It’s really a difficult one, not because I don’t know the answer. The answer is simple. Well, I’m a follower, a vulnerable woman type, and there was a time when the rebel archetype was very much present in my psyche. The problem is not the answer, but how to put it into words.

The modern world, our everyday reality, insists that you must be a leader. A leader in work, a hero in everyday life, and a mighty conqueror when it comes to your private life. Or the same words, but the other way around. There are people for whom it is natural, there are ones who can pretend to be this in order to fit others’ expectations, and then there is… Here I am.

When my mental health is doing quite well and I’m stable, I’m quite passive, introverted, and not really a straight out of Heaven genius when it comes to material reality. And I’m kind of fine with what surrounds me, if it doesn’t pose any threat. So, I’m not into making active changes for its improvement just for the sake of change.

I’m not good at working with others as a team – and it is important for being a leader. You can’t be one without followers. I don’t have that level of social energy, I guess. I enjoy supporting and helping people, and give a lot of energy to this, but once again, I don’t have as much inner resources to carry someone on my back all the way. It is easier for me to interact with people who have a stronger character than mine.

It is easier for me to acknowledge someone’s decisions and rules than to establish my own, especially because I have social anxiety and a fear of rejection, as I had a very difficult beginning of my life. I was an outsider, bullied mercilessly, and couldn’t find any glimpse of consolation at home either. I see that many people wrote that you should be a good follower to be a good leader, but not when you are psychologically broken by your surroundings and view people more like a potential threat than as your team on which you can count.

And sure thing, I’d rather be protected and led by someone I trust (like my husband, and trust is important), because, well, I’m not good at protecting myself unless I’m in overcompensation mode. When the topic of protecting myself appears during my therapy sessions, I don’t have much to answer. I’m blocked.

When it comes to being a protector, I actually have two modes: being vulnerable and searching for protection, or the over-compensator mentioned above already, which my psychologist and I call the Black Wings. It’s a state in which I’m unable to control my aggression at all: it overshadows my mind until I’m defeated and vulnerable all over again.

It’s usually triggered by situations that remind me of being bullied or mobbed during the earlier days of my life. I then become vindictive, poisonous, very rebel-like (one against the crowd fight), and then I’m usually broken – well, that’s how one against the crowd usually ends.

It also can be triggered by seeing that someone offends a child or tortures an animal – so basically if the weaker one suffers. I become overprotective then, and I also can’t control it. I’m just stubbornly trying to make things right.

When I still had my manias, my overcompensator’s mode became full-blown, and I lived in a rebel state all the time. I also was addicted to adrenaline, charismatic, very brave, and wasn’t afraid of initiative and risk (still like a rebel though, not much of a hero-leader), but it also cost me much trouble and destruction in my life, so this was not good. These were just rare glimpses of energy peaks, where I could pretend to be the one who I never was, but whom I desired to become so desperately.

Sure, I used to see my intelligence and creativity as areas of my power, but one thing is to be independent and sharp in your intellectual realm, and another thing is to overcome your anxiety, introversion, and vulnerability and lead others, taking responsibility for someone’s actions. These notions are not equal.