Can you, in fact, have both narcissist traits and doormat tendencies? Hi! Nice to meet you. I’m Niki, and the answer is yes. My brother and I both have this delightful combination marinating in our personalities.
AND we’re both Gemini’s. What are the chances? Ain’t fate a bitch.
I think I’m a little too good for things like a regular job or housework, yet I let friends, acquaintances, strangers, and family members walk all over me and blame myself for why they’re doing it.
It’s a topsy turvy world.
I was telling my therapist about the latest, and I’m sure oft-repeated thing my dad had done that hurt me. I wondered aloud how he could have done such a thing and why. Why didn’t he apologize?
What was wrong with him? What made him act like that?
My therapist said, “Well, it really doesn’t matter. If a rug doesn’t want to be walked on it isn’t going to lie there and demand to know why someone’s walking on it. It isn’t going to ask for reasons while people are wiping their dirty feet on it. It’s going to roll itself up and go under a chair where it can’t be walked on anymore.”
Well, hells bells. Hello!
It never occurred to me I had permission or the power to defend myself from people’s actions. I believed I needed to know WHY they were hurting me so I could find a way to talk to them about it and make them understand so they would stop.
I felt I had no choice but to be a doormat. I was stuck to the floor.
So I decided the only way I could avoid pain was to try and control other people’s actions. To make them stop hurting me. Which we should all know by now just doesn’t work.
I see this a lot on social media when people cry “triggered!”
I see them demanding others stop hurting them instead of not engaging or, even better, working on the issues that make them feel triggered.
Nope, it’s gotta be anyone else’s problem but theirs.
It’s exhausting to have such a visceral emotional reaction to everything all the time and to flat out GIVE your power away like that. Stop it.
I want to understand WHY my dad treats me the way he does, to figure out why he must think I’m a bad person, because why else would he treat me this way?
That’s me looking for him to tell me I’m a good person, instead of me telling me that, and believing it.
When you believe people’s reactions to you are a reflection of your worth, your value, your meaning, your truth… that’s the weight keeping you stuck to the floor and perpetually walked on.
I’ve harped, ad nauseam, on WHY a former business partner of mine would keep money from me, lie, manipulate, not do his share, leave everything up to me… I needed to know WHY. If I could understand why then I could change it and make him not treat me that way anymore.
Only, you can’t make anyone do anything.
You can’t change other people.
It’s not your job to fix them and their issues.
The way they treat you isn’t a reflection of your worth. You didn’t do anything to deserve this treatment.
You are not trapped.
You don’t have to sit there and take this treatment or behavior.
You keep waiting for it to change because you know you’re a good person and if you could prove that to them then they’d stop!
Nope.
Their actions aren’t about you. They may be geared towards you, but they’re not about you. They treat everyone this way, not just you.
You feel helpless and stuck because you think your only choice is to fix them, change them, stop them from doing things that hurt you.
Ego tells you that to walk away is weak and letting them win. It’s not.
Immature people will tell you walking away is weak and letting them win and not standing up for yourself and not having any respect for yourself.
Walking away is literally standing up for yourself, opening the door, and flying out of it like the magic carpet you are. You don’t have to be a doormat area rug anymore.
You don’t have to lay there on the floor waiting for others to tell you who you are or what you’re worth, or to validate it for you. You can take back your power.
YOU decide you’re a good person, worthy and wonderful. YOU decide you’re strong and capable.
Because you are.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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