Zander's Inside Voice

Never.

It’s painful to admit that. I have been programmed to never say no. As a child, I always said no. In fact, my parents used to often joke about how my first three words were Dada, cookie, and no. I remember telling them no all the time. For no reason sometimes. When I think back to saying no as a child, all I feel is tension inside me. The verbal battering I faced was always so much. It usually turned into character attacks and me feeling small. Like how dare I tell them no since I am such a horrible person who doesn’t know better. There was never an option for discussion with them. Even if I was doing homework and they felt like I needed to do work around the house, I had to stop my homework to do what they asked. If I still had homework after dinner, and I was told to do the dishes, I would get a lecture about coming right home after school and getting my homework done immediately.

Homework was almost impossible for me sometimes. I’m not even sure how I got the grades I got because the homework was so much. It wasn’t that the material was hard or I wasn’t capable, it was more that it took me a ton of time to get focused after school. I was mostly in honors classes and the mental load was a lot for me, especially with a ridiculous amount of homework for no reason. Things like reading entire chapters in history and answering all the questions throughout the chapter and the summary questions at the end. My senior year I had marching band in the fall and also a part-time job the entire school year. I was up until midnight most nights finishing homework. I guess it was good that I didn’t have to dishes then.

But the end result of that type of upbringing means that I drop something I am working on to help whoever needs it. I always choose everyone else over me and my goals. I figure out how to work these things in and just put myself and my goals behind everything else.

Well, this ended up being a lot more revealing that I anticipated it would be at first read.