Anita,

Yes I can see the parallels: I was walking on eggshells around my coworker just like I did with my family who rejected me. I never thought of that this way, that this is behavior that started years ago, the pattern I did not invent last year with him, It is something I used to practice most of my life at family gatherings, but also with my mom on daily basis as well as I saw her behavior towards her partner later after my parent’s divorce. Lately when I told my mom about this coworker she told me it reminds her of her ex-partner.. I think I saw too much of fawn response in my life.  Thank you for making me see that this is not a success that he is “polite” to me now, even today when he was extremely polite I know he does not do it for me. He is a performer, a narcissist, he does this to feel superior, to make me feel that is he now acting superior by showing me how merciful and wonderful he is, being polite to me. I know he is a rude person and nothing will change that. I am okay with this and I am happy I walked away from him (His work behavior does not impact me – I work from home, when we do a project together we just send e-mails, I do not worry about this, but still thinking of changing job in the future)

” I think that being passive and people-pleasing is how you tried to survive and to change your extended family’s rejecting behavior: if you are passive, if you do nothing- there’s less to reject;  if you please them- maybe they’ll think better of you and treat you better (or at least, they won’t treat you even worse).” i re-read this time and time again and trying to fully comprehend this. This describes my life so well.

“* As to his motivation, what did he get out of treating you this way? My guess is that it tickles him, he enjoys it.” – Now I understand it. He has been working at home for few months but came back to the office? Why? No one knows. Almost everyone work from home, except for those who do not have space for computer at home or have children, or live very nearby and appreciate morning walk. Except for those people no one wants to commute everyday. He does because he needs people, needs audience. He is friends with cleaning lady, 50ish lady who listens to him, is polite, does not argue with him and looks up to him because impresses her. Even when he has days off he calls her to talk. I now know he needs her, I know how this sounds but I am pretty sure this is one of the reasons.

“* In regard to your work colleague:  if he acted politely toward you all the time, he wouldn’t enjoy himself, it wouldn’t be fun or interesting for him. As I see it, there is no emotional motivation on his part to be consistently nice and polite to you.” That’s all I needed really and now I know there is no way we can even be anything more than people who work together.

“Resolve to only have nice people in the personal settings of your life” Thank you Anita, I will try my best to do that.

As for my family I am aware it is not healthy. I see how my mom visits her mother and still plays this game and I don’t like that. I even told her recently that what happened to me is the result of the family dynamic. But she has her reasons, does not want to argue etc. But I think it still affects me, the fact that she is still doing this.

“I still don’t quite understand your worry about being thought of as dishonest and a fraud.” Anita, thank you for trying to understand and I am sorry if I did not explain it properly. With two of my coworkers, a guy and a girl we sometimes talk, we like each other. They do not seem to like him. But they know he used to say we were friends etc, skipped the part that we did not see each other for couple years. (Sorry if I am repeating myself) One of the colleagues, M. asked me last week “could you make sure you don’t mention any of the jokes we make sometimes to G. (G. being my ex friend, the bully)”. We do not gossip about him but once or twice sometimes would make a joke. I felt like I was accused of being dishonest.  I was yet about to tell M. that we are no longer friends. But still I was concerned that he would doubt my honesty. So I texted him later that day that there is no friendship anymore between me and G. and I do not wish to be connected with him in any way besides work. there is no drama here, just end of friendship and I want it to stay that way. He replied Ok, good to know, thanks for clarifying. But I still worry he may think him and I will make up. Today I was obsessing about how little they spoke to me and I was afraid they do not like me or trust me anymore because I was his friend.

Tee,

Thank you for pointing out “the fawn response” I relate to this so much. Giving up your personal boundaries and limits in childhood may have helped minimize abuse, but this response tends to linger into adulthood, where it often drives codependency or people-pleasing tendencies. Unfortunately this is my life. I do not have boundaries and people walk over me. I show them I do not respect myself. Even when talking in a group I noticed everyone talks confidently, calmly and slowly and I speak fast, afraid someone will cut me off, I always try to say something fast like a kid who is not allowed to speak so it just says something, anything and immediately shuts up. I always try to remember to be more confident and speak like a normal person, but I can’t. I think people notice that and start to not respect me when they see I have no confidence. I don’t know how to change that. I know boundaries are important and to not freeze, to not fawn, but what is the point when I can’t even have the simple conversation. Sometimes I feel like I’m crawling. degrading. I try to watch videos about how to speak, how to behave but when I talk to someone I suddenly forget how to do it.

I’m afraid those who like me now will soon stop respecting me and it will be over.

“Grieving also tends to unlock healthy anger about a life lived with such a diminished sense of self. This anger can then be worked into recovering a healthy fight-response that is the basis of the instinct of self-protection, of balanced assertiveness, and of the courage that will be needed in the journey of creating relationships based on equality and fairness.”

“Yes, in your recovery from the fawn response you will need to set up boundaries so that other people cannot abuse you and disrespect you.”-

I will really, really try hard  to accomplish that, thank you for this, Tee.

And you, Anita.