Growing up, I was eager to please. When I was seven at my horseback riding summer camp, I earned the “most helpful” award. Why? Because I made it my job to muck out the stalls. I wanted to help others so badly, even in the smallest ways, that I was happy to shovel horse shit into a pit so odorous you could see the stink lines coming off of it.
Later this attitude translated to my first crush. His name was Dawson. He had white blond hair and dazzling blue eyes. He was the fastest boy in my class, and even though no one knew it, I could have beaten him. But it was third grade and I thought I was in love, so I watched him run around with his friends while I sat on the side.
Sometimes he’d come over and talk to me and tell me a dumb joke. Often they were so bad it was all I could do not to wince, but even so I smiled and laughed. I wanted him to know I thought he was the funniest boy ever.
When I look back on that crush now, I realize it shaped the way I interacted with men for many years to follow. It’s particularly embarrassing to me now, as a feminist, to realize how far gone I was. Unconsciously, I always put my own needs second to those of the men in my life. I compromised and skimped on myself if it meant that it would “help” someone out. When I look into my problematic past all I see is internalized misogyny. Sure, it starts out as laughing at bad jokes, but then it turns into a much more menacing monster.
I lived to protect the fragile male ego, from letting boys beat me in basketball to assuring, “Wow, you have a huge penis.” I worried about my butt and boobs not being big enough and my back being too curvy. No one would ever love me the way I was. I found myself agreeing with everything my boyfriend said, even if I disagreed and had an argument ready. I was so deep into my own self loathing that I didn’t even realize the aspects of my relationship that were abusive. All that time I thought I was helping people, but really, I was just destroying myself.
Unfortunately, my inability to comprehend my situation didn’t stop with my relationship. I found myself bullied by coworkers because I was easy to control. It didn’t matter what it was, I did what they asked. It got so bad that if someone had asked me to jump off a cliff so that they’d be happier, I would have at least considered it. The only word in my vocabulary was that terrible affirmative, “YES!”
Luckily, there’s a happy ending to this story. I discovered feminism and spent months actively fighting my own ignorance. I stopped blindly agreeing to everything others said or told me to do. My relationship collapsed, but I pulled myself out of the rubble and kept on striding forward.
I learned how to say no, and my coworkers stopped taking advantage of me. All the energy I used to expend in pleasing people I now use to educate myself and others. I don’t want other girls to keep laughing at the same bad jokes
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