Trying to be nice but not taken advantage of

[Aspergers_Aspie]

Does anyone else struggle with being nice/polite but not taken advantage of? Struggle with autistic masking? Not sure when people are being serious or not? I struggle with volunteering, work and study for these reasons and others, I also have mental health conditions and sleep problems, alertness and feeling exhausted are factors.

 

[TBRS1]

Being polite without allowing others to take advantage is definitely a hard problem.

For me, I have found that it helps to think in terms of "limit" - what am I willing to accept.

For example: a friend needs to borrow money, and I suspect my friend will probably forget to pay me back (not all friends are entirely reliable .

So I figure "my limit." I ask myself "How much am I willing to give to this person," on the assumption that the "loan" will actually be "a gift," which won't be repaid.

This way I can just give my needy friend some help, and then completely forget about it.

Knowing one's "limit" and not allowing one's self to be pushed beyond it, helps.

 

[Outdated]

There will always be people in the world that will want to rip you off but if you lose your faith in humanity and become untrusting then they have succeeded in destroying your happiness.

"If you lend someone $50 and you never see that person again then it was $50 well spent."

In Aussie culture someone asking to borrow money is a definite red flag, we tend to have little respect for people that can't stand on their own two feet and sort their own problems out. Other than that it's about setting boundaries, lines that you will not cross and will not allow other people to cross. Consider your own time and commitments in exactly the same way as TBRS1 mentioned money, set yourself limits and if someone asks for more then the answer is No.

 

[Rodafina]

I have struggled with this my entire life. As I’ve mentioned so many times, I learned to be a people pleaser very early in life. Getting affirmation from others was my way of surviving much of the chaos happening in my head. For far too long, I took this way too far, and I have been taken advantage of many times in life.

I’ve gotten a lot better about not putting myself in those situations anymore. I am proud to say that this has not made me less willing to help and support others. Instead, I have put my energy into identifying people that are willing to take advantage and develop developing strong boundaries in those situations. I know for sure that there are people that I can trust to not take advantage of me, and I get a good feeling from being helpful toward others.

I certainly still have a lot more to learn in this area, but I have come a long way from being a very quiet doormat for people to wipe their feet on.

 

[tree]

I can't think of any situations where people are trying to take advantage of me.

Maybe I appear to have no advantages to offer.

Sometimes people have asked me to read items they'd received in the mail because
they were having trouble making sense of them.

Spoiler

Now that I think about it, that nonsense with a relative expecting me
to sign over an insurance policy to them because they believed my mother should have
assigned it to them----that probably counts as trying to take advantage of me. I consulted two
lawyers and did not relinquish the policy. That was 10 years ago.

 

[Kitsuna]

Yes, unfortunately I’ve dealt with this. I didn’t learn how to create boundaries with people until 2015, so it was easy to walk all over or manipulate me prior to that.

This book was my starting point. It’s Christian, but if you’re irreligious, it’s still applicable because you ignore those bits.