One of the most common reasons for seeking help from a psychologist is the fear of standing up for one’s rights. Moreover, this fear is always neurotic in nature. It is based, firstly, on a neurotic fear of losing a “good” attitude towards oneself, and secondly, on a lack of ideas about how to psychologically competently protect one’s interests. As a result, a person drags and pulls in order to begin to defend himself. He suffers one insult after another, one violation of his rights and interests after another. He usually considers his patience to be a positive trait of his character, because patience is generally considered a socially approved quality in society. In addition, people who are afraid to do anything to defend their rights, which are unceremoniously violated by their boss or someone one of the insolent colleagues, or the “other half”, or the relationship partner, or parents, or other relatives, or “friends”, and so on, usually name an “iron” reason for this: “I’m afraid of ruining the relationship.” But at the same time they like to emphasize: “but if I’m completely pushed, then I’ll “explode like three hundred tons of TNT” (c)!!!” The fear of ruining the relationship is quite understandable. But from the point of view of transactional analysis, the one who endures all the insults and all the violations of his rights and interests, in order not to “ruin the relationship,” unconsciously strives to completely ruin these very relationships. Why? Because he doesn't give feedback. And any system without feedback (including a system of relationships) will one day collapse. Moreover, when a person does not protest against the violation of his rights and interests, against the offensive or unfair treatment of him, he thereby makes the situation even worse, since by his silence and patience he gives a sign that he is satisfied with everything. I wrote about this in the note “Neurotic Silence” here: https://www.b17.ru/article/125560/Accordingly, the behavior of someone who violates the rights or interests of this person becomes more and more defiant. And this is not surprising, because the violator does not receive any intelligible feedback and may well be completely sincerely confident that he is doing everything correctly and everyone is happy with everything. What do you call someone who silently and stubbornly endures for a long time without expressing his dissatisfaction? Maybe the word “tolerated”?... “Turtle-Terpilla”... But seriously, speaking in the language of transactional analysis, the one who endures actually not only endures, but accumulates resentment coupons so that he can accumulate a lot of them , he could “exchange” these grudge coupons for a “super prize” (analogous to how people collect “promotional” sticker coupons in supermarkets, so that later, having accumulated a lot of them, they can be exchanged for something “more valuable”). Transactional analysis claims that a person never “simply tolerates”, but unconsciously does not give feedback (does not protect his rights) precisely because he always “accumulates coupons of grievance”, and when he collects a sufficient number of them, in his opinion, he will definitely exchange them to allow oneself to allow an inadequate outburst of anger, a loud ugly scandal, a complete break in relationships, or even a physical attack on the offender. The situation becomes irreversible when it is no longer possible to say: “Let’s forget everything!” (Murphy’s Laws: Ferguson’s Rule) But in order to for the situation to become irreversible, in the overwhelming majority of cases it is necessary to endure for a very long time, pretending that “everything is fine.” The point is that the one who endures insults and unfair violations of his rights and interests, from a psychological point of view, is not much psychologically healthier than the one who insults another or unfairly violates his rights and interests. Both play games: One plays “Got a scoundrel”, the other plays “Beat me”, one plays “Persecutor”, the other plays “Victim”. But as soon as a sufficient number of coupons have been accumulated, the parties change roles: the “Victim” allows himself a “senseless and merciless rebellion,” turning into the “Persecutor,” and the former “Persecutor” himselfbecomes the "Victim". When a person suffers insults and unfair violations of his rights, I am reminded of the famous cartoon about Winnie the Pooh, where Winnie tried to steal honey from the bees, and these same “wrong” bees begin to bite him for it. Let me remind you that in this Soviet cartoon, Winnie the Pooh hung in a balloon near a hollow with bees, tried to steal honey from them, and the bees bit him hard for this, and Winnie’s paws became numb, so he could not release the balloon from them to fall to the ground and escape from the “wrong bees.” Winnie the Pooh asked his friend Piglet to shoot the ball so that he, Winnie, could go down to the ground. Piglet said: “But if I shoot the ball, it will spoil,” to which Vinnie reasonably remarked to him: “And if you don’t shoot the ball, then I will spoil!” I call this “Piglet’s Choice”: decide for yourself what What is more important to you is such “good” relationships (which actually destroy you) or your psyche and your health. One thing can go bad. It’s up to you to decide what exactly. Well, most importantly, as mentioned above, if you endure, it means you are unconsciously accumulating coupons, precisely in order to later exchange them for “scenario payback” (“attack of anger”), in order to unknowingly destroy this relationship is final and irrevocable. And for the sake of this, it turns out that you endured everything? To “save” the relationship like this later? What was the point of suffering for so long then? Better a terrible end than horror without end. (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) The fact is that a psychologically healthy type of behavior is polite, friendly, correct, but very firmly and clearly in each case, immediately stop attempts to insult you, or unfairly violate Your rights and interests. Yes, by giving feedback that you do not like it when your rights and interests are violated, and demanding the cessation of such behavior, you in some way risk spoiling these “good” relationships, but at the same time many times more It is likely that only in this way is it possible to maintain good or at least acceptable relations in this case. If someone encroaches on your rights, then it is always better to give feedback immediately that you are against this and demand that this stop. because: Firstly, if you immediately begin to defend your rights, you simply will not be able to experience strong negative emotions about this. You will react to them immediately, which means you will not be able to accumulate and lovingly grow a monster of resentment within yourself. Secondly, if you don’t immediately defend your boundaries, people who encroach on them will very quickly get used to the fact that this is how it should be. It will later be much more difficult to wean them not to violate your boundaries: people are slaves to their habits - they will get used to the fact that they can behave this way with you, and then try to wean them off this, the relationship will most likely end. Thirdly, it is much better to immediately respond to what only -it just begins to boil, rather than accumulate and carry this negativity within you, which, like sulfuric acid, eats away at you from the inside (you will have fewer psychosomatic illnesses, for example, that’s for sure). Fourthly, they will begin to respect you - since they respect only those who respect themselves: only those who do not allow themselves to be offended are not offended. Respect yourself, or no one else will respect you. Respect yourself, otherwise no one will Respect you. (English proverb) That is, to any attack against you, a psychologically healthy response will be your reaction to immediately protect your rights and interests: firmly and clearly, but at the same time friendly, polite and correct. By the way, today there are a large number of communication techniques developed by psychologists that allow you to effectively defend yourself from insults and beautifully stop attempts to violate your rights and interests, without resorting to retaliatory insults and behaving politely and correctly. For example, it is recommended even if you have full the right to demand, nevertheless, first use the “I ask” formula, and only if it does not work, move on to the “I demand” formula. In fact, they have long been developed and.