Just some background: I’m semi-recently divorced from an emotionally abusive long term relationship that dates back to my early teens and shaped much of how I interact with people.
What started off as someone just being naive became molded into someone easily manipulated. The divorce helped tremendously and I’m in therapy but I’ve noticed that when I’m talking to people, my brain seems to work too slow for safety (or so fast it’s getting clogged up with junk thoughts).
I get into situations where, because I’m naturally agreeable to avoid risking angering people, I end up agreeing to things that with just a few more minutes or seconds of forethought I would realize I don’t feel comfortable or safe doing nor do I feel comfortable going back on agreements.
I can tell I’m getting better, as I was recently asked by a coworker I’m not close with if I could give them a ride somewhere. I immediately started to agree thinking it was a close drive. They told me where it was and went to collect their things. Then it dawned on me that it would be around an hour round trip and I would be late for an appointment, plus I realized that I was likely helping him with an online scheme to cheat on his wife (work gossip I’m aware of) and the whole thing gave me the ick but I didn’t know how to back out without ruining our work relationship going forward, which I rely on to do some of my tasks.
But at least I knew I had to back out and could pinpoint *how* I got stuck. He had asked me “Do you have anything that you have to go do right now?” as I was getting to my car.
While I had an appointment that afternoon, the answer was technically no so that’s what I said. After that, my brain sort of went into overdrive with so many thoughts but not the right ones, like not how I didn’t owe him a ride nor did I actually want him in my car. His immediate-seeming need hijacked my ability to prioritize my comfort and safety and that happens to me any time someone throws a request at me that I might, in hindsight, not want anything to do with.
While I’m getting better at recognizing these situations and how I get into them I don’t feel much closer to keeping myself out of them. I did go back inside and ask a coworker to make up an excuse on my behalf before he saw me so I could leave and that worked great. The next day another co-worker heard the story and helped me practice just saying “no” to random social simulations and I loved that. And overall this is still a better handle on the situation than my ex getting me to drop my college enrollment and move cross country to be with him because he was *lonely*. To that sort of thing with a major cost to myself I can confidently say eff no to by now.
But how do I get better at thinking on my feet when it’s not just a yes or no question so I don’t keep getting roped into things that make me feel uncomfortable, especially when they feel like they have little cost to me?
Honestly I would love it if there was like an app or a program that would just let me practice different responses to challenging interactions so I have them in my head more “at the ready”.
Thanks for reading this far!
TL;DR: I keep finding myself in situations where people might phrase requests a certain way that are hard to give a yes or no answer to but I want to get better at thinking on my feet so I can avoid agreeing to things I don’t want to do.