by Miravanni

Created on: June 15, 2009   Last Updated: June 17, 2009

Lies and deception seem to be a friendly companion to most of the people in my Life. As I grew older, I became less tolerance of being manipulated by the people I loved. I started to realize that these people lived in their own illusion, and it was just a matter of whether I wanted to be under the canopy with them. At some point though where do we draw the line, when people's offered help really isn't help and down the line will only make your own life more difficult? Mostly, with my Mother it was a matter of finding a way to twist it enough to make me feel guilty about whatever it was she did to me and my reaction to her doing it.

She was smooth though, she had a way of actually making me feel bad about her hurting me. Like she had this wise saying "I did this for your own good girl tough love strategy." As I grew older and had my own children,I started to see the wheel turn. I remembered what it was like to love someone and them not expect anything from me other then my love in return. I saw the world again through their eyes and how I wanted mine to be,and how I had lost that vision and somehow got that image screwed up into whatever my mother thought would benefit her.

So I got off, I got off the Wheel.My children taught me that life really isn't as complicated as we as adults make it out to be. Love isn't something that if you give too much away, you'll run out of it. I can love and be loved just as strongly and not let people make me their door mat. Maybe because I wanted that for them, I needed that for myself. I want to live up to my own expectations; I no longer want to have the people in my life use my love as a weapon against me.

I have always had the gift of being able to understand people, why they did what they did. I knew their strengths and weaknesses. But the difference between me and my mother is, I used their strengths to lift them up when they came to me for help, she used it to exploit them. She used to treat my gift as a weakness. That feeling and having so much empathy for people made me weak. However, it made me wiser. it made me understand more about people, why they react the way they do and what everyone else is missing. Somewhere along this journey we all stopped paying attention to each other's signals.

If you feel trapped and want to get out, today is the day to start taking responsibility, forgiveness is self preservation. It's not for them it's for you, so we don't carry the anger around. Everyday we make choices, we wake up and decide whether the day will be good or bad. Or whether we are going to allow the people we love to treat us like a door mat. Apologizes are not only about saying you are sorry, they are about admitting your actions affected another person, adversely or not.

We all choose whom we allow into our homes, our lives, and our thoughts. We choose to miss all the signs and ignore the fact that the people we love may not have our best interests at heart, and what we will do with that information. I find takers are the most exhausting relationships, the ones who always seem to need more and give less. We, as adults, have some how allowed ourselves to ignore every sense we possess.

So when you are ready to get off the wheel, you'll choose. You'll make choices everyday, you'll be responsible for your own actions even when it sucks or when it hurts or you are too angry to admit you are wrong. You will stop making excuses for the people you love, excuses that wouldn't even be acceptable to yourselves. You will no longer allow them to make excuses to you either. Avoid the trap.

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