and low self-worth. She was never thin enough, smart enough, hard-working enough, and most importantly NEVER good enough. She was not good enough for relationships. She was not good enough for her career. She was not good enough for her children. She was not good enough for her friendships. She was not good enough for God.
Sarah was indecisive and never trusted her decisions. According to Sarah, everyone was much more qualified to make decisions about her life, and she certainly didn’t want to ever piss anyone off. She believed she was incapable of making choices for herself. Sarah was a perfectionist because she always felt inadequate. She thought if she could be perfect and do things perfectly, everything would be OK. The more she tried to be perfect, the bigger the let down became. It was an exhausting cycle of upkeep. Even simple constructive criticism at work was devastating to her. It often kept her up for nights on end, playing out the scenario over and over in her mind. She constantly devalued her worth and talked down about herself. Her value came from dependency on others. Her boundaries were poor and because of this people got away with all kinds of things. Lastly, her incapacitating fear of change kept her stagnant.
Solutions.
Sarah and I worked long and hard on her issues of low self-esteem and low self-worth. She learned techniques for challenging negative thoughts. Changing your thoughts is not an easy process. It takes constant work, but it is among the most rewarding things anybody can do. Negative thinking affects everyone’s ability to solve problems. It creates anxiety, stress, anger and ill health. Sarah learned that relying on the “Heaven’s reward” theory is a fallacy. Don’t expect every sacrifice you make to be rewarded. Don’t play the martyr. We are all guilty of this. Sometimes life is fair, but too often it is not. No one is coming to save you. You are responsible for your own life, well being, and happiness. Exercise your autonomy and take action because you want to, not because you believe you will mysteriously be rewarded. This is always an important topic I address as a therapist. Understanding this concept can be life changing.
I taught Sarah communication skills, assertiveness skills, and how to set boundaries with others. She learned she was co-dependent. She found her way out of her people-pleasing habits and began taking care of herself. Watching her progress every week was both amazing and rewarding. She found along the journey that she did lose some people in her life. Part of therapy is realizing that not all these losses are bad. Many people have returned to her life. She learned that not everyone is supportive. Some people really liked the pushover Sarah. The one that always said “Yes”. The doormat. The one that made it happen and got it done. Sarah decided that she valued her mental, emotional, and physical health more than her desire to make others happy. I am a big fan of Dr. Seuss, who said, “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”
Sarah went back to work. Through trial and error, she began to practice what she learned from our therapy sessions. She began to set boundaries at work and started leaving everyday by 5:00 p.m. She learned how to delegate and how to write her employee’s up. She learned to let them accept their own consequences instead of taking responsibility for them. She enrolled in college because her degree was something that had always been important to her. She began volunteering at the local animal shelter to nurture her love of animals. She started telling her adult children that she no longer had money to give them. She spent time being a grandmother to her grandchild because she wanted to, as opposed to being “mother” to her out of obligation.
If you are real, genuine, and unapologetically yourself, then the right people will respect you. And the wrong people…well… they’re irrelevant. Helping Sarah and others like her improve their lives is amazing. It is the most rewarding thing I have ever known. You can turn your life around and start enjoying it. I am here to help you.
Carrie
Awesome article !!