When I was a kid, I learned to martyr myself. I was unimportant: my needs and desires were never given any sort of priority, and I got used to what I wanted taking a backseat to what my "siblings" wanted. I was there to cook, to do the dishes and laundry, to help La Vada pick her clothes each day1, to help her when she went into insulin shock, and keep her alive in general. I got used to not being hugged, to never hearing "I'm proud of you" or even "I love you." To this day, I'm weirded out by people who hug me; even though I've spent half my life and more around better people than La Vada, that early training has been well and truly assimilated.
The most insidious leftover from that time, though, is my tendency to put other people first. You'd think that's a virtue, and you'd be right most of the time. I, however, have elevated this to an art form. Most of the time it's small issues: dinner plans, what to watch on TV, what movies to see. Elizabeth tries not to let me be Martyrboy too much, but it's something I'm having a hard time stopping. It's made even worse by the fact I usually resent it even though it was my decision to let my own desires fade. I'm working on that, too, and enjoying a little more success.
Recently, I allowed the desire of another to win out over my own, despite severe reservations. The result has been tearing me apart, emotionally. I've felt unimportant to those around me, unwelcome and unwanted. I've felt that any nice thing said to me has been a half-truth at best. I've been afraid to say how I felt for weeks, because I didn't want to cause problems. Yesterday it reached a fever-pitch, leading me to some pretty shameful actions, and I finally had to say something. I think things will be ok now, though in the process some more damage was done. Sometimes the only way to heal, it seems, is to cause short-term harm. I don't like that, much.
1 She was blind.
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