I learned an important lesson in my anger management classes: no one is responsible for my emotions or my actions but me.
Before that, I basically allowed anyone and everyone to influence my emotional state. I reasoned that if someone did me wrong and I was angry, I had every right to take my anger out on that person.
And the same can be true of other negative emotions, like anxiety and sadness.
The most important lesson I took away from that and from my own healing is that I have to be responsible for my own emotions.
But to do that, I had to first become aware of subconscious patterns like these. And if you’re making other people responsible for your emotional state, you may find them uncomfortably familiar, too.
1. You repeatedly ask for reassurance, but it doesn’t last.
It’s normal to want to seek comfort and assurance from someone you care about. However, many people find themselves in relationships where they are regularly seeking that reassurance. The good feelings and the comfort never seem to last as long as they would hope.
This isn’t so much a problem with the person doing the assuring as it is trauma-driven behavior.
Those who struggle with anxiety, abandonment issues, or other mental health issues may constantly need that reassurance because they are attempting to self-soothe.
Their nervous system may be on high alert, for whatever reason or no reason at all, and they are looking to the people they trust to try to calm it down.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Comfort may provide a little short-term relief, but the feeling will usually come back quickly because it hasn’t addressed the underlying issue.
2. You expect others to anticipate your needs with no communication.
“If you really cared about me, you would know!”
How?
No matter how well someone knows you, people still aren’t mind readers. There’s no way for a person to know what you need or what your boundaries are if you never express them clearly.
Hints and insinuations through context clues will usually only result in frustration as that person misses the signs. Some people just don’t read signs and nuance well.
Personally, I don’t play this game in relationships anymore. Healthy communication is how everyone gets their needs met.
Instead, I ask questions like, “What is important to you? Are you working on anything you need help with? Is there anything you need from me?”
But the other person needs to be able to communicate their needs and feelings clearly; otherwise it’s not going to work.
Other people are not responsible for regulating you, particularly when they don’t even know what the problem is.
3. You make your bad moods everyone else’s problem.
As I mentioned, I was guilty of this kind of behavior for years. I was angry and depressed, and it was infuriating to be around other people who looked happy.
To me, it was a reminder of everything I was not, and that I could never have.
Thus, I felt perfectly fine making my bad moods everyone else’s problem, because why should you be happy when I’m not?
I eventually realized it was a selfish, self-centered way for me to be.
So instead of continuing to do that, I worked on ways to improve my moods myself, or I would just step away from the people.
I would avoid going to events where I knew other people would be happy and having a good time, because I wasn’t emotionally stable enough to control myself yet. And that was no one’s problem but my own.
4. You feel rejection when someone sets a boundary.
Boundaries get kind of a bad reputation at times. That’s often because people who make others responsible for their emotions view boundaries as walls that will keep them out.
Instead, I prefer to think of boundaries as filters.
A boundary says, “You can have access to me in this specific way, if you follow this rule.” And everyone is entitled to having boundaries to determine how they will be treated.
The reason why we shouldn’t look at a boundary as a rejection is because it’s not one.
You’re allowed access, but you can’t treat me in a way that I don’t like and expect to maintain that access just because you feel rejected.
Boundaries are necessary for a person’s safety and well-being. When you treat them as a rejection, you are essentially asking someone to protect your hurt feelings over their well-being, instead of managing your own feelings yourself.
5. You punish people emotionally when they don’t respond how you want.
A person who blames others for their feelings will usually lash out with punishment when those feelings are hurt.
This punishment may come in different forms, but the silent treatment is one of the most popular. It’s a way to try and manipulate people into giving in so that the person giving it can regain control and feel better.
But you cannot (and shouldn’t try to) control how other people respond or what they do. All you can control is your own actions and reactions to these situations.
Doing things like giving the silent treatment, avoiding the conversation, or saying things like, “You know what you did,” will eventually destroy relationships.
Good relationships are built on healthy communication. When everyone is able to express themselves, you can resolve the situation or find a compromise.
But if you’re a person who retaliates when you’re unhappy, all you’re going to do is push people away from you. They won’t know how to interact with you, and they will just pull away.
People tend to follow the path of least resistance. In this situation, just not bothering with emotionally manipulative games is the path of the least resistance.
6. You believe someone who hurt you is also responsible for fixing it.
This is a trap that will keep you locked in misery for a long time.
The reality is that there are a lot of people who do terrible things, who aren’t sorry at all. They aren’t going to fix your hurt or the damage they caused because they just don’t care.
In some cases, they may even enjoy the fact that you’re miserable because they feel like they have put your emotions under their control.
One of the hardest things we need to learn to do in life is to forgive people who never ask for forgiveness.
That doesn’t mean to accept the terrible things they do. That’s where boundaries enter the picture. Instead, it means acknowledging that, hey, this person isn’t exactly healthy and doesn’t make good decisions.
I can either tear myself up over it, or I can just let it go and ensure they can’t do it again.
It would be great if people would have an epiphany, learn from their mistakes, and grow; but in my experience, that doesn’t happen all that often.
Don’t waste years of your life waiting for an apology that will never come.
7. You can’t tolerate someone feeling angry, unhappy, or disappointed in you.
Sometimes, you’re going to let other people down. Sometimes, you’re going to set boundaries they don’t like. Sometimes, you’re going to do things that make other people angry.
If you make other people responsible for your emotions, you’re going to feel a strong pull to correct that issue, but you want to make sure it’s actually a problem to be solved before you do.
Just because someone is unhappy with you or feeling negative emotions about you doesn’t mean they’re right.
Maybe they’re wrong, or trying to do you wrong, and your boundaries have interfered with that.
The right course of action isn’t to change your boundaries; it’s for them to change their actions to respect you.
At some point, you have to learn to let other people feel how they feel, regardless of your actions.
Final thoughts…
There’s no better thing you can do for your mental health than to take responsibility for your own emotions.
I’ve been on that journey for a while, and it is so much more peaceful in my brain because of it.
It’s now rare that other people can evoke emotions in me without me questioning them or shutting them down when they’re unwanted.
I can’t control the actions and emotions of anyone but myself, just the same as you can’t.
Trying to do that just leads to a life of unhappiness.
