Being Difficult

Has anyone ever told you that you were too hard or difficult to deal with?  I know that I have been told this, but the more I have thought about it, I realized that oftentimes, I have heard this when I set up and enforced boundaries.  People will sometimes say that you are difficult to deal with or just a difficult person in general, because you are not easy to mess with. 

When we put up boundaries, thereby letting people know what we will and will not tolerate, and actually enforce those boundaries, are we actually being difficult?  I say that we are not.  We instead are letting others know that certain behaviors and characteristics will not fly with us.  It is not always that we are being difficult, but rather we just do not allow people to mess with us.  We are saying to them in no uncertain terms, “I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but you are not going to treat me like that, talk to me like that, or act like that around me.”

Unfortunately, some people have been able to manipulate and gaslight so many others, that when they meet someone that they cannot manipulate or gaslight, they are surprised, and simply label you as difficult.  They have met their match, and they often do not know what to do about it because they have gotten away with such behavior for so long.  They clearly see that they cannot get into that space with you.

To that I say, keep being “difficult.”  Keep being a so called “pain.”  Oftentimes it’s not really you, and I would imagine that 99% of the time, it’s not that you are too difficult to deal with, but instead the other person cannot handle your boundaries.  In fact, they cannot stand the fact that you have boundaries in the first place, and actually put a barrier up that they cannot penetrate.  Instead of them actually owning up to the fact that something is wrong with them and their behavior, they label you as difficult.  If they admitted to themselves that it is them and not you, they would see exactly what it is.  They would see themselves as the fool that they are. 

Keep being difficult, as you live your best life in this realm of existence.