Have I ever told you that in addition to the occasional sleep paralysis and a history of sleepwalking, I suffer from night terrors? I sometimes scream and thrash about in my sleep; I’ve woken up with bruises from punching myself over and over in a dream induced state. It’s just one of the side effects of my piss-poor relationship with sleep—and luckily, Bobby is a very deep sleeper. Recently, I woke myself from screaming so loudly, but it didn’t even faze his slumber. I had to check to make sure that Bobby was still breathing. 

Last night, there were no night terrors. No sleep paralysis, no horribly sad nightmares that I can remember. It was a different kind of dream—somewhere in the league of “I just realized I haven’t gone to my class all semester and now it’s time for finals!” and “Oops, I forgot to wear clothing and now I’m naked in front of a crowd of people!” I call them my anxiety dreams. That’s probably not to the proper term, but I’m no dream expert.

Anxiety dreams can take many forms.

Much of the time, they mirror real life worries; I can’t seem to check my baggage at the door when it’s time for sleep. Sometimes they’re cloaked in textbook symbolism: my teeth falling out, trying to scream and nothing comes out, falling, driving a car I can’t control. Other times, like last night, they’re quite literal and extremely boring. Teeth fully intact and feet firmly on the ground, I dreamt that someone asked me to DJ a party and I couldn’t find a way to say no. I think that’s about as deep as this one gets:

I sometimes have trouble saying no.

I’m not a DJ. Even if you think—as a writer I met once joked—that all a DJ needs is a hat and an iPhone, I can say with the utmost confidence that you do not want me to DJ your next party. My playlists would be a disorienting mix of upbeat 80s crowd-pleasers mingling blithely with tinny 20s melodies. She wants what she wants.

So why did dream state me say yes to DJing a big party (something I dislike) at a club (something I ultra dislike)? Because real-life me would’ve likely found herself in a similar predicament. To be clear, I tried to say no in my own way. I danced around the actual two-letter word with responses like, “I don’t know how to DJ” and “I don’t even own any cds” (because in my dream, CDs were a requisite) and ultimately landed on, “Okay, I’ll do it,” when the fictional party thrower said, “Please, you’re my only option and I know you’ll be great!”

I spent the rest of my dream researching DJing in an absolute frenzy and asking Kim for help building a modern playlist. (With the help of her stack of cds). Just when I was plugging the CD player into my laptop, I had a panicky thought of “Wait, how will I smoothly transition between the songs?” and then woke up in a jolt.

As far as dreams go, this ranks below Very Good Dream but high above Someone Is Trying To Murder Me.

It’s much like my normal life: riddled with anxiety about the dumbest, most nonsensical issue of displeasing a perfect stranger. A decade prior to recklessly committing to imaginary DJ gigs for fear of letting someone down, I had the opposite problem: I couldn’t say yes. My social anxiety and fear of failure were so crippling that I would turn down coffee dates and life changing opportunities alike. After nearly curtailing my present day career by wiggling my way out of every opportunity that came my way, I found myself staring down at an invitation so intriguing that it prompted me to throw caution to the wind and say yes.

Nerves firing on all fronts, I hopped on the train and made my way to a meeting that would ultimately kickstart the next 10 years of my career and reward me with beautiful friendships. Once I was there, it wasn’t nearly as scary as I’d imagined. So I made a promise to myself: I would start saying yes. If fear was the only thing holding me back, even if every fiber of my being wanted to just make up an excuse to stay home, I would say yes.

I largely credit my success to that mentality.

No matter how much I doubted myself, I just said yes. When I was asked to be in a global campaign, I didn’t respond that I wasn’t a real model, didn’t steer them in the direction of a better fit. I said yes. Business dinners with a bunch of strangers became a norm for me. The same girl who would call her mom for a pep talk before going to a familiar acquaintance’s gathering. Saying yes to things that could possibly enrich my career or my social life was a game changer. But at some point, I muddied the waters by marrying this method with my life’s role as a helper (enneagram type 2!) and applying it to all the things I didn’t actually want to do.

To my detriment, I started overcommitting to people who didn’t deserve my time. Handing out favors to people who would never do the same, and giving too much of myself in general. I worked for free all too often. And went above and beyond for people who dropped me the second they no longer had any use for me. My self-esteem took many hits. Still, no matter how little time my personal and professional life left for gratuitous favors and commitments, I found myself incapable of saying no.

My predictable improv answers of “Yes, and,” began wearing me thin.

Unrealistic turnaround for a project? You got it! Want me to do that for free? Not a problem! We haven’t talked in years but now you need a monumental favor? Good to hear from you! I went from tip-toeing around refusals to tap dancing my way through you betchas and forgot to leave anything for myself — or sometimes, the people and projects that truly mattered. When it comes to many things, I still stand by choosing yes over no. And will always help if I can and should (again, type 2). But boundaries and general guidelines are a must. And I overlooked those in my desire to do a complete 180 and be the girl who did all the things and never let fear hold her back.

I like to think I’ve gotten better over the last couple of years. But I know I still need some work. A dear friend and colleague of mine, who also has a hard time saying no when necessary, once gave me a stock answer for anything I can’t or don’t want to commit to: “It’s not possible.” It leaves no wiggle room, requires no explanation, and gets straight to the point. Of course, I worried it sounded a little too harsh and dressed it up with “I’m so sorry,” at the front end when I tried it, then ultimately used variations of it such as, “Unfortunately I’m too busy and cannot X at the moment” or “Thank you for thinking of me, but I’m not the right fit for that,” and so on and so forth.

And you know what?

The world is still turning and approximately zero people have rioted in response to my polite refusal. I learned that it’s good to say yes but it’s also okay to say no. And even just the act of managing expectations can save myself a lot of grief.

Dream me, however. By golly, she certainly gave it her all. She’s probably still panicking her way through a stack of CDs in the worst DJ set of all time, trying to please someone and letting them down anyway. I couldn’t stick around to see it; my consciousness freed me from that embarrassment. Eyes wide open and chest still tight with pre-party jitters, I dragged myself out of bed to make a cup of coffee, turned on some relaxing 50s Hawaiian tunes, and wondered where Spotify was in my time of imaginary need. Typical. Remind me to never pay them a favor.