No is not a four letter word

Lots of people who see me in therapy treat “no” like a four letter word.

Many people feel guilty when they say no.  They think it makes them selfish or rude to set limits with others.  They worry that they may hurt feelings, or they will not be liked.  Worse still, they may fear being abandoned by the people they love if they put their foot down about something.

This makes me sad.

These folks are suffering from something I call “no-phobia”—that is, the fear of saying no.  (To be clear, this is not an actual diagnosis or anything– just a handy term I coined to describe something I see often in my practice.)  You may have heard of them by other names, too— the people-pleaser, the doormat, the overachiever, the martyr, or the nice-girl or nice-guy.

You’ll often see no-phobia served alongside a heap of guilt, an endless to-do list, and a confused sense of responsibility about what is owed to oneself and others.

The stakes are so high for no-phobics – I mean, really, who wants to be rejected or abandoned?—that folks rarely test these fearsome theories or try new things to see if their relationships can tolerate some “no” every now and then.

No-phobia is defined and explained in a lot of different ways—poor boundaries, an upbringing in a family that provided love contingent on performance or conformity, a need to overachieve or prove one’s worth to others, a lack of assertiveness, a fear of rejection, conflict, or abandonment.  Whichever way you slice it, there’s no denying that no-phobia is a fast road to a depleted and unhappy life of obligation.

People struggling with no-phobia are hounded by a sense of obligation and are often living by an invisible, often unconscious, set of rules that insists upon self-effacement, being pleasing at all costs, or martyrdom as a means of securing love.

The truth is no-phobia creates a nasty cycle.  The no-phobic is pinned in place by these fears so much that they persist in their campaign to be endlessly agreeable and kind.  Initially, they may enjoy being in the good graces of the people around them and bask in the glory of being the go-to giver of a group.  In the end, however, the no-phobic finds herself exhausted, burned out, and trapped under a heap of unwanted obligations.

The fact is, a person petrified of disapproval or conflict will say yes to everything, even tasks they hate.  So it’s no surprise that no-phobics can quickly become overscheduled with distasteful commitments, and they boil over with anger or seethe quietly with resentment.

Ironically, the no-phobic may find the relationships they worked so hard to safeguard ruined by outbursts of anger or depression resulting from the inevitable overextension and depletion that result from refusing to say no.  The people around them flee from a no-phobic’s anger and edge away from their persistent grumpiness.

Meanwhile, no goes underground.

If you won’t say no, your body will.  At best, you may find yourself feeling snappish, irritable, and fatigued as you struggle to set boundaries with others.  At worst, you may have medical complications or conditions that develop or worsen as a result of abandoning yourself to the will and desires of other people.  Irritable bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, lupus—these and many other medical conditions are stress-sensitive.  And, there’s no worse stress than having your body operate as a vehicle for someone else’s agenda because you can’t say no.

No has other ways of going underground.  You may find yourself lying to others to avoid conflict or obligation.  Here, your relationships with yourself and others will suffer.  Persistent lying undermines your personal integrity, and it also hollows out your relationships.

Withdrawal is another way that depleted no-phobics can cope.  Depressed, depleted, and discouraged, they may trade deep and authentic friendships for the safe emptiness an absent or impoverished social life—a world where no one can make demands upon them because they disappear themselves from the public domain.

A no-phobic will sometimes act out their no.  They may use the very tools that were used on them in childhood to protect themselves from the demands of others—guilt, manipulation, or other passive-aggressive strategies that permit them to say no without actually having to say it.

If you suspect you are a no-phobic, I have good news for you.

Saying no is actually a public service.  By saying no, you can teach people the importance of boundaries.  It allows you to chart your own course in your life, taking time for the things that truly matter to you, rather than being driven by others’ agendas.  It gives us all a reality check in this hasty, multi-tasking world that everyone has limits on their time. Your time has value, just like everyone else’s, and there’s no shame in reminding others of this.

I know that saying “no” can feel like a big leap of faith.  So, for now, let’s just play around with the idea of practicing no.  If you’re needing help dismantling the unrealistic expectations that others have of you after years of living no-phobically, check back next week.  I’ll be offering an explanation of where no-phobia comes from and will offer a few tips on how to experiment with the no in your life.