Fear of conflicts ruining my life

[Rochellebee]

i grew up in household with huge amount of fights. I do have anxiety (never diagnosed officially), but my fear of conflicts is ruining my life. Makes me a doormat to people and I lack of assertiveness. Example is ex husband I have child with who is extremely nasty (never helps with my son - only on his terms, laughed at my face when I ended up in hospital) and I always do what he wants. I try to tell him no but then overthink it and imagine all the scenarios like him not letting me go aboard with my child, making more stress and I end up apologising and doing what he wants. Anyone any tips / help?! Can’t really afford therapy, but someone might know about a good self help book or practises to google. Thank you

Ask yourself whats the worst that could happen ?
Learning to assert yourself empowers you. A woman who values herself and has strong boundaries is impossible to control. They need to teach this stuff in school instead of focusing on being people pleasers.
There is lots of good advice free online as well as books, look on Amazon, main thing is to put the advice into action, it will feel uncomfortable first few times, ( you can do uncomfortable, its just a feeling and will pass) you will upset people who benefit from your lack of boundaries, but it will enrich your life.

Thank you. It just super hard because anytime I assert myself I feel like I was super aggressive and I overthink it for days and feel really bad like the person might think I’m crazy and not even care while it puts me in anxiety spiral for days …so it doesn’t make me feel good

Set yourself a few challenges. Things you find difficult. One step at a time. So next time you find yourself not saying what you think, just try saying it. Come up with some neutral phrases to bat people off. Practise not replying to texts straightaway. Stay in the moment, breathe and verbalise (internally) what’s happening eg “I think he’s trying to manipulate me”. Later, you can start to say out loud what is happening.

Ultimately put yourself first. Stop apologising. I bet you say sorry a lot. Learn to say hmmm I’m not sure Im undecided etc to demanding people

My DM tried to repress all anger in our household and as a result I still feel guilty if I’m angry but I’ve made
huge improvements

When I'm in a situation where there's conflicting wants and needs I try to be as logical as possible. Like I ask myself how I would feel if the other person was behaving like me and this helps me feel confident in my boundary. Like if someone is saying hurtful things and I start stressing about if I'm in the wrong for asking them to stop I imagine if it was happening the other way around and then I can see that I would be happy for them to have boundaries about hurtful language. It helps to imagine the same situation with different people and that takes some of the emotion out of it so you can see clearly that you're right to have standards about the way other people are treating you.

He can't stop you having a holiday abroad. My friend had a controlling ex who tried to stop her and he couldn't. She had spent a long time pandying to him to keep the peace but he just got more and more controlling.

What do you do, in your daily life, that you would respect in another person?