“It’s hard to believe that the fear of offending can be stronger than the fear of pain, but you know what? It is.”
This line from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has stayed with me over time, and I find myself coming back to it every now and then. So much so that I decided to write about how true it is. Don’t you think that the writer has hit the nail on the head with this line? I don’t know if I am the only one who relates to this line on a personal level or if others feel the same way too. I certainly do, that I know.
The earliest memories of me feeling exactly this way are from my childhood, the episodes of sexual abuse to be precise. One of the biggest burdens that a victim of sexual abuse lives with is the guilt that comes with it. And that guilt often stems from “Did I say ‘No?’” and “Could I have stopped it?” In my case, I don’t remember ever saying “No,” until I did when I turned 14. But I do remember that every one of those times, I wanted to say “No.” I was just too scared of what would happen if I said “No.” Especially considering how all the predators in my case were insiders loved and endorsed by my family, the fear of offending them by saying “No” was certainly greater than the fear of danger that I knew lurked right in front of me and the fear of pain and shame that would inevitably follow.
While I did learn to say “No” in this particular context, out of sheer helplessness and necessity and the inability to take the torture any longer, that fear of offending someone hasn’t really left me. It was a huge part of my misery all my childhood, and somehow, no matter how much I learned to struggle free of the misery, the fear of offending sort of stayed put in my mind.
I do sometimes challenge that fear and push myself to say or do things that might offend someone else but are the right things for me, even when the pain need not necessarily be physical, but emotional or mental. But in every one of those instances, the ones on the receiving end have shamed me for being “stubborn” and “difficult.” Maybe because of that, there is always a delay in me making decisions that are right for me, even when the delay could cost me dearly.
I remember trembling in the back of an auto one evening when I was coming back home from a nearby mall. Hardly five minutes into the ride, one of the driver’s friends got in and sat with him on the front seat, which made me worry about the worst possible scenario already. And while taking the route that would connect us to the crowded highway another five minutes away, he missed the first right turn that Hari normally used to take and went on to a parallel street ahead. It was 6:45 in the evening, not all dark but still dark enough to scare me. And to add to that, this new route hardly had any vehicles or people.
I knew that I should have asked him why he had a friend in the auto when he was dropping me and gotten out of the auto if he was unwilling to leave his friend behind. I knew that I should have asked him to turn back and take the first right turn. I knew that I should have asked him not to take this route. But all of those were “I should haves” in my mind, and I was telling myself that it was too late to ask those now, that the window when I could have asked those was closed.
I could feel a panic attack creeping in, making me shake, making it hard to breathe, bringing to my mind only news clips of women who were raped and murdered. There was a rational part of me that wanted to tell myself that I was overreacting. But the sheer number of news items that came to my mind in less than a minute told me that maybe I was not, maybe I had a very solid reason for panicking.
Still, I didn’t say a word. I hadn’t noted down the number of the auto or shared it with Hari. I hadn’t asked any of the right questions at the right time only because of the fear of offending a total stranger. I hadn’t prioritized the danger I might be putting myself in by letting myself succumb to the fear of offending. I wanted to do something clever that could help me, if at all I was in danger. And the only thing I could think of was calling Hari and talking to him while the driver followed the route. So I did just that.
Five minutes later, when I saw the zooming vehicles on the highway ahead, I let out a sigh of relief, thanking my stars for keeping me safe and alive. But I was in no way happy with myself. And I made a promise to myself that I would never again hesitate in doing what was right for me, even if that meant someone felt offended by my words or actions. It is not an easy promise to keep, I tell you. Because the conditioning from childhood of keeping others happy, even at a risk to yourself, is not something that you can just shake off one fine morning. But I still try and follow through on that promise because I know that it is the only way my girls will learn to put themselves first and keep themselves safe and happy.
Hopefully, someday I will get there and decide without a moment’s hesitation that the fear of pain, the fear of danger, the fear of something bad happening to myself or my loved ones is greater than the fear of offending, whoever it is on the other side.
Also published on Medium.
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