Carpets and doormats

I have spent my life being a distinctly average, decidedly GOOD girl. I got good grades at school. I won a prize for music. I did ok at A levels. Yes, I kissed boys and drank cider but I was mainly just... average. I didn’t stick out. 

Deliberately. 

At first school I was honest and open about loving reading. I revelled in nerdiness and embraced the geek. I talked with my very average, neutral accent without thought of whether it made me different. 

It did. In a small village school filled with the children of farmers I stuck out like a whacking great hypodermic in their haystack. I was bullied relentlessly from 8-14. 

So at high school I learned the art of people pleasing. I made sure to blend in. I didn’t challenge the people who took my dinner money or who copied my homework. I didn’t snitch. I didn’t complain. I smiled, looked at my shoes, kept my head down. 

I became a doormat. I didn’t go through the teenage anger or moods that most girls do. I was just quietly polite. Helpful. Kind. 

I did what I thought would make people happy. 

I went to uni. Trained to teach. Got a job. Met a man. 

Let him insult me, demoralise me and abuse me every day for six years. 

I didn’t leave him. I didn’t want to rock the boat. I didn’t want to upset anyone. So I quietly let him cheat on me, push my friends away, use my money whilst I kept house for him, waited on him and “serviced” him at his command. 

He left me. I didn’t scream and shout. I didn’t hurl things. I split everything 50/50 (well actually 40/60 because I didn’t want to be greedy and leave him without stuff). I calmly, quietly removed myself and the “embarrassment” that I caused him from his life. 

I worked hard. Really hard. Too hard. 

“Cate will do it!”

“Cate, you can stay after school can’t you?”

“Cate won’t mind driving!”

“Cate has sorted everything I’m sure!”

I didn’t miss a single day. No sick leave even when I was seriously sick. I was a dedicated team player. 

I took the fall for things but never the accolades. 

But it was ok because people liked me. People thought I was NICE. I had FRIENDS because I was this nice, unassuming girl. 

A useful, much used, hard wearing doormat. 

In the past two years I have spoken up about four things that I felt I couldn’t stay silent about anymore. 

1. The LGBTQ rights in a foreign country
2. The extortion of & withholding of a large sum of money by a friend that almost saw me lose my home
3. The bullying of younger staff members & inappropriate handling of this in a school
4. Someone sexually assaulting me

In each of these incidents I have popped my head above the proverbial parapet. I sloshed water into the boat and caused some waves. 

I every case I have drawn SERIOUS fire. 

• I lost my job, my home, friends... EVERYTHING. Overnight. Gone. 
• I lost a 30 year friendship & was told that my depression made me a “burden”. The 8 year old me is still crying about those words. 
• I lost out on a job that I really DESERVED to have because I was too much trouble & not the right “fit”. 
• I lost friends, confidence, the ability to form a secure and normally healthy sexual relationship with a man, professional standing and I am STILL experiencing people distancing from me on Twitter. 

I think perhaps I even took more flack BECAUSE I have always been such a nice, consistently average person before. 

How DARE the mouse roar!!!!!??? 

There’s been a lot of talk of sweeping things under carpets, choosing a new cleaning method and the like. 

Lots of people have staked a claim to a spot of the moral high ground. 

So, here I am. Finally realising that, by keeping others satisfied, I have suppressed my feelings of unfairness for far too long. 

I am still a good, kind person but I am evolving: I’m less doormat and more boot scraper. Still useful and functional but if you don’t watch where you’re going I’m capable of taking a chunk out of your shins. 

It’s hard being the person who destroys everyone’s illusion of you. The anger and hatred directed at you is unimaginable. People don’t like it when the reliable things in life change. 

But change I have. And those that don’t like it will one day recognise that it takes a lot to push the girl looking at her shoes into the woman who stands straight and speaks her mind. It takes a HUGE dose of unfairness. It takes being pushed too far. 

There’s no way back now. I must learn to handle the displeasure of others: no matter how irrational or illogical. 

I must get used to people hating me. 

Hard for someone who has always left the dust to settle, the carpet to rest and been the doormat for others. 

Hard. Something I’m sadly having to become.