Fear of Man...

Tonight was for working on the "fear of man". After a highly volatile day ending in my probably having hung up on my dad, I was riled up and upset, so I threw on the sermon JR Vassar gave at the Village Church coincidentally called, "Freedom From the Fear of Man." And I don't have issues with how people feel about me, nor do I embarrass easily, so I never really thought I had a "fear of man" issue. Until today.

A large part of the reason I am the way I am is because of the path I've taken to get to this point. From the very beginning, I haven't had much say in my own life, and I know that sounds victimy, but it's really true. My dad was a single dad with three kids, me being the youngest, and when my mom left, I was only two and my brothers weren't much older than I was. I'm not sure he had a handle on things and so the way he feigned some sort of control was though controlling us in a variety of ways. And as a result, I haven't really felt in control of my person for most of my life. Today, all that kind of came to a head.

Today, I learned that if I start accepting contractual work, I will lose my unemployment benefits. That can't happen. Therefore, I can't take contractual work. No matter what. The only way I can be a contractor is if it ends up paying more than my EI and is stable, which it won't be and therefore, I won't jeopardize the only thing that is paying my bills right now. But since I can remember, I've felt on my own, even when I was living under my dad's roof. We had a roof and food, but nothing else. And I know that that should be enough, but it isn't. We grew up unprotected, unloved and not particularly cared for. His way of loving us was being career-focused, which caused him to be away so much that when he was home, he had a hard time getting us to conform to his dynamic since we had established our own from being alone so much. It was clashy, and in the end, he reigned with terror and verbal abuse, and we never said a word.

When I wanted to pursue snowboarding professionally, I was put down relentlessly. "You're not strong enough. You'll never be an athlete. Get this crap out of your system. It's such a waste of time." Of course, there was no support otherwise either. He came snowboarding with me once, on a day when the halfpipe wasn't cut and was shaped more like a v than a deep u. "You're not very good. I don't know why you think you can make it. Don't waste your time. You're not good enough."

Luckily for him, I smashed my head in and nearly died, which led to me giving up snowboarding, one of the hardest and most regrettable decisions I've ever made.

Not-so-luckily for me, my accident was more fodder for his belittling encouragement. I know that's an oxymoron, but he still says things like, "You've never failed at anything. Well, except going to the Olympics." Like a spear through my heart.

But I never say anything.

Today, when he was putting me down for worrying about losing my EI, I lost it. I'm all I have. I'm all I have. I don't have a job, and if I lose my EI, I'm done. I don't have a safety net. I don't have a support system. I'm all I have. And here he is, telling me what I should and should not worry about and how the reason I'm in this mess in the first place is because I'm lazy and don't care to get a job. I'm in this situation because I don't listen to his "advice".

"Yes, dad. You're the hero and I'm the loser. I know. You make it clear to me every day."

And I hung up, and that sermon made me realize that my fear of man isn't about acceptance or fear of disappointment- I've been a misfit disappointment my whole life- but it's about not being those things. It's about not lifting other people up by throwing myself under them.

After I hung up, I felt terrible. I always feel terrible when I assert myself. I've been around some very, very cruel people in my day, and I just can't be cruel back. People tell me that assertion is not about being cruel but about protecting yourself, but anybody who has felt that awkward post-assertion humiliation from somebody else "protecting" themselves knows that that's not true. There is an element of hurt involved. Nobody likes to be rebuked, even if it's not personal. And I guess, over the years, I've decided not to sweat the small stuff and rebuke when it's important so I'm not painted as the sort of bitchy type who points out everything. There's my fear of man. I'd rather let people hurt me a thousand times than be the bitch about small things. But you know, I'm surrounded in amazingly hurtful people and I always have been. It's at a point where if I stood up for everything that hurt me, I'd never sit. I never could figure out what it was about me that made me such a target. The punching bag.

If a fearful person walks into a dog park, they get swarmed. Dogs jump on them, dominate them, put muddy footprints on their white velour jumpsuit (true story). And with dogs, I'm not that person. If a dog has the balls to jump on me, they quickly learn they will never get away with that again. But I know that dogs take rebuke humbly. If you rebuke a dog, they'll love you more for it. If you rebuke a human, they'll cut you out, or worse, you'll see them get crushed right in front of you. I hate that.

That's my fear of man.

I'll do anything not to hurt a person. And in the process, they'll crush my spirit a hundred ways and I won't say a word. I'll even stay down just so they can feel like they accomplished something.

A friend asked me last week how I find the abusive guys I end up with and how I don't see it coming and I answered, "I don't find them, I create them." And he laughed and said there's nothing in the world that could make him hit a woman. But I do make them hit me. And before you get all, "It's not your fault," or whatever, I know that. But the way I am in a couple is I raise my man up. I give him confidence over time. I make him believe he is far better a man than he actually is. It's a kind of brainwashing, but in a good way. Except for me. Over time, I become a nobody. I pick men who are indifferent to me in the beginning, and gradually, I make them believe they are better men than they actually are, and eventually, they end up believing they are better than me. And that's when my concerns become irritating and tedious. And my requests for respect are met with indifference. If you take a man who is broken, and you make him into a man who believes he isn't, he will feel a sense of power he never had before, and the fact that he was indifferent to begin with makes you, the one he doesn't respect, an easy target. That was the dynamic of my relationships. None had ever hit a girl before me. I made them believe they were bigger than they actually were, except that while they were crushing me, they were too broken and too hard-hearted to realize that if they lost me, they lost everything.

But I knew.

Which is why I stayed.

I knew if I left, the new image they had of themselves would leave with me. Maybe not right away, but eventually. And that's why I have a perfect score for man returns. They always come back somehow.

So the bottom line of this not-so-Biblical post is my fear of man, to which I've been oblivious all this time, this deep fear of hurting people, led to me be controlled my entire life. And not even just metaphorically either. It got me held hostage. It got me assaulted. It got me hit. And the worst, it got me verbally abused over and over and over.

I don't want to hurt people. I want to be lovable. But I'm not Jesus. I can't die for everybody's sins. I'm not some kind of God. If I get crushed, it doesn't help anybody. If I get crushed, I'm letting a child of God get crushed. God delights in me and I let people use me as a punching bag to protect them from their own brokenness. I don't let anybody treat my dogs the way I let people treat me.

I'm not all I have. I have God. God will provide for me. But I really, really have to stop letting people take everything He gives me away from me.

Jesus forgives us, but in no way, as far as I know, did He ever protect anybody from their sin and brokenness. So why, then, would it be my job?