When Gabor Mate predicted my death

A dramatic headline to get you going

Last year I interviewed Dr Gabor Mate and he told me that my inability to say ‘no’ could kill me. Literally. I dug out the interview last night.

‘Let’s say you and I were friends and you had no capacity to say no,’ he said. ‘Say whenever you are tired or don’t feel like it or have many other things to do, I came to you with some kind of expectation, request or demand. And you said, “Yes, that’s fine”. What would that mean for your system?’ 

‘Well, you’re describing my life,’ I tell him. ‘And I’m exhausted.’

‘And that has an effect on your immune system,’ he says. 

Yes, I get every bug going.

‘You’ll be stressed and resentful,’ he adds.  

Yes and yes. 

‘Emotional resentment… when you feel it in your body, what’s going on in your chest and your belly?’ He continues. 

‘My chest is tight and my tummy has a kind of clenching,’ I reply.  

‘So you’re blocking blood flow - we’re not talking about abstract dynamics here,’ he says.

He strongly believes that autoimmune and chronic health conditions are linked to people pleasing behaviour, something I’ve been thinking about a lot with my own ill-health.

‘I worry about nice people,’ he says.**

In his surgery he noticed that there were patterns with patients with chronic illness, in particular autoimmune disease.

‘There were certain character traits that I couldn’t help notice. And these are: a compulsive concern for the emotional needs of others, while ignoring their own, a strong identification with the roles in the world rather than who they were as a person, a repression of healthy anger and number four, they believe they are responsible for how people feel and have a fear of disappointing anyone. I have never met anyone with an autoimmune disease that does not meet these characteristics. All these traits represent self-repression. When you repress emotion, you’re also repressing the immune system.’

He talked about the obituaries of people who died young - all were pillars of the community. Running charities, head of the PTA, always there for everyone, even when they were going through chemo… One man was so devoted to his parents and his wife that he had two dinners every night - with his parents and his wife - so he didn’t let anyone down. The obituary celebrated this madness.

I am no pillar of the community, I am deeply selfish and lazy in many ways… but in other ways I routinely do things to please others. As a recovering Catholic school girl, I have spent a lifetime trying to be a ‘good person’ - a good friend, a good employee. I listen when I don’t have the bandwidth for it, take on the role of therapist/career coach/cheerleader when my own head is barely above water. I pay for things even though I’m in debt, I keep working even when I can’t see straight.

It is never other people asking this of me - it’s a role that I slip into without even being conscious of it. It is me thinking that’s what a ‘good person’ is meant to do.

And I so much want to be a ‘good person’.

I get a lot from that role. I get the reward of being useful and wanted and approved of. I also the moral superiority of being such a saint! Oh and then a martyr! Woohooo! Give me all the medals as I nail myself to this cross! (What, you didn’t ask me to?! Well, how rude…)

Nice-ing is also my way of feeling safe because if I’m busy being a saint nobody can be angry at me.

I’ve realised that I am terrified - actually terrified - of conflict and displeasing people. Some young part of me (excuse the therapy speak) thinks that if I displease people I will go be abandoned (and go to hell).

I feel guilty about not being there for people. Mate says that I’m Irish Catholic and I just need to accept that I will probably feel guilty for the rest of my life…

‘You know pity parties,’ he said. Yes, I replied. ‘Instead of a pity party, throw a guilt party - every time you feel guilty tell yourself, good, this is a sign I have looked after myself. My advice to people is if you are choosing between guilt and resentment, choose the guilt every time. The resentment will kill you.’

I smiled at the idea of putting up party balloons every time I say no but in practice it feels deeply uncomfortable.

It’s glitchy trying to behave differently in the world. When you start saying no the tendency is to blurt it out abruptly which is hard to take for the other person, or you say ‘no’ by withdrawing or shutting down, which is also what I’ve been doing. I’m trying to forgive myself for this - I’m doing my best.

Nobody taught us this stuff, just as our parents were never taught it either.

The good news is since my body started saying no and my mouth had to follow, I have not been abandoned. Everyone has been accepting and welcoming of the nos. When I had to cancel a lot of things before Christmas I expected anger and disappointment but all I got was love and support.

And that’s another thing I’ve realised. When we try to be the one helping everyone all the time, we deprive ourselves of love and support. We also deprive people of the pleasure of giving us this love and support. In the past when people tried to help, I’d go, no, no, I’m fine! Let me help you! I thought that was the ‘good’ thing to do but it really isn’t - not for me or the other person. A healthy life is about balance, giving and receiving, helping and being helped.

Pride makes me want to be the helper, not the helped. It is vulnerable to both ask for and receive help. My book was called Help Me! and yet I find it very hard to let anyone do so! ***

So there you go, that’s all the stuff I’m learning at the moment. It’s a slow process. You can read all the books (and I have!), screenshot all the Holistic Psychologist posts (and I have!) and go to many weird workshops (I have!) and still behave like a four year old (and I do!).

At four when I was overwhelmed I would take myself off to sleep under the dining table. The table cloth went down almost to the floor, so I could hide there and nobody could see me. Before mum knew what I was doing she spent one panicked morning looking everywhere for me. She searched the house and even went onto the road, worried I’d run out. She was on the verge of calling the police when something told her to look around the house again. She looked under the dining room table and there I was asleep with my thumb in my mouth, curled into a little ball. Blissfully unaware.

I think that fatigue and illness is my adult way of hiding under the dining room table.

But I might just be ready to come out.

xxxxx

** He worries about angry people too. Mate believes that while people pleasers make themselves sick with autoimmune and chronic health disorders, people prone to bursts of anger, have own health risks, namely high blood pressure and heart attacks.

*** Speaking of which, over the years several of you have been kind enough to want to contribute money to this newsletter. NO, no, no! I said, while paying rent on credit card. I didn’t want to take money from anyone because I felt like it would be charging friends for an email. BUT/AND it was foolish to turn down offers of help when actually I needed help. So if this newsletter is of use and value to you, and you are in a position where you can afford to contribute, I would be so grateful. I’ve just switched on the payment options and thank you so much to those of you kind of enough to pledge money before now.