"No one makes you feel a certain way"...and other garbage....

[uniqueone]

I read this on another thread and wanted to comment on it:

 

And no one makes you feel a certain way...we are responsible for the choices we make and sometimes those choices reap rewards and sometimes they reap pain...

 

 

The guy who broke up with me once said some things that really upset me--during the time we were seeing each other. I told him how he made me feel and he threw that line at me that "no one makes you feel a certain way". He told me that HE didn't make me feel that way....that *I* did.

 

See..with him....he NEVER admitted fault for anything. He always had a way to turn it around. And you couldn't argue with him either....he was ALWAYS right.

 

So when I hear that line "no one makes you feel a certain way..." I say it's a bunch of crap! Yes, people DO make you feel a certain way.

 

Say you're in a relationship with someone and you just come back from a romantic weekend with them, they tell you they love you and kiss you goodbye. You find them that night in bed with someone else and find out they've been doing it for months. You feel crushed....humiliated...sad...hopeless...unwanted...angry...

 

And say your partner comes up to you and says "I didn't make you feel that way........YOU made yourself feel that way."

 

Well....after you get done killing them......do you REALLY think it was YOU that made YOURSELF feel that way???

 

I'm sorry....but I don't buy it.

[norajane]

I guess the message behind that is to make sure you take responsibility for the choices you made that led up to the situation, to see your own part in creating the situation, and to accept your faults. It also helps to own your choices because that makes you feel less out of control - facing up to your choices and actions means it's not something that someone did to you because you had options.

 

And I think it sometimes also applies in situations like, "oh, he made me so miserable because he didn't call, or he made me so happy because he called today!" Your happiness should come from within and your own self-confidence in yourself.

 

But, like all sayings, it doesn't apply in all situations! Sometimes you really are dealing with scum and neither your pain nor the situation was enabled or created by you and your choices, there were no signs you could have seen, and you can't help your reactions to other people's actions...other people whom you decidedly cannot control.