Things I Used to Tolerate That Now Make Me Laugh | HTFFA
Personal Growth · Life Lessons · No Judgment
Things I Used to Tolerate That Now Make Me Laugh
I want to preface this by saying: no shame. Zero. We all have a list like this. A greatest hits collection of things we put up with, made excuses for, and convinced ourselves were fine — until one day, from the other side of some hard-won growth, we look back and just... cackle.
This is that list. Mine. And I'd bet my last good coffee mug that at least three of these are yours too.
Let’s go.
Being cancelled on last minute and saying “don’t worry about it!” 😊
Not just once. Repeatedly. By the same person. Who always had a very compelling reason that I always believed because I am, apparently, a golden retriever in human form.
I would then spend the evening alone, having already turned down other plans, telling myself it was fine and that they were just busy. They weren’t busy. They just knew I’d let it slide.
Current me would have deleted that contact after the second time. No text. No explanation. Just gone.
Apologising for things that were not my fault
Someone bumps into me in a supermarket aisle? “Sorry!” Someone gets offended by something reasonable I said? “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that!” Someone is just in a bad mood and breathing near me? “Sorry, are you okay, is there anything I can do?”
I was essentially apologising for taking up space on the planet. I should have been sending an invoice instead.
The amount of “sorrys” I handed out for free. Genuinely painful to think about.
Explaining myself until the other person felt better about what they did to me
You know this one. You bring up something that hurt you. Somehow, twenty minutes later, you’re consoling them about how hard it is to be them. You leave the conversation having apologised, and they leave having been validated.
It’s an absolutely unhinged dynamic when you see it from the outside. From the inside it just felt like trying to be understood.
I have done this more times than I care to count. The sheer mental gymnastics required. I was basically doing their emotional labour AND mine. For free. Voluntarily.
Drinking to survive social situations I didn’t want to be in
Ah yes. The classic “I’ll just have a couple to take the edge off” at an event hosted by people I didn’t particularly like, celebrating something I didn’t particularly care about, wearing something slightly uncomfortable because I thought I should make an effort.
The next morning, tired, slightly rough, I’d think: worth it. Reader, it was not worth it. Not once was it worth it.
These days if I don’t want to go, I don’t go. Revolutionary stuff.
Lending money I couldn’t afford to people who never asked how I was doing
This is a special kind of painful in retrospect. Not only was I giving away money I needed, I was giving it to people who were perfectly capable of asking for it but mysteriously unavailable when I needed support of any kind.
The loans were never repaid. The friendships quietly dissolved anyway. And I learned a very expensive lesson about the difference between people who are in your life and people who are just nearby when they need something.
If someone only calls when they need something, that’s not a friend. That’s a subscription service you forgot to cancel.
Staying in situations that were slowly making me miserable because “it might get better”
Jobs. Relationships. Friendships. Living situations. All of them held together by the optimistic and completely unsubstantiated belief that if I just waited a bit longer, things would turn around.
Sometimes they did. More often they didn’t. And I lost years to the waiting room of “maybe.”
Hope is a beautiful thing. Hope applied to something that has shown you exactly who it is, repeatedly, is just denial with better PR.
Making myself smaller so other people felt more comfortable
Laughing quieter. Having fewer opinions. Agreeing with things I didn’t agree with. Not mentioning achievements. Not taking up too much conversational space. Editing myself in real time based on who was in the room.
It was exhausting. And the people I was shrinking for? Didn’t notice, didn’t care, and would not have done the same for me.
I spent so long making myself a supporting character in my own life. Absolute scenes.
“The things we once tolerated say nothing bad about us. They say everything about how far we’ve come.”
Here’s the thing about this list: none of it was stupid. All of it made sense at the time, given what I knew, what I believed about myself, and what I thought I deserved.
Growth isn’t about cringing at your past self. It’s about recognising the distance between who you were and who you are now — and feeling genuinely proud of that gap.
If past you was doing any of this stuff, she was doing her best with what she had. Give her a break. And then make sure current you doesn’t have to put up with any of it anymore.
You’ve earned the upgrade. 🥂
— Vikki
Comments
Post a Comment