I've been through alot the last year and I've started to take care of problems that I have. I just realized a big reason why I'm not that assertive and I would like some feedback.

It all started when I was young, I didn't get the respect I wanted from people around me. I was often bullied, teased and punched but I didn't have a real problem communicating with other people. But it made me draw back from other people and become more isolated. A big problem from that was because I often had problem with skin rashes and diseases which worsened the problem.

It got better when I was around 13-14. I had always been practicing sports, ishockey, football, wrestling and a bunch of other stuff. Around that time I was putting on some serious weight and gained some big muscles as compared to the rest. My main motivating factor was to scare away everyone else. And it worked. People were starting to harass me less because they knew if they put me on the serious wrong spot they would get messed up. But a problem remained. I manage to stop people from harrassing me and I gained respect from others. But I still in my head remained in that weak spot I was in before, I didn't take any initaitves, I was non-assertive.

I continued to do the same. Workout at the gym 5 times a week for years and years on end, I called it as a religous experience, something you gotta do. I got more and more respect from people, even the biggest people started respecting me. But today I'm 23, still very big compared to other people but I lack the ability to take initative and to be assertive. For example I often take on lots of responsibility because I feel like I need to be nice and because I have a problem to say no. This often results in me destroying everything for myself because I get to much responsability till I snap. I had a period a year ago where I just dropped everything went apeshit towards everyone who put the responasailbity on me, they saw me differnetly after that. ´ I've started to take care of it, sort of. I've started doing things that scare me. It gets me alot of adrenaline but it also gives me alot of anxiety when it dropps of. I feel like the biggest boss player around one minute and a weak person the next. I watched Jordan Petersons videos and read the book No more mr.nice guy and he talked alot about fire learning to be agressive and then become passive to learn your real power. I'm thinking about also starting to take up MMA if that might help me, I also booked in a time to parachute jump because why the hell not.

I was out partying yesterday for the first time in a while after my first real girlfriend of like 1 month broke up with me a couple of weeks ago, then it dawned on me. I often have problem getting what I want, I seem to wait and be polite rather then go for it. I don't know why, I get nervous because it scares me being with girls and I assume it makes me even more non-assertive which made her less attracted to me. I'm going to therapy for the first time in a couple of days which I hope will help me, but I wanted to get a headstart because I can't stop thinking about this stuff it's like a rabbit hole and it goes on and on and on. It makes me question everything that I've ever done which makes me regret stuff and gives me more anxiety.

One things for sure, it feels good to write everything of.

tl:dr: I get respect from other people but lack the ability to dominated and be assertive, how can I become more assertive?