Mental Health How do I be a gentle soul without making people want to dominate me?

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

With the exception of the people I work with on my job, and my immediate family, I've become more or less a shut-in during the past few years. After a sleepless night doing a lot of reading on the psychology of the sadist, I think I've figured out why. I am just very, very sick of having people walk into my life who see me as enjoyable to dominate.

I'm what you might call a sensitive soul. I've never wanted much more in life than to simply relieve people's pain and suffering. And I know I'm very good at doing just this, which is why I'm succeeding at the particular career I chose. I tend to be pretty well admired by the few people I'm close with. But I think it's fair to say I have absolutely no "killer edge", no hint of "don't fuck with me" that I think most people, to some extent, have learned to develop in their personalities.

Self-acceptance as a naturally gentle individual, particularly as a male, has been incredibly hard won. I know that I'm not inherently weak or worthless, and I really want to believe all I was taught by my idealistic parents about gentleness being a potential strength. But I am not particularly people-smart. I'm no chump, but I'm "simple" when it comes to people; I just get by. I can carry on a conversation with most people that isn't socially awkward at all, but I have no taste for complicated social games, or cultivating connections that are essentially instrumental. If I'm socially interacting with someone, it's purely for the joy of socially interacting with someone. I have no ulterior motives, and I want it to stay that way. I'm very much, "This is me. You can take me or leave me."

The problem is that I tend to serially attract people who see me as a great target for domination. This can take various forms (almost always social / psychological) that don't bear detailing here. But two common themes is that they tend to find my gentle temperment viscerally revolting, and they tend to become nastily vindictive to me when I calmly (and not without some satisfaction) let on that I'm not as naive or compliant as they thought I was, and won't be doing what they want. Believe it or not, I've even had a couple people raised in hard neighborhoods tell me straight up, "You'd be really fun to beat up."

The thing is, the way I am is as much a matter of principle for me as it is a matter of nature. "Be the change you want to see in the world," and all that. Simply put, I don't want to become hard, whether this is possible or not (and I suspect it's not.) Because if I became hard (or cynical) I think I would lose pretty much everything of value about me that I've spent my life cultivating. I've met plenty of brilliantly intelligent people with zero faith in humanity, and although I can understand where they're coming from, I don't envy them. I'm not coming to the dark side, no matter how tasty the cookies are.

So I've had really little choice but to have a very high wall, which I let very few people inside. I've made myself all but immune to loneliness. I really need very, very little social interaction to sustain me. I prefer to do most things for myself, and by myself, because I don't trust the tricky strings of obligation and manipulation that are often attached to letting other people do things for me.

Somehow I've managed to find a wonderful stable marriage and career, with people who have no desire to control or mold me. But that's after a lot of trial and error. And the memories of people in my past who've dominated me and wantonly treated me badly keep me up at night on a regular basis, sometimes literally shaking with anger.

I want to be open and free. I want to dance like no one is watching and love like I've never been hurt. I want to just take the bushel basket off my inner light and let it shine for the world to see. I'd love to publish books and blogs using my real name, and hold absolutely nothing back. But experience tells me that given everything else in this post I've said I want, this is too tall an order. There are some days when I wonder whether I haven't spent my whole life chasing absolutely the wrong goals. There are days when it's hard for me to believe that being sensitive or gentle is anything but a weakness,.

Other than "toughen up, buttercup", does anyone have any pieces of practical advice?

 

[TripMcnealy]

<snip - we don't appreciate that sort of "humour" in MH - have a bit more tact please>

 

[TripMcnealy]

I understand completely where you are coming from, even though from what I've read, we are at this point in time, not so similar. After bouts with severe depression anxiety, depersonalization, and derealization, i became a bit of a recluse around the ages of 13-16. I did eventually get through it with some help from Doctor and mainly my mother pushing me into social situations. God did i not want to go to family parties or even out to dinner because I was so scared and miserable. Thought i was losing my mind. Anyway, I've always been a very Christian fellow even though I'm an atheist, and people will take advantage of that. Also i'm 6' 2" and 240 lbs and for some reason whenever I'd go out to bars or city people wanted to mess with me. I never held the tough guy act. I avoided fights at all costs. exhaust all options. called myself a pussy etc... However, what I have forced myself to become (because I was so sick of the fear and embarrassment and watching weaker people getting fucked with), is to have a line that you will not allow to be crossed. I'd That is nothing peculiar to your situation dude. Nice people are ALWAYS taken advantage of. What's different are super nice people who are willing to fight for themselves or others when it is necessary, or even at the very least, a moral obligation. It's not easy to do, but after several times it becomes second nature. You have to protect yourself. Not letting new people into your life because you are tired of being mistreated is, in my opinion, going to leave you isolated/bored and stagnant. of course their is risk in trusting people, but i give just about everyone the benefit of the doubt until they abuse it, and then write them off. If they cross the line repeatedly, I will confront them without hesitation. It throws people off when a nice guy does it. I say don't limit your life to the few people you trust. open up but be ready to defend yourself and others (socially and physically). be ready to be direct and intolerant of any kind of abuse. Weed those shitheads out and even if you only make one great connection, it will be worth it.

 

[TripMcnealy]

OK understood, but please understand it was a light jest followed by an extremely personal response. Not trying to be confrontational but I've battled and still battle mental illness for over 14 years (G.A.D. severe depression and Depersonalization/derealization), and that sense of "humour" is what saved my life. It's what stopped me from becoming an agoraphobic recluse. It's healthy to have a little laugh at oneself.

 

[Chatative]

Although I completely agree... lightening the mood can be a good thing, sometimes it is not suitable. Hard to know who would find it funny & who not. It was just the manner with which you did it... followed by not making it clear it was a joke for a full 30 minutes. I'm sure you can see how that might come across the wrong way.

It's just a small thing really.

 

[AlphaMethylPhenyl]

I can give you some of my impressions.

It sounds like you're inhibited from being more fluid. It kind of also sounds like you second guess yourself a lot (perhaps out of fear?). You've got these metaphorical chains. Honestly, I think there are a huge amount of people whom suffer from this.

You want to break out of something of a mental restraint. It's kind of funny, because you say that you only need a little social interaction, but I bet that if you socialized with more people and kinds of people, you'd find yourself growing. We usually don't grow without some sort of challenge that we step up to the plate for. If you let people in partially, that can work until they either prove themselves as decent people, or they deserve to get let go because there isn't a mutually beneficial relationship.

You seem fairly sensitive, as am, or were, I. That might stop you from putting yourself in a vulnerable situation with respect to other people as much. Therapy can definitely develop your shell. Most of what I can say at this point is that if someone throws you under the bus or is otherwise rude to you, it's not a real reflection of you, but an imperfection of them.

A lot of people, again, question the value of the course their life has taken.

I'm trying to think of ways that you could build your confidence. It's something I struggle with, too.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

Depression is something I've dealt with a lot. Even though things are going very well in my life right now, and I have a life that people probably envy, I'm still haunted regularly by negative thought patterns. Regular exercise, eating right, and keeping my drug use to a minimum helps a lot, but without SSRIs, the feeling of impending doom is never far away. Maybe I'll just have to go back on Zoloft and stay on it the rest of my life. That prospect doesn't thrill me, because it implies that my learned helplessness is so deep-seated that I can't unlearn it.

Maybe I'm just naturally prone to being depressed. My father and my mom's brother have been clearly depressed, untreated, for as long as I've known them, despite having pretty good lives and loving supportive families.

Beyond this, I think I want two things that don't really go together. I want to be carefree, but not have to be wary of people exploiting this. I think I need to read and think more about how to identify, as early-on in our interactions as possible, a person who really likes power. Because this is the root of sadism and social relationships that are unnecessarily hierarchical. Once I can easily differentiate someone who likes to dominate people from someone with no such drive, then I can selectively close up and refuse to get personal or show any weakness, without having to do so globally.

Does anyone here have a good rubric or indicator for being able to tell if someone is power hungry? I'm talking about subtle signs in their speech and social interaction, not big obvious stereotypical ones like huge imposing leather chairs and statues of warriors on horses in their office. I feel like this is something I can often intuit, but not necessarily reliably.

 

[sliceofcake]

It sounds as if you are asking for a methodical, checklist way of determining if a person is a decent human being.

Unfortunately I think it is all about intuition and using life experience to quickly deduce where a person is coming from based on a series of comments, opinions, appearance and body language.

How do we as humans learn to do this in order to protect ourselves? By paying attention and being on guard until a person earns our trust. That takes time in a relationship. Even a casual friendship is a relationship. An acquaintance is a relationship. How deeply we allow a relationship to develop depends on gradual trust.

Most animals in nature are given ways to survive, things that they are good at. We are given intelligence, discretion and judgement. Unfortunately when we use substances the first thing to go is judgement.


I for one have put myself in danger with people I should not have trusted and wouldn't have had I been sober. I'm not saying that OP has done this, I'm just adding my personal experience as I'm normally very careful about who I develop trust with. I would not say that I'm not trusting, just that I try to be selective and have learned to pick up on subtle cues over the course of my lifetime. I don't think a rubric is necessarily going to solve this question.

 

[Man in the Dark]

I think it has a lot to do with how and where you grow up. I grew up in the Northeast (NJ)and since I was a kid it was ingrained in me just by the area where I grew up in as to not trust anybody and how to always get over on people. I am not a very intimidating ( average looking white guy ) looking person so when I was younger I was tested a lot. Then I joined the military which I say definitely toughened me up some but even in the military there was a lot of people that were weak and they stood out and where taken advantage of daily.

I guess it was just growing up in a certain kind of environment and when you see things that go on in your neighborhood and with your family especially when you're young somethings are just ingrained into you. I grew up in a predominately Italian neighborhood so I feel that there were certain things I learned that have helped me in life especially joining the military at a young age.It definitely helped me be able to handle almost any situation. Then spending 10 years in the military just actually added to how I view things in life and society as a whole.

I know it sounds very cliché but it really does come down to the wolf the sheepdog and the sheep.

 

[Burnt Offerings]

The way I look at it is...you're ultimately going to have to trust some people in order to have meaningful relationships. Some modicum of trust is necessary. As far as how to recognize assholes pre-emptively...I'm not sure, honestly. Even people who are good at "reading people" can fall under the spell of a particularly charismatic asshole, from time to time. I guess just trust someone until events warrant a re-examination of that trust...?

How you present yourself to others, even subconsciously, definitely makes a huge difference as far as how you're perceived. People often think that I'm in a state of discontent (even when I'm not), aloof, uncaring, cynical, judgmental and "skeptical of them". I rarely display discernible human emotion, or so it seems. I've got a good heart, though, and I definitely don't like the fact that the aforementioned perceptions have put distance between me and other people

I'd be curious to know exactly how other people try and manipulate and/or control you psychologically, though

 

[herbavore]

Two things come to my mind immediately, though as usual from your well-thought out posts, I find myself wanting to write volumes.

1) Determining which people are power-hungry and may be a threat: these are people that are carrying more fear than you are. If you can approach them by stepping completely outside the circle they feel compelled to construct (power vs powerlessness/domination vs submission) and use the power of your own perception and compassion to address not the symptom of their fear but the fear itself, these same people are often completely disarmed and transformed. They are familiar with the same dynamic they are so desperately upholding but it really is the "emperor's new clothes" syndrome. It doesn't mean you directly address their fear by attempting to talk about it--just make sure that your interactions with them always hold the knowledge that they are more afraid than you are.

2) Geography may be your friend. I've lived all over the country and I have to say that the different subcultures do make a difference for me. I'm not one that believes in isolating myself from those that think or live differently but I am a big proponent of finding the nuances in our diverse geographical sub-cultures that allow me the most ease of being. The east coast urban centers are fantastic but I can't live in them--too intense for my admittedly over-sensitive nature. The west is just easier. At the risk of sounding like an old hippie (if the shoe fits, wear it) the vibe is gentler.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

^ Thanks herbavore. I think that's generally good advice. Your second point I found most interesting. I did my professional training and lived and worked for 5 years in a major east coast US population center. It's a place that definitely lives up to its reputation as a culture of hardassery, or what I refer to as "the big city attitude". Granted I served a lot of people professionally, even there, who saw me as a candle of mercy and kindness in a pretty merciless place. But I also had to deal on a daily basis who saw my unfailing niceness as weakness, and very much disrespected it.

I'm now, for the third time in my life, back in the hinterlands of northern New England, and I can already tell I fit in here more naturally, once I get past the locals' notorious insularity. In one way it's the exact opposite of the big coastal urban areas, where anyone is welcome to move there and try to make a go of it, but it's a jungle, and you'd better be ready to survive in the jungle the entire time you're there. In remoter and quainter reaches of the northeast, by contrast, breaking in is hard, but once you're established, people will be pretty kind and supportive.

Three interesting phenomena I've noticed that I'm sure are related to what I just mentioned, but I haven't been able to draw all the logical connections:
1) Formality is the done thing in the big city. Not necessarily politeness (to say nothing of kindness), mind you, but adherence to conventional ways of relating to other people is taken very seriously. Copping an attitude of, "Look, can we drop the pompous titles and careful deferential speech and just talk freely like two equal human beings?" will get me targeted as a troublemaker. Being too casual (with all but your nearest and dearest) is a punishable social offense there, in a way it doesn't seem to be in more peripheral areas.
2) Social hierarchies feel much more real to me in places where the big city attitude prevails. Stepping out of line, or daring to speak to someone who deems themselves up the hierarchy from me as if they were my equal, makes me the bad guy, even if it's done in the service of having a better working relationship. That's a much worse social offense than being a little abusive to someone down the hierarchy from you who's in no position to do anything about it.
3) There is far, far less respect for the rugged individual who wants to do things his own way in the big city. It's common wisdom there that you seek out and cling to people who are like you for survival. It's foolhardy to not be a team player to a fault, who respects the social hierarchy of the group you've taken refuge in, and adopts their values -- and even tastes and mannerisms -- without reservation. You go it alone, you'd better be the biggest baddest wariest wiliest cat out there, or else you'll soon be everybody's bitch. In contrast, in more peripheral areas, I feel I have great social latitude as to how communally involved and conformed I wish to be, and nobody seems to care.

I have a sense what I describe above are simply emergent properties of human social interaction in any densely populated highly desirable place to live, which do not emerge as readily when you're willing to live somewhere many people aren't. I say this with absolutely no chagrin -- I guess life on the margins is for me.

 

[Burnt Offerings]

I have a sense what I describe above are simply emergent properties of human social interaction in any densely populated highly desirable place to live, which do not emerge as readily when you're willing to live somewhere many people aren't.

Well it's your opinion of it, anyway. I've lived in at least two fairly densely populated urban areas (New York City and Austin, Texas) and I don't necessarily agree. (I've also lived in extremely rural areas.)

 

[TripMcnealy]

The whole idea of not trusting people is just a fallacy, an illusion. We trust people all day, everday. You trust your cab driver not to drive into oncoming traffic, or your fellow commuter not to push you in front of a train. It's almost as if we can't bear how trusting we have to be so we shield the only small parts of ourselves that we can.

 

[Pretty_Diamonds]

I don't think you can be. Lol. My bf is a very gentle soul, and people do take advantage of him. What he does is just avoids them. Lol. Which is weird for me since I'm very not-so-gentle and have no problem to tell people to f off. I think that's how we kind of balance each other out. On the other hand, it's frustrating AF to see him get stepped on and not stand up for him so I end up doing it and then it's like, wtf am I doing... like you're the man, stand up for yourself! Lol. & then of course, how can I even think to expect him to EVER stand up for me... UGHH, I digress...

Back to you, yeah, I don't think you can. But I'm happy that you have a solid career, famliy life, etc, as long as you have a support system, you should be fine. Is it just the past memories that you can't seem to get over? Not fully healed? Have you thought about seeing a therapist? It may be worth it to look into, for your own personal growth and development, especially if you are feeling anxiety, depression, etc.

 

[malakaix]

I'm not sure what advice I can offer, but this is an on-going issue for me.. and I've found myself on both sides of the fence much to my horror.

From my observations, people immediately size each other up upon meeting and in a group situation that social hierarchy is very quickly established. Once that hierarchy is established and everyone involved is aware of their position it becomes extremely difficult to break out of and this is one of the reason's I (like yourself) distance myself from people. I love to socialize with people but because of this hierarchy I never allow myself to become to involved or attached to a particular group because it really feels like a subconscious assault on my individual freedom.

Sometimes this is simply unavoidable like in work-situations which is primarily where I experience the most issues with people, a lot less now then I did when I was younger.. but I think that's because I became more assertive.

I think herbavore hit the nail on the head with her first point.

 

[herbavore]

I just thought of a great resource for you, mdao--Brené Brown's books. The gifts of Imperfection is one I like and it talks a lot about establishing boundaries as a means to being more compassionate.