How to let go of your toxic habits

A fun guide to becoming less stupid

I have some seriously toxic habits that affect my ability to function in the world effectively. All of these habits sometimes turn me into an unhappy and self-conscious human being.

In the last three years I have touched rock bottom and come back up. Some may call it depression or breakdown, I call it spiritual awakening (thank you Brené Brown for giving a different perspective)

During this period of emotional breakdown (or spiritual awakening) I started dissecting all of my toxic behaviours, to understand the cause behind me being unhappy, basically I set out to figure out why am I so weird (and sad). In the process of understanding my mess, I have managed to figure out ways to eliminate quite a few of my emotionally toxic habits from my life.

I am sharing my research (diary entries) here, see if you can find something that you suffer from or relate to, so if the solutions that I formed make sense to you, you can overcome it too!

Being attracted to the lord of meanies

I have always had both a fear of authority and an urge to please authority.

Do you remember that episode from Friends where Monica forgets to invite Rachel’s mother for Rachel’s baby shower. Monica is absolutely unnerved because Rachel’s mother will not talk to her properly now so she spends the entire episode trying to get Rachel’s mother to like her.

It was like that with me, it did not matter how many people in the room loved me, my focus was constantly on that one person who din’t like me, I would try my best to talk to that person to figure out the cause of their disinterest in me and try to change that by charming their pants off.

This need to please authority stems from my childhood, where I really wanted to win my parents’ approval because they were stingy with praises and generous with criticism.

So my mother has this scary and annoying habit of rolling her eyes whenever I do something stupid and when I was young for some reason my behaviour turned out to be inappropriate and deserving of the eye roll all the time. Whenever I got the scary stare — she would even mouth “See what happens at home” while staring — I knew I was a goner. So I grew terrified of the death stare and after a certain age I became an expert at judging people’s body language and facial expressions, especially to ascertain if they like my behaviour or not.

When I entered a room, I set out to figure out who was the most powerful person in the room and who had the most weightage in that group dynamic (basically who I should be afraid of disappointing because their approval would affect what everybody around that person thought of me) and then most of my conversation and pleasant mannerisms used to be directed towards this queen bee or king Charles (?) so that I could win over or impress them.

But over time I grew more and more tired of this habit because my true nature is extremely carefree, I like doing whatever I want to do, irrespective of public opinion (which is why my parents used to be so pissed with me in the first place) but because of conditioning and heavy fear of disapproval first from parents then peers I became a weird sycophant who only did or said what others wanted to me to do or say.

And then (thankfully!) rock bottom arrived in my life, my three year old relationship ended, I did not know where I stood with my career and almost everything was going wrong in my life, to the extent that I even considered suicide. In the middle of all of this chaos I quit my job.

To keep myself afloat or out of sheer frustration (I can’t say for sure), I started writing about my feelings on Facebook. I wrote about how I truly felt, for the first time in my life I felt like I was being who I was in public, I felt extremely vulnerable but it was also very freeing and no nobody ordered a beheading for me but there were a lot of people who were being extremely nice to me and appreciating me for being so open about my feelings.

That is when I decided I am never going to do anything, talk about anything or write about anything, to impress other people anymore.

Even on Medium, I write for myself and I am here to interact with people who are either like me or understand me. I don’t care if my language is not serious enough or if don’t sound intellectual enough, if I have advice to give I will, if I have a story to share I will and it’s okay if a group of cool (intellectual) people are sitting in a circle with their laptops open, roasting my sensitivity and use of slang to discus serious issues, I am only going to focus on the ones who are already impressed by me.

Trying to be boisterous

I used to be extremely loud, boisterous and outgoing — personality traits I forced myself to acquire because most of my friends were that way and they got a lot of attention because of it. Also, I was scared if I did not provide enough entertainment to other people they will stop hanging out with me. But in reality I am very quiet and reflective. Now when I go for events or parties (if I go at all) I usually sit quietly until I can have a conversation with somebody I am comfortable with or I can relate with.

If you decide to make this transition keep in mind that you will have to answer questions like:

Are you fine?

What happened to you suddenly?

Why have you become so silent of late?

Are you sad?

Are you depressed?

Master — smiling with the Indian head bob (or a shrug if you are not from India)

Pretending to like things that I don’t really like

I have been pretending to do and like shitty things that really bore me because of it being a social requirement that, I show excitement towards:

1. EDM
2. Girls night out
3. Discussing what’s new
4. Sleepovers where people sit and talk
5. Bandage dresses
6. High heels
7. The college life
8. Birthday parties (when it isn’t me or my boyfriend who was born on that day, I am excited for my boo always!)
9. Weddings (when it isn’t mine)
10. Screeching loudly because you met old friends after long
11. Missing people because you haven’t seen them for long
12. Posting long messages on Facebook for somebody’s birthday
13. Calling people on their birthdays
14. Saying I love you and hugging friends when drunk

I will not do any of this anymore, there I said it.

Ignoring the weird people I love

I am majorly ashamed of this kind of behaviour, there was a time when I thought hanging out with cool people is all that I needed in my life to be successful and happy.

While chilling with such cool and posh people, I used to blatantly ignore the people I love.

Has this ever happened to you, where you feel frustrated thinking, why does everybody want to be friends with that bitch you hate and how come nobody is dying to be friends with you like that? Have you thought of why a group of people (like the plastics in Mean Girls) seem so alluring and powerful that everybody wants to be a part of that group?

There is a reason for it.

People want to be in such groups because the members of such groups prioritise each other. No matter how mean the plastics are you know anybody who messes with one of them is dead to all of them.

Everybody likes to be a priority for another person, but a person who cannot prioritise himself or herself can never make somebody else their priority. Also, the reason everybody loves the bitch you hate is because she loves herself and believes she is special that’s why people think the same way about her.

The exact opposite happens with a person who is bullied, people somehow know that this person does not love herself or himself and they treat that person the same way.

I am not saying bullying is right, I cannot possibly say it when I have faced my fair share of it. What I am saying is when I learned to make myself my own priority, I was able to prioritise the people I love over others because now it isn’t about who likes me, it’s more about who I like.

Comparison

Fun fact: If Indian parents don’t compare you to the neighbourhood kids they lose their citizenship.

There was this girl in my school let’s call her Miss Sunshine, she was exceptionally good looking, talented and scored very well at any test, my parents would rush to see her score before they saw mine so they could remind me that my performance needed improvement, they wanted me to be well mannered like her and they wanted my face to be not-so-tanned and more fair, like hers.

I din’t even realise when I developed the habit of dong the exact same thing without their help.

I rushed to see somebody else’s Facebook profile to see which exotic location they were vacationing in, I constantly checked LinkedIn to see who got the latest promotion and vigorously checked Snapchat to remind myself what parties am I not invited to.

And after doing all of this research I would compare other people’s lives with mine and no matter where I was in life or what my life was like, it always fell short.

For this issue I took to a simple solution, I do not have a profile on Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram or LinkedIn anymore.

Self blame

If somebody did not like me I blamed my inability to be a likeable person and not their bad taste. (So stupid right?)

I am not a race horse anymore

Back in my childhood my parents had in place a very sound and logical (not) reward based system at home. Where we (my brother and I) were loved only when we did something good like score well and severely punished for making even the smallest mistakes (you drop milk on the floor you die!).

And this system made me feel like a race-horse, and for the longest time I remained a race-horse, where to win my parents’ approval I tried to create an improved version of me and to be the winning horse, I had set my life goals firmly:

earn a hundred million dollars;

get at least three degrees and;

be married to software engineer.

Recently I realised that I don’t want to be a race horse anymore. You know how I realised that, by failing, when I failed at keeping a long term relationship alive, when I failed at getting a job at a law firm, when I failed at getting my second degree, that’s when I finally realised, I can fail, I made some mistakes but guess what, I am neither dead nor hanged to a cross (phew!).

Also, my masters did not abandon me on the road, they obviously flogged me a little bit (just kidding, okay fuck it, I am Indian you know I am not kidding), they just started preparing me for the next race until one fine day I decided to tell them — I am a person and not a race horse.

For very long I resented my parents for treating me like a race horse but the truth is I was tired of running in the wrong direction — and I kept running without even protesting.

Honestly, it’s not my parents’ pressurising nature that I hate, it’s kind of cute (they may read this blog at some point, I love you mom and dad). It’s just that I pressurised myself to do what my parents pressurised me to do too and when I failed at it, I was very severe on myself. When I finally decided to rest for a while (I took an off for one year where I did absolutely nothing), I stopped being angry at my parents.

Now I that I am up and I am gently walking in the right direction I don’t mind my parents’ jockey-ish behaviour anymore. For instance my dad asks me everyday what my following on Medium is and then he tells me Mr. Mehta’s son’s food blog has a million followers and a book deal. I just smile and nod.

Not saying no

I remember this innocuous incidence that brought about a big change in my life — it was one of those small decisions that you take that completely changes the way you deal with similar situations henceforth (I don’t use henceforth in real life but I grew up learning victorian english, do you know any book that can teach me contemporary connectors?).

So, what happened is, it was my really good friend’s birthday and I had to go and celebrate her reaching twenty three with twenty other strangers but my body decided that on that very day I was to have an anxiety attack, I was feeling extremely distressed and did not feel like going at all.

Up until then then I felt extremely guilty for bunking anybody else’s important event (I considered – I really feel like drinking today – also an important event), I would drag myself to every party, gathering, wedding, baby shower, graduation there was because I wanted to be there for people on their happy days, also I did not really have a reason to say no (I am tired, I am anxious, I don’t feel like, did not sound like good enough reasons to me).

But on that day not only did I not go for this party, I gave no reason or explanation for not going, on that day, I learnt how to say no.

I know you must be thinking, really, this, this changed your life? Well I am happy that you are a well adjusted person (freak) but I did not know how to say no okay, so be nice.

Waiting for Validation/Approval

I wouldn’t say or do anything till I knew the kind of people who gave me validation were around. I wasn’t able to crack any of my (super) hilarious jokes unless I knew people who were going to laugh at it, were around me.

(This is because most of the times people just stare at me blankly when I crack jokes, if you think I am funny please tweet to me, please!)

Constantly worry about why other people are reacting badly to me

If I say something and the other person’s face drops or if somebody tells me I am weird or tells somebody else who comes and tells me that, that this other person thinks I am weird (why would you do that insensitive friend) it sends me packing on a mission, I bring out my white board and start creating flowcharts dedicated to figuring out why this person thinks I am weird, I will analyse all aspects of my behaviour, maybe it’s my weird laughter, maybe I talk too much, maybe I talk too less, oh I know what is it, that joke I cracked on his mother not cool.

What is it god? What is it?

SURABHI <resounding voice>

Is it you god?

YES

Do you always talk like this — in high pitch surround sound?

YES, IT’S FOR EFFECT

Why do they think I am weird?

BECAUSE YOU ARE

Ummm, ya I guess.

Expect everybody to be good to me all the time

As much as I joke about myself, I cannot take other people cracking jokes on me it makes me feel like I am being targeted, this is probably because of all the targeting I experienced as a child (too many oh! you have big breasts you must be a horny person jokes, high school is a pathetic and a mean place) any sort of group roasting gets me riled up.

So what do I do?

I crack all the jokes that other people can crack about me before them, so I can beat them to it.

Jumping to conclusions

I assume everybody is devil’s godson (or daughter) but turns out they are red from going to the provision store in the afternoon (It’s thirty nine degree celsius in Mumbai for heaven’s sake).

Trying to control situations and people’s reactions towards me

Before going anywhere I used to imagine every conversation that I was going to have in my head. So say I am going for dinner with a friend, I would think about how it’s going to be, what will he or she say, how am I going to react, and then how the other person is going to react to my reaction and so on. More often than not, I ended up disappointed or upset that things did not go as I planned in my head.

Also, it hurts me that I do not control the world, this is the one power I deserve to have. If you are tech savvy and own a mobile phone with 4G connection in your lamp and you end up reading this post Genie, my first and only wish is world domination.

Trying really hard to fit in

From wearing bandage dresses to laughing at ridiculously lame jokes, to making small talk about how I think Justin Bieber has redeemed himself with songs like Sorry, I have tried really really hard to fit in but unfortunately the discomfort on my face when talking to people is way too obvious.

You know what, I am a record holder for being told “be right back” by people (Number of times people used excuses to get away from me — 135466478489).

Expecting people to be perfect

I expect everybody to be extremely authentic and I want them to mean what they say and not have one devious bone in their body, maybe because I am like that. I mean what I say, I do what I say and if I make a mistake I own upto it, in public – in front of strangers on medium (Hi, y’all charmed by my personality I am sure?)

But I have realised everybody cannot be like me and nobody is perfect (not even me), sometimes people do weird things and you just have to accept them warts and all, in fact, most of my close friends are the people who infuriate me the most.

I have understood that I cannot be friends with or be in love with only the good parts of a person and avoid all of their bad qualities if I do that, it will be like skipping all other parts of Gossip girl except for those that involve Chuck and Blair (who really cares what Charlie is upto?) but if you want to follow (a very retarded) storyline you have to watch it all not just the episodes that involve the dramatisations of the kind of love-hate relationship that you aspire to have with the love of your life (I don’t have issues, I swear I don’t, stop it, stop looking at me like that).

Doing things for others only so that I can get something in return

When I was a teenager I was at the peak of my pathetic-ness. I was 15, I had created a photo-diary for my best friend for her birthday — it was a diary with our pictures and loving messages. After that between the period of her birthday ending and my birthday coming (which is six months), I dropped a million hints saying that I need to be given a handmade gift for my birthday too.

I don’t think I would have done half of all the affectionate and sentimental things I did, if I dint want to have all of it done back to me.

Now I don’t do that sort of a thing anymore, if you are my friend all you get for your birthday is a drunk friend.

Getting too involved with situations

Whenever I read any book or movie and there is a messed up character I think, oh! this is so me, this is what my life is going to be.

If somebody is bitching about somebody else I start wondering, oh does somebody think I am annoying too, maybe I am, wait I am annoying!

I see a random tweet by somebody who doesn’t even know I exist, I think, maybe it’s about me.

This can go on.

Only solution to this is, don’t think.

Constantly Overreacting

Go read jumping to conclusion, after jumping to conclusions I end up doing unnecessarily dramatic things like deleting people from Facebook, deleting my Facebook account. Creating a voodoo doll of them and poking pins (not true, also, if you don’t like this article and you get stomach cramps it’s a pure co-incidence).

Anyhow, now if somebody says something mean or weird about me, I remain calm and I don’t overthink it, instead of defending myself I just think, what an asshole or what a bitch and move on.

Gossiping about people who gossip

This one is so stupid it that it doesn’t even measure upto all of the stupidity above.

I feel very angry at people who gossip or talk about other people and the only way to vent my anger towards such people is is to talk about them angrily or in a very mean way.

But what’s the difference between me and them then?

I am not saying become subservient or a saint and be nice to everybody like Melanie Hamilton from Gone With The Wind or any Indian soap opera Bahu (wife). Call a bitch a bitch but telling the whole world this bitch is a bitch again and again is kind of being bitchy too, don’t you think?