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rachelthompsonauthor · 4 years

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We all take things personally because we are all, well, people, aka, persons. We live our lives through our own eyes and experiences, right? This is how people argue with one another, whether that’s in real life or online. “In my experience,” or “In my humble opinion,” is how most of these debates begin.

What if you view things from another’s’ perspective? As the saying goes, “Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes.” In this age of controversy, that’s mighty difficult, particularly from a political or religious perspective. I’m constantly amazed at the responses some men give me about being a childhood sexual abuse and rape survivor – what they would have done in my situation, 🙄when they cannot comprehend what it was like for me (at age eleven) or in college.

It can be quite frustrating to explain my perspective and experiences to people who have absolutely no comprehension of what it’s like to live through these experiences, and to be treated as if I’m to blame for what happened.

One of the most effective ways I’ve learned to not take anything personally is by learning and using The Four Agreements, a small yet effective code of conduct by Don Miguel Ruiz. Don’t Take Anything Personally is the Second Agreement. I’ll break it down for you here with examples and how to apply it to your own life as a survivor.

Let’s deconstruct.

Taking Things Personally Causes Frustration

Take my example above: if a man says to me, “Why didn’t you fight back?” which is a typical, ignorant answer from a non-survivor who understands nothing about how the brain reacts to trauma, I become frustrated because I want to educate him with facts and science. Facts and science do not work on someone whose intent is to denigrate and victim-blame me.

The onus is on me to take a breath and examine the intent of the person who is interacting with me:

What’s in it for him?

Does he want to learn more about sexual abuse survivors and trauma?

How the brain reacts to trauma?

How he can help others who have been raped or abused?

Since the Third Agreement is Don’t Make Assumptions, I have the choice to continue interacting with the person and attempt to have a meaningful, educational discussion to move the narrative forward, or I can shut it down and move on, saving myself the possible frustration of what could potentially upset me further.

In an argument, each side wants to defend their position because we feel we must be right in order to win. Decide what ‘winning’ is going to cost you.

I have the choice, here. I have the agency to own how I take comments from this man (if at all – the Block and Mute buttons are our friends on social media). If I’m having this discussion with someone in real life, I can decide to end the discussion or walk away if it’s not serving me or causing me frustration.

I can draw a boundary because this person’s comments are not about me at all – they come from his lived experiences or viewpoint.

And this is the key to not experiencing frustration when healing from sexual assault – what others say they believe in reaction to our truth is on them, not us.

Taking Things Personally Lowers Self-Esteem

Based on one survivor story:

Let’s say your mother tells you she doesn’t believe another family member sexually abused you as a child, and it crushes you. You find yourself alone and desperate to make her believe you at all costs. You spend years in therapy, yet it doesn’t help. You’re at odds with her over every small thing because this big thing looms large over your entire relationship. Understandable.

You starve yourself. You sleep around. You drink and dabble in drugs. You can’t keep a job. You self-harm. All because your mother, the person who is supposed to be in your corner, of all people, doesn’t believe you. When you look in the mirror, you hate your reflection. You speak so negatively to yourself, even your closest friends would be appalled (all common for survivors, by the way).

Trace that back to the fact that you have taken her disbelief personally. You’ve pinned all your hopes toward healing from this trauma onto one person: her. When in fact, healing depends on someone else entirely: YOU.

If someone isn’t treating you with love and respect, you are allowed to walk away from them.

This is also a boundary, and yes, part of not taking anything personally. What this mother did is terrible, absolutely. What this survivor needs is to stop looking for support from someone who refuses to give it, and realize she’s worthy of self-love and support from a community of survivors and therapists who will help her embrace her in healing.

This isn’t woo-woo shit. This is reality. If the people in your life aren’t bolstering your self-esteem, it’s on you to take action to change those circumstances, not them. If they don’t believe you, you can still seek help and support. Healing isn’t dependent on other people believing you – it’s dependent on you getting the support you need and deserve. Toxic people won’t give you that, so don’t give them anything.

I’ve been in this situation in the past with men. I left them. Cutting ties is the best thing.

Taking Things Personally Creates Conflict

We get defensive when someone calls us out on something they don’t agree with. Our lived experience is different from someone else’s. Intuitively, this makes sense. We fight for what, in our eyes, is right. Remember this:

Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. Even when a situation seems so personal, even if others insult you directly, it has nothing to do with you. What they say, what they do, and the opinions they give are according to the agreements they have in their own minds. Their point of view comes from all the programming they received growing up. ~ Don Miguel Ruiz

I see this so much on social media, don’t you? I get caught up in it myself, especially with regard to victim-blaming survivors for being assaulted and abused or raped. I cannot, and will not, ever accept that it’s ever a survivor’s fault for a perpetrator committing a crime. We never blame a woman for being car-jacked or robbed at the ATM, do we? So why do people blame her for being raped? It’s mind-boggling to me. So yea, it feels personal.

And yet…I know in my heart, it’s not. People who victim-blame are conditioned by their own families, peers, news, media, and social media to take a stance that makes sense to them and their point of view, and that has nothing to do with me. Arguing with them, providing facts, sharing my experiences, etc., does nothing to help change their minds.

Example: When an (in)famous YouTuber tweeted: “Anxiety is created by you” (and then subsequently deleted it because wow, so uninformed), many of his bro-dudes supported him by explaining that it’s true – all mental illnesses could simply go away if we just tried harder, worked out more, and stopped being victims.

I’ll admit, I got involved in attempting to educate some of these bro-dudes by sharing that mental illness isn’t something that goes away like a bad cold, or is a figment of our imaginations. Sure, it’s all in our heads – our brains, that is. And so on.

Oy, the mansplaining. What could I – a woman of 55 years, who has studied mental illness for over twenty years (longer than most of those kids have been alive LOL), who has anxiety, depression, and cPTSD, who has written two books about it (so far) that have been vetted and reviewed by several psychologists, who hosts a weekly Twitter #SexAbuseChat that deals with mental illness specifically for survivors of sexual abuse – know about mental illness?

Yet, you see, it didn’t matter. I took it personally. They took it personally. It was no longer about mental illness – it became more about who was right. My facts, stats, and science had nothing on their put-downs and misogynistic chuckles.

There could be no conflict resolution because our values would never align.

Once I reeled myself back in, I began writing this post. I reminded myself not to take it personally because what they were saying wasn’t about me. I reminded myself about my own healing boundaries, self-care, and how to put my energies into something more positive – writing.

Taking Things Personally Takes Energy

As I just mentioned, that interaction took enormous energy; energy I could use elsewhere. And that’s really the crux of this post. Where are we spending our energy when we take something personally? Usually, we end up in a negative loop of toxicity. That’s part of the cycle our brains play with us, a pattern we may not be aware of. Becoming aware of this pattern allows us to change it. That’s what these agreements help us do.

It hurts when people say something negative about us, and we take it personally. The wound festers; we poke at it, and peel at that scab. We’re so focused on the one comment, we shut out everything else, even the positive stuff, to the point that we’re missing out on life.

Example: In my BadRedhead Media business, I work with authors. Authors receive book reviews, oftentimes from non-professional reviewers. Sometimes, these reviews are verging on the ridiculous. That’s just the way it is. Amazon and other online retailers allow for these reviews. It is what it is. As an author myself, I, too, receive these reviews.

We tend to focus on these rare and silly one-star reviews, rather than the majority of five-star, terrific reviews. This is knowns as the negativity bias, which means our brains are hard-wired to focus on the negative, most likely due to evolution:

The evolutionary perspective suggests that this tendency to dwell on the negative more than the positive is simply one way the brain tries to keep us safe.

We’re not doomed, however. By not taking things personally, we are reframing these situations, and using our energy differently. Comments that strike us as negative could potentially be a learning experience, even if we feel offended. Always be on the lookout for a learning opportunity, or ways to utilize that energy toward something more useful.

Ask yourself these questions to refocus your energy:

What can I learn from this?

What difference will this make in my life?

How can I change what I’m doing with this reaction (or do I need to)?

What activity can do I do now to take myself out of this situation?

How can I change my thinking pattern to grow from this?

Listen, none of us is perfect. I first read The Four Agreements back in the 90s, and found it useful because it helped me make sense of a difficult situation in a corporate setting. I now find it helpful as both an author and entrepreneur, as well as a mom. Being on social media and online is a crucial part of my business, so I deal with many different types of people constantly. If I took everything they say personally, I’d never get out of bed.

If you aren’t getting what you need from someone or something, remember – it’s okay to withdraw. You aren’t a loser. Maintaining peace in your life and focusing on your healing will always “win.”

Please share your thoughts and comments below.

Do you need help right now? Please contact RAINN at rainn.org or 24/7 at 1.800.656.HOPE

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Read more about Rachel’s experiences in the award-winning book, Broken Pieces.

She goes into more detail about living with PTSD and realizing the effects of how being a survivor affected her life in

Broken Places, available in print everywhere!

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