Are you expected to act a certain way?

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My entire life I've been very quiet and when I was younger I always kept my opinion to myself. However as I grew older I started at times to stand up for myself, I stopped others from taking advantage of me and I got angry when they showed me no respect.

And guess what their response was: How dare you stand up for yourself. People expect me not to get angry, even when I'm well within my rights. Not only that but they expect me to compromise, give up something so that they can have something because I showed no interest to things earlier on. As a kid I just accepted everything, I sat on my own and did everything by myself. Others would take control of my life make decisions on my behalf. Now that I'm older they still expect the same of me.

Can anyone understand?????
Do others expect only a limited range of behaviours from you????

When I was growing up, I was expected to be cheerful all of the time. If I wasn't, I'd be punished.

Thus my appreciation for the irony of, "The beatings will continue until morale improves."

Yeah, I've been there. People are selfish - they expect you to compromise when it's going to benefit them. They call you selfish and are offended when you don't put their interests before your own, even though they've never put your interests before their own. It's not your prior behavior - they would do it anyway. thats what I've seen in my life, anyway.

The first two posts = the story of my life.

Now that you're older, just don't take it anymore. Get angry. If they call you psycho (happens to me) or whatever, say "Who cares?"

I think it's something about the way I carry myself that makes people think they can walk all over me, take advantage and that I won't put up a fight. They don't understand when I do. Their problem.

Also, families don't accept easily a newly born emancipated you. Sometimes they don't accept it in a lifetime. More often they come to terms with it, after a long time of testing your new boundaries and you have to keep a tough front for years to convince them the change is permanent and there's no going back.

My relatives used to put me down for being somewhat dependent on them for day-to-day living. Now that I'm fully independent of them, they bag on me for being "uppity."

Yes. I can relate. In high school, kids acted like they didn't want me to care and they wanted me to ignore them and pretend I don't notice them, so that is what I did and what do they do? They say later on I don't care and I pointed out to them I do care but they just tell me to shut up and mind my own business when I try to join in their conversations and ask them what's wrong so I figured they want me to ignore them and then they told me to just drop it.
On my softball team I was told to not worry about it.


I had a difficulty time with my dad's cousin. At first I didn't have a problem with her and my mother couldn't understand why her brother in law complained about his cousin until we moved to Montana, then she saw why. She is very judgemental and opinionated, and does passive aggressive behavior. Even she couldn't get along with her even though she tried and then decided one year she was done with her. My dad's cousin expected me to act a certain way and no matter what I did, it was always wrong. So I started to keep my mouth shut when she was around because it always pissed her off when I spoke. My mom told me the only way to make her proud is if I didn't have Aspergers. She thinks my parents screwed up raising me and they were the cause of my disability. She makes all these assumptions about people and then doesn't want to listen when you try to correct her. She calls it hearsay.

My family has also acted like I wasn't allowed to have feelings and express myself.
In elementary school, I was taught to hold in my feelings because crying was for babies. My mother get mad at me every time I cry and she tell me to stop crying like a two year old.


My ex also acted like I was ret*d or something and seemed to expect me to change my interests. I never told him watching teen shows makes me feel like I'm with a teenager. I was fine with what he liked to watch but to him teen shows were acceptable but not shows that were aimed at the younger audience and Nicktoons, same as movies such as Disney animated movies. Hey Spongebob has some adult humor in it I hear so I'd assume it was aimed for all ages.
I was also an embarrassment to him because my hyperness was bad, my stimming was bad, my curiosity was bad, my jokes were bad, my anxiety was bad.
He was also needy so to him I didn't give him enough affection. How much hugging and cuddling does he need? It seemed like he wanted it every minute he sat down.

As the others have said, you are doing the right thing. You are coming out of your shell and standing up for yourself. It is their problem, not your's.

I was very defiant and very opinionated already from early childhood, I always wanted to speak (or scream) out my mind and often had outbursts of anger. I also wanted to take part in every grown-up discussion and that caused my parents loads of embarrassments (*they* were embarrassed, I didn't care ;p)

my mom used to tell me that because I am a girl I should be nice and quiet and keep my opinions to myself and just go clean after the boys and bake cakes and play with dolls (she was a religious conservative) and my whole growing up consisted of being told off for my behaviour.

then at school I usually didn't take part in discussions because I had a bunch of very loud males in class who always argued their points without letting anyone speak their minds ;p but to be honest I was a guest at school so I didn't really have a chance to witness much of that.

then at Uni I decided that "shy" is not the real me and that embarrassment is only in the eye of the beholder. so I took part in all discussions where I had something to say, usually monologuing about things I felt strongly about and I never cared about saying things that were inappropriate.

I find it hard to talk to new people because they seem to expect certain behaviours of me that I have no clue about. I tend to treat everyone equally and people have all those behavioral rites of passage that you have to go through before you can speak like equals. they have weird power and hierarchy relations that I have no clue about. so I just act like myself and end up an outsider every time.

I think some people have so pigeonholed me as being shy, that they would really be surprised to know what I was thinking.

I'm the same, It took me yeaars to convince my dad I wasn't shy.
I kept telling him the only reason I don't talk to people is they have nothing I want/need, not because I'm shy.

I was expected to act "like everyone else". That worked out well...

Dad: "Fnord, why can't you act more like your sister?"

Me: "You mean, you want me to start wearing dresses?"



... that earned me a busted lip....