In a far, far away place sits a place called passive aggressive island. And I was their ruler. All lame jokes aside, being passive aggressive was how I handled everything. I was basically a coward. Because of my fear of conflict I opted to go the sneaky route... being passive aggressive.
It's not my main method of dealing with problems anymore, but I suspect there have been times I've slipped back into it. Most times without even realizing what I was doing.
For those who never visited the island, let me tell you a bit about it. Passive aggressiveness can take many forms. One of which is trying to give someone a secret message in a round about way. Most times that I would do this one of two things would happen. Either I wasn't obvious enough and no one ever got a message or I was too obvious and it just created a lot of tension because everyone knew what I was getting at.
Being passive aggressive wasn't fair to the person I had a problem with because they never got to talk with me about it. When I was vague about an issue, and went public either in a blog or in conversation or sharing within a group of friends it was more of an attack than an invite to talk about things.
What healed me of this horrible condition is also a great example of how passive aggressiveness halts all conversation. There are some people that have been in my life for a long time. They have always been very passive aggressive towards me when they come to my home. Blatantly ignoring me when I say hi or talk to them, interrupting me and excluding me if I do engage in conversation, and going as far as cutting me out of family pictures that I was in. Not being respectful of the way I choose to live or raise my kids(I won't give examples of that) is the straw that broke the camels back. I had to know what the deal was. So finally after years of this, I asked. And the response was that there was no problem. So every time these things happened, I would ask again, "have I done something to offend you?" And every time the answer would be "no, thing's are fine." Things obviously were not fine.
Being on the other side of the coin sharpened my tush right up! It was insanely infuriating! I felt like just enough was done to let me know that I was a problem, but in ways that there would never be a discussion or resolution. There have been other times that I was 99.99% sure a comment was given specifically for me, but it was given in a way that I couldn't talk to the person about it because it was clouded in a "general" statement. I have come to accept the unfair attacks as how humans deal with life these days.
Today I am so far on the other side of being passive aggressive that I *have* to talk about an issue. I can not pretend that there is no problem when something won't settle. Now, this is different from telling everyone everything they do that bothers me. When there is a real issue and I am bothered big time, hurt even, I need to talk about it and get it out in the open. A week is usually my lucky number. I let at issue sit for about a week and if it's still there, I go to the person that hurt me. I do not write blogs about it (I only write blogs when it's a government official that hurt me or a general rule of society that bugs the heck out of me), I do not put posts on facebook meant for "specific" people to see, I do not share within earshot of a person something I think they should hear. I used to do these things all the time. It was my main way of dealing with anything that bugged me.
I am fortunate enough to live in a community that wants me to talk about hurts if they don't go away easily. I live in a community that doesn't have the "me first" mentality so when I say I've been hurt, no one goes on the defensive. My family in Christ is extremely humble and makes it a safe place to be honest.
Sometimes I think I am really sensitive to things, but when I look at all the passive aggressiveness out there in the world, I see that we all feel these things. Only so many of us have been conditioned to be passive aggressive with our problems.
It has been in my mind and rumbling through my thoughts to write aobut this taboo subject for a little while now. What used to be a defense mechanism (and still is), is now how humans relate to each other.
I can promise you that if you read this, or any of my blogs, I will never write about problems I have in our relationship if we ever have any. There was a time when I would have, but not now, not for a while. I am a recovered passive aggressivist and I'm not going back.
Thanks for reading!
Love,
Jackie
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