I was supposed to be a career woman with a supportive husband and a couple of rugrat-clones making me old with pride. I have neither the career I wanted nor the supportive household I needed. I'm overweight, depressed, traumatized and now on meds. The road to recovery is stigmatized with fear and disappointment.
I've taken these steps before with a therapist, and with the whole year of seeing her leading to something that would probably have put me here anyways, I decided to quit. I would just suffer through it being the stubborn one. And for a while it worked. It worked so long as I didn't have to fear where I would be putting my head down the next day. When I was on my own again, the anxiety of being the sole provider for myself stressed me out of my mind. Mostly because I knew my history of employment; I couldn't stay with one employer for more than 6-8 months and it was usually met with me quitting and not having something behind it. I just grew dissatisfied with how I was treated, not realizing that it was my behavior that caused me to be ignored, to go unappreciated and often used as a scapegoat for someone else's bad behavior.
I don't know what it is about me, my face, my attitude or my demeanor but I am often treated as a welcome mat at best and a urinal at the worst. Someone that most if not everyone goes around ignoring or mistreating for their own benefit. Yet I also don't have the image of someone who needs help, so those who would or could help defend or protect others who are being mistreated ignore me as well, leaving me to fend for myself.
I am often a person who will give people the benefit of the doubt until they mistreat me or someone else. Yet in my older years I've gotten more cynical from this treatment and I don't know what I've done to received it. I've hated the idea of having someone come to my rescue but it seems that's what I need.
I've never liked the damsel in distress in stories and movies. Coincidentally I've never really liked myself either.