When I check off what degree of hostile I am on the Moodscope cards I always think - not hostile enough! 

All my life I have been mistaken as a doormat - I surmise given how a lot of people have treated me. And by the time I realise it and start pushing back it becomes THE huge problem, not how I have been used and handled.

I am resolving to put up more psychological barriers, be less friendly with the opposite sex for one. In small towns and in the neighbourhood I am leaving tomorrow, a conversation equals a commitment, relating means a relationship. Where I come from they do not.

In general friendship or romance, I tend to give too much too soon and too often. It gets me taken for granted and treated like a commodity. I guess less really is more.

When you grow up playing with broken glass and in survival mode, a lot of life skills are not learned. My social skills are not as honed as other skills I have, and at the ripe old age of 48 I try not to beat myself up for being a late bloomer. It is a correction from what my mother used to call me; a wall flower. 

I tolerated 17 months of being bullied by the narcissistic landlord and her darlings in the apartment building I live in. No matter what, I was the problem if I had any concerns whatsoever. Now I am breaking my lease and getting out; mental health is worth more. I was treated like EVERYONE mattered more than I did. They lived loud, messy and large, rules be damned, but I had better toe the line. I have told her; "I am done with this, don't send me any more emails. Nothing you have to say at this point has any value to me after how poorly you have treated me." 

Going forward, I want to leave my deep inner loneliness behind along with people pleasing tendencies and be quicker to draw people out on behaviour that bothers me. Not to be constantly nit-picking but assertive; "I don't like how you seem to be talking down to me, I don't play rank. I operate from an equality perspective..." and go from there. I want to be "quicker on the draw," as they say.

Wish me luck,

Bailey

A Moodscope member