I harbor a great deal of frustration surrounding the idea of standing up for myself vs. being difficult. Historically, people who stand up for themselves and generally make life difficult for those people they’re standing up against, are put down in history as martyrs, revolutionaries, and overall strong individuals. But when I stand up for myself in my day to day life I just feel like a pain in the ass.

Without going too much into the politics and “social norms” of it all, I think that we can all agree that people, women particularly, but all people are generally expected to do a certain amount of swallowing their pride and going with the flow. If they didn’t, people would be dying on their hills left and right and nothing would get done. Theoretically, society and life as we know it would come to a standstill.

Have you ever heard the quote that a lot of modern day feminists and revolutionaries continue to cite mercilessly?

“Well behaved women, seldom make history.” Me too, I hear it all the time. Admittedly I had no idea who said it so after a cursory google search it turns out it was a Pulitzer Prize winner named Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, which is neither here nor there but credit where credit is due I suppose.

Anyway, whenever I’m feeling like I’m being overly difficult in a situation, I do tend to remember that quote and feel better. But I’m also frequently reminded of something my mother said to me recently which was: “I was trying to figure out why people are having so many more problems in the workplace recently, and then I realized that we had the same problems back when I started working but we just dealt with them.” I’m certain my mother wasn’t trying to tell me to just grin and bear it while being treated unfairly, but she does make a good point. At what point am I as a person being too difficult in standing up for myself to function as a member of society?

Growing up, and even now, I always had a hard time standing up for myself. I’m honestly not sure how much of it was society imposed as I’m sure many people think it was and how much of it was my history of having crippling anxiety and depression and being in an abusive marriage later in life (a story for another time). Regardless, I was the person who would always go balls to the wall if anyone needed help in any circumstance; no problem was too small, no concern was silly, and no feelings went invalidated. But for some reason, when it came to myself, all of my problems were no big deal, my concerns were me overreacting, and my feelings were just part of my mental illness; something for me to deal with.

Though I have gotten significantly better in most of those respects and I’m getting better standing up to people in my immediate circle if I need to, I’m still having trouble with standing up for myself to people in a position of power. How much of my day to day should I just ignore? When should I put my foot down and say enough is enough? When is that acceptable for me to do so? Do I give a shit if it’s acceptable for me to do so? At what point does standing up for myself become me being needlessly difficult?

When you look back on history, it always seems like the choices were clear and well outlined. When someone stood up for themselves against authority it always seemed, justified. When Rosa Parks died on that hill of not giving up her seat, nowadays we sit there, read the history, and think to ourselves; “damn straight she didn’t.” But back then I’m sure it was a nuisance, I’m sure that she at some point thought to herself, “Am I just being difficult?”, “Will anyone actually care or remember that I did this? Or am I just making things hard for myself for no reason?”

Whenever I make a decision to stand up for myself, put my foot down, say something, or whatever that choice may be; I have those same questions. Am I just being difficult? Will anyone actually care or remember that I did this? Or am I just making things hard for myself for no reason? And more often than not I look to the people around me, asking their opinions and if they think I’m being unreasonable I’ll just drop it.

I think I’d like to get to a point in my life where I feel confident in my choices and I don’t care what anybody else thinks. But, I think that everyone wants that and I honestly have no idea if we will ever get there. I hope so.

Every day I struggle with the choice of standing up for myself vs being difficult and I wish I had a more solid answer to that question, but the truth is that I don’t. If it were straight forward, then it wouldn’t be a problem I suppose; but it’s something that I continue to look for the answer to every day.