Angry yet Assertive

Anger scares me. I am not the most assertive person, and I do recognize that is a weakness. I want peace and harmony and avoidance of conflict. Until I get angry, and then sometimes I say things without the appropriate level of measure. But sometimes I need to say things, and I need to stand up for myself.

I still have horrible guilt over how I let myself be bullied as a child. I remember standing on the playground, often alone, in junior high. I would let the popular kids accost me, rattle me, burn me with statements meaning one thing but conveying another. I let them storm away from me, huffily pronouncing they were just trying to be friendly. But in reality, they were trying to get a rise out of me, and I was not going to dignify them with a response. What I really should have done is told them they cannot treat me that way. They are not allowed to make me feel inferior.

I eventually closed myself off. It was easier to withdraw within myself, disappear into a rapid imagination that often made fantasy and stories and on-screen entertainment the kind of reality that allowed me to get up in the morning. And that came crashing down at least twice: before senior year and half-way through my Freshman year in college. And maybe again at the beginning of Sophomore year.

Friendships cured much of that, and developing relationships where people loved and accepted and respected me. But I've always wanted to please others, and that is to my detriment. That lobster analogy of the slowly simmering pot is always something I am aware of. And if I had seen that arise to a boil immediately, as opposed to gradually and erratically, then I may have become assertive at another time.

What I am trying to say is I need to stand up and defend myself, and not think of myself as a 12 or 13 year old girl. But it is hard to change that conception of yourself, even a quarter of a century later. So what to do?