Page 7 of The Christmas Yes List

I nodded reassuringly. Smiled widely.

But when I caught his eye, there it was again, against my deepest of wishes: a warning bell going off in the middle of my stomach. The pieces of something sinister were starting to draw themselves together.

The requests he made replayed in my mind more slowly this time. Backdating entries to clear last quarter. Changing the invoice to another vendor. Of course I could do these things. But so could he. Here. Past seven thirty on a Monday night. Then the changes would be flagged under his name. Traced back to him. As it was, he was making this request of me, behind closed doors. No cameras. Why was the door shut again?

And the most obvious thing of all was the silent, dreadful message he conveyed as he held on to that doorknob and looked me dead in the eye. There wasn’t even a hint of facade in his gaze. He was telling me, Remember, Chloe, your loyalty lies with me.

Sweat prickled down my arms, and whatever color was in my cheeks fled straight to my heart, which began beating like a drum in a rock band.

But I was most afraid of my thoughts.

Because the scariest part of this whole interaction was the realization that I was actually torn about what to do. I wasn’t too stupid not to see that he was asking me to do something deeply fraudulent, and I wasn’t afraid for my safety (though that would’ve been logical, Chloe), nor was I torn due to my own greedy desire to move up the career ladder (which would have been wrong but at least understandably tempting). The reality, even in this moment, knowing who he was and what he was asking, was that I was terrified to disappoint this man. Thoughts were swirling around in my head as I questioned whether it was not the worst idea to COMMIT FRAUD AND POTENTIAL FELONY simply in order not to make this man—this lazy, selfish, unappreciative, thoroughly sexist, morally defunct man—happy.

And he not only knew I would feel this way—he’d counted on it.

That was the moment I realized I was sick. And needed a change. Immediately.

So I did what any sane twenty-five-year-old single woman in an abandoned, security-less office would do and gave him the ultimate lie of my life. I reassured him I would do it straightaway, fed him some convincing argument about wanting to tidy up his office with the hint that someone may have found it suspicious otherwise, and after a few extremely slow minutes in which I piddled around with a smile on my face, he packed up and went home, thoroughly satisfied by my promise to email him as soon as I got around to his “little errands.”

The moment he was out of sight, I packed up what few belongings I had and slid out the door.

And two hours later, he did receive an email. My resignation. The very first step as I braved the way toward mental recovery. I displeased him (even if it was from a distance). And it was a victory.

I did actually throw up after.

Then, after working my way through some pints of ice cream with my roommate while I regaled her with the saga, in the wee two o’clock hour when my mind couldn’t stop whirring, I found myself doomscrolling in the dim light. And discovering the extremely popular social guru Dr. Yelensky and his bestselling book on the topic of rejection therapy.

And within twenty-four hours Rejection Therapy: Reprogram Your Day to Reprogram Your Mind was covered in highlights and bookmarks. The final two pages were circled multiple times. And I was absolutely committed to the ridiculous but simultaneously incredibly logical self-help plan.

Rejection therapy, or in my personalized case, The Christmas No List.

I modified the deadline from ten to seven days and gave it my own name, but ultimately the game was simple.

The Christmas No List

Objective: Collect ten successive rejections by Christmas and, in doing so, experience a breakthrough in cracking the cycle of chronic people-pleasing.

Rules:

Make requests of strangers that are so outlandish I’m guaranteed a rejection.

Score 1 point per rejection.

Gain ten successive rejections in a row by Christmas.

Should I falter and make an obvious people-pleasing move, all points are void and I must start over from the beginning.

I may not inform the person I’m trying to gain rejections from about my rejection therapy mission, so as to avoid seeking self-justification and weakening the potency of the actual rejection.

Cost: Looking crazy to a few total strangers

Reward: Sanity. Personal victory. Taking back my life.

That’s it. That’s my plan: Look crazy on purpose over the course of seven days leading up to Christmas so I can shed my people-pleasing ways and trek into the land of healing.

Why seven days? Because I know myself.

My entire life has been one overwhelming tendency to let others—or even others’ perceived perceptions of me—dictate the way I live so that I end up catering to their every interest. I’ve let boyfriends, bosses, and total strangers drive my actions and fears, and in this one tiny window of life I’m spurred on enough to do something about it. I don’t want to let that driving adrenaline fizz out. I can’t allow myself days and weeks and months to let the acutely painful memory of what just happened with my boss drive me to action. And I know that without keeping this at the forefront of my mind, combined with the gift and curse of time, I’d begin to rationalize myself out of my purpose, begin to lie to myself about the importance of my mission, and ultimately end up stuck in the exact state in which I’ve spent my whole adult life. Weak and miserable.