I am an independent worker at the place where I work, meaning I'm "one of a kind" employee there, with different academics and experience, and i found that state raises many people's interest on what my job is about. I know maybe I'm oversensitive about it but ever since I started working there I've been *bullied* to reveal my number of holidays, my benefits and specially, how much I'm being paid to do the job I do. I know the place quite well now, and it's a very gossipy environment, which never helped me to feel safe there. Sadly I failed to endure peer pressure and I ended up revealing how much I earn per year, and I regret it soooo much, because now I feel people judge me for what I am earning.

Specially one of the people I work directly with insists on talking to me daily about how much money I make and constantly harasses me about it (I make more than him, and I feel he tries to make me feel embarassed about my job, which is working btw), and I feel so paralized whenever he brings it up, because on one hand I just want him to not mention it, leave me alone and move on, but I'm also completely incapable of telling him, of being rude and ask him to leave me alone. He puts me in this defensive state that I'm incapable of verbalize. I think by now I'll either have to be rude to him or simply quit the job because i let him cross so many boundaries I should have put in place, I think it's too late. I have told him I detest talking about the subject, but that didn't seem to do any effect. I'm just too nice, too incapable of standing up for myself and protecting myself from situations like this. Am I making any sense?

And this is just an example, I found out other situations like this, where I'm feeling uncomfortable over someone else's attitudes towards me, and I'm just paralized and can't be straightforward about it, I end up doing an half hearted attempt that doesnt work (because people don't get me, or they choose not to get me), and later when it becomes too much I just blow up or run away (and I run away a lot!), leaving everyone wondering what the hell happened because they never saw it coming, they never saw my discomfort over it, or maybe they thought I was okay enduring it.

I guess I just trust people to be kind/sensible about my feelings and respect them, with no need for me to set boundaries around me, because, well, that´s just the way I hoped people were raised, people should be careful around other people and should never overstep them. I feel so unprepared for the world outside because being overstepped and abused is something that has happened to me so regularly I wonder how I ever managed to get this far in life.

Can anyone relate?