The Realities of Being Nice

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Content warning: I go into considerable detail talking about partner and domestic abuse. This post does attempt to take on a nicer tone in the final segment.

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I've been reliably told that I fawn over people. This is not a compliment.

Generally we have one of four responses to threats: Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. Each fucks you up in a lovely and unique way. For someone who fawns, it means you appease the entity in front of you at all costs.

Your boss can be as much of a dickhead as they like, and you'll be nice to them, enabling them to keep doing it. You get yapped over at every opportunity, then you sit back and listen to everyone with a big wide-eyed smile on your face. Your partner jabs a knife in your face while you're up against a wall, and you don't even think too much about it. They're saying something, you should be hearing them out :)

Assisted with a psychotherapist who doesn't actively try to put me in danger^[1], picking this theory apart has been an interesting experience. It leads back - as it always does - to childhood, and what events there may have instilled such a reaction. You could spend years doing this. Eventually it'll lead to the events that brought you to needing therapy in the first place.

The time of year is February 2020. You're moving into a flat with your partner for the first time. For the past few years, you did your best to make the most out of every situation and the time you had together. Even if you got talked over a lot, it was fine because they were very eager to say things! Even if they had unpredictable meltdowns, you threw yourself at trying to resolve them, if only to mitigate the stress on their side. Don't think too hard about whether you actually want this or not. Nobody else has ever wanted you, and you have nowhere else to go. There is no alternative.

The first day in the flat is still fresh on the mind. The partner - who I'm calling E for the rest of this post - is having a meltdown because they're convinced the flat is going to be overflowing with belongings. Naturally this leads to a vividly explained train of thought where you're going to get evicted, made homeless, then killed. This is getting screamed at you while you have a black bag of clothes in your hand, dragging it to the wardrobe. Where you put clothes.

This continues for the rest of the day. E continues berating you while sitting on the couch doing fuck all to help. After all, you're moving their stuff for them. Looking back, I was right in my initial assessment of it being the worst and most regretful day of my life.

The flat did not overfill with belongings. E was simply worried that they wouldn't have space to put up their anime figurines. The meltdown is never brought up again.

I was bitter and angry, of course. But I had to be nice. Because I told myself that I had to be nice. The thought of being any other way led me back to memories of being dogpiled on for standing up or speaking out. People were/are far too accustomed to walking over me without consequence, that any pushback felt like oppression to them. Or so I told myself.

Plus, any dreams of autonomy in my head were about to be wiped out. Within a month, the whole country was put into the first of a wave of lockdowns. We did not reliably escape them for over two years. I have very irrational views on this^[2].

Life goals morph into surviving just this one day, solely to enable moving onto the next. This used to be a passive approach, being stuck in miserable low-pay jobs, but now it was an active one. A successful day was one where you got screamed at as little as possible, and you would do anything to facilitate this.

I have very few memories around this time. There are vague thoughts of scrolling news headlines to see the daily death and hospitalisation counts, and begging for speculation on when we might be allowed go outside freely again. Looking through the timeline of events doesn't feel real at all.

There are recollections of specific E meltdowns. They're not easy to retrieve, and mostly invade the mind when a related stressor sets them off. If I rake my head with my fingernails, I think of being barricaded in the tiniest room in the house, getting shouted by E because they had a difficult day in work. If I scratch my face, I think of moments where I'm filled with fear and anger, and the rare free space in which I allowed myself to feel it. If I bite my finger, I taste blood.

I still remember the steps of the flat's staircase and how they sounded under my shoes. They're tied into thoughts of being shouted at through several walls before I even get the front door open. Sometimes I would sit on the steps and wait it out. It didn't help.

In 2021 I recall moving jobs in January, and getting a vaccine at some point in the second half. That's it.

Chronic sleep deprivation became, well, chronic. My side of the bed was rammed up against the wall so E could have more space to move around in the mornings. I was kept up at night by the sounds of teeth grinding, getting kicked, the quilt being ripped off me so E could wrap themselves up like a cinnamon roll, and random shouting episodes when E was woken up by hearing something on the street. Aggravated, they would shake me awake shouting about how inconsiderate someone else was. I never once opened my mouth to point out the obvious.

E had severe problems. I put up with them because I thought that's what you're supposed to do. Raised on Catholic Ireland doctrine of not questioning what you've been served, and the embedded mantra that partners should unquestionably be there for each other. So I was.

By 2022, E was functional to the point where you might decide to trust them with pulling some of the weight around the house. They would cook 1-2 dinners a week. Being 2 metres away from E while they prepped food was unsatisfactory to E, because supposedly they couldn't hear you. So they invite you to move into the kitchen while they worked. Once you're there and leaned against a wall, they would spin around and jab a 12-inch knife in your face. They shout words in your face.

Not one thought of resistance came into my head. I counted my breaths. When the threat quietened, I slid along the wall and left the room. E looks bemused, already throwing away the recording of what just happened. I don't even escape the flat, I just slink away, quietly continuing attempts at a conversation. Anything to keep E distracted.

The dissonance in E's head was truly a scientific wonder. On the rare occasions where I confronted E in the moment of a conflict, they would throw away the threat in a heartbeat and pretend it never existed. No I never held a knife in your face? No I didn't just say that?? No I'm not barricading you right this instant???

The fawn response always wins over. You never push an argument too far, because that puts yourself in harm's way again. Just defuse this current threat, and don't think about the next one. Don't think ahead.

I have trains of thoughts from 2022. The pent-up fear and anger was boiling over, and being taken out on myself. I still couldn't even articulate the events that were happening to me. But there was a growing sense that something was badly wrong, and that I couldn't do this forever. This was not a straightforward escape process.

Extracing myself from this relationship was blocked by the barriers of: COVID lockdowns, the housing crisis, and the relentless urge to fawn over E and placate them rather than cause drama. The first of these dissipated throughout 2022. The second is a permanent issue in Irish society, and I had to let this fuck me over in order to survive. The third was incredibly messy.

The long-term desire to leave was always overridden by the short-term need of staying safe. Raising accusations of abusive behaviour was out of the question. I sometimes raised dissatisfactions, but warped them in a way that solely or predominantly blamed me. After all, there had to be something wrong with me.

I used to wonder about how E felt about these conversations beginning to emerge. As incomprehensible as it might sound, I feel they genuinely did not understand the acts they were doing. Looking back on specific events, they seemed to have no comprehension of other people having other perspectives. What went on in their own head totally dominated their worldview, and they demanded aggressively that everyone and everything follow that. There was no knife.

I would make a limp attempt at a breakup, only to be barricaded in the bedroom again, being screamed at to tell E that I loved them. So I said that.

I have no idea what the final catalyst for the breakup actually was. Far more vivid is the memory of the next few days, brain activity dulled to a pathetic murmur, no idea what to do with myself with nothing to fawn over. I crashed very hard. The recovery period was even worse than most of the scenario in which I was escaping from.^[3]

Skipping ahead - there is a period of a few months here which deserves to be its own reminiscence, far further away in the future. Most of my hatred of people in power stems from this time.

I often credit Sandy with keeping me alive at this point. Having a fluffly little dude to fawn over was great. It carried zero downside. It was unheard of. Most of my life choices following his adoption circle around ensuring that he's happy and comfortable, which keeps me happy and comfortable :3

The next few months of memories do exist, but mostly revolve around cats and some upheaval in work. Which was excellent as focusing on myself still would have been too much.

Building a new personality post-escape has been unequivocally fun. My social circle is 95% different from even three years ago, which allowed me to take a mostly fresh approach when interacting with people. Core parts of our brain aren't so easily rewired, but what was managed was more than enough. I love many many people now.

Most progress in 2023 and 2024 involved stumbling from one wildly new situation to the next, learning an absurd amount and doing my genuine best for both me and others. I still feel like I'm in a honeymoon period of sorts.

I still fawn over people too much. People fuck me over, and I let them in the moment, only getting angry afterwards. This isn't healthy for a multitude of reasons. But there is consciousness of it, which wasn't there before. And I can actually talk to some people about it. Again, unheard of until now.

Analysing how I handle interacting with people has been very challenging. Being forced to tackle the realisation that you bend over for other people in conflicts leaves a hard taste once you realise how often it's happened. The upside is that I'm attempting to skew my fawning over people into a positive thing. I'm in a much healthier and safer position in life, and better able to provide for people around me whom I love very much. Once my own needs are still met, it feels a lot better.

The bitter thoughts do not leave me. But there are things to fight for now. It's more than enough..