People Pleaser No More
There was a good month or so where I had extremely bad paranoia. I thought that everyone was out to get me. If I was driving and a vehicle followed me too long, I would take 3 right turns and go in a square to see if they were following me. No one takes 3 right turns in a row unless they’re following you. No one ever did. But I was paranoid. I also was paranoid about someone breaking into my house. So much so that I used two suitcases filled with books from my classroom wedged between the door and the stairs upstairs to ensure no one could get into my house. Even with my suitcases wedged in there, anytime I heard a sound, I had to get up and go check the door to make sure that it was locked and no one was coming in. If I tried to ignore this impulse, it became overbearing. It was all that I could think about. I couldn’t do anything else until I checked and reassured myself that I was “safe”.
I’m thankful to say that my time of extreme paranoia has lifted. I was put on yet another medication to stop the paranoia and OCD tendencies and it worked. Really well. (Sometimes I wonder if the progress I’m seeing is actually from me working super hard in therapy and following my treatment plan or if it’s just medications manipulating my brain. Does it matter? I’m not sure. But I spend a lot of time thinking about it.)
However, yesterday I had a moment of pure paranoia, terror and panic. Let me explain. On Monday, Cam was at my house for a bit and when he left for Leduc, I closed and locked the door. I remembered hearing the click of the lock. But yesterday, when I went to go grab something from my car, my door was UNLOCKED. Now, I never, ever leave my door unlocked. EVER. It makes me uncomfortable. I feel vulnerable, so I always lock my door. So when I found it unlocked, I panicked. I immediately locked the door, grabbed a giant kitchen knife and no word of a lie, searched my house for an intruder like I’ve seen FBI agents do on TV. I was terrified. My mind was reeling. “Did my landlord unlock my door this morning and not tell me?” “Does someone else have a key to my house?” “Did someone break in and not steal anything, but just… wander?” Now, to give you a picture of why I was terrified, it was 6pm. That meant I had been in my house with a potential intruder ALL DAY. I’m happy to report that my search of my house came up empty and no one was inside but me. Which is the only reason I didn’t call the police. I had the Taber Police’s number ready to call on my phone in case I heard or saw something. (I also was worried about calling in a false alarm. Hence me searching my own house with a knife.)
My search came up empty, but my brain did not. It was running through all kinds of situations. All I knew was that I hadn’t unlocked the door and it was unlocked. I was sure of it so I had a problem. Unfortunately, my logical brain completely peaced out and I went into sheer paranoia mode. The suitcases instantly went back down blocking the door. I placed shoes in certain places so I could tell if someone had tried to move the suitcases. I was totally, 100% paranoid.
It was over an hour later as I was venting panicked to my fiancé that I realized I had left the house earlier that day. I had gone to the post office and when I returned, my hands were full and I FORGOT to lock my door. It wasn’t anyone else. It was me. I had no reason to be paranoid. But the weird thing is, until my fiancé talked me through my day, I had NO IDEA that I had left my house earlier that day. That memory was completely gone. All I could feel was panic and paranoia. I told my fiancé that I wanted to leave the suitcases by the door for the night and he said, “Do it.” To which my brain responded, “But my therapist, doctor and vocational rehab worker will be so disappointed. This is a step backwards”. Now this is where my whole People Pleasing thing becomes a problem. I hate disappointing people. I literally let myself become a doormat at work to prevent my principal from being disappointed in me. It almost killed me. Honestly, it really did. But here I was again thinking about the fact that me protecting myself was disappointing to others.
You may be wondering where I’m going with this… Well, you see, I’m proud of myself. What? Yes, you read that right. I’m proud. Not that I was paranoid. Not that my memory slipped yet again. I was proud that I RECOGNIZED INSTANTLY, “Oh, that was a people pleasing thought!” and that I was able to reason my way through the situation based off what was best for ME. I didn’t end up barricading my door, but it wasn’t because I was afraid to admit that I had taken a step backwards and had an off day – it was because I recognized it was my mistake and that I was safe and therefore didn’t NEED to block my door. I made the decision for me, not for what I thought others would think.
Y’all, that’s a big stinking deal for me. Even a month ago, I wouldn’t have been able to recognize a) that I was having a people pleasing thought and b) be able to choose what was right for ME in THAT moment. In a weird way, me forgetting to lock my door and my episode of paranoia was a blessing in disguise. It showed me that I am making progress. I am more aware of my thoughts. I have a bit more control over the impact they have on me (I say a bit because I still had like an hour of full-blown paranoia, so…).
The other day I was having an off day, wondering if I was fit to go back to work. I’m a bad people pleaser. It’s one of the reasons things got so bad for me at work. I ended up taking on everything no one else wanted to do, plus was dealing with an abusive student and C-PTSD. But I’m honestly super nervous that if I go back to work, I’ll slip back into my old People Pleasing ways. My therapist and I might have to role play situations where I have to say no to people so I’m familiar with that concept. I need to get used to people being disappointed in me and being okay with that. I need to start taking care of myself. But as weird as this sounds, my little paranoia incident helped show me that maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to navigate this.
Love,
Becca
Cover image from Google. No Copyright Infringement Intended.
