Impressions People Have

Hepatica · February 19, 2021, 12:35:00 PM

Here is something I cannot control, that really bugs me, but also kind of freaks me out.

Example. Earlier this year ran into a neighbour while dog walking. I see this neighbour fairly often, as we seem to walk our dogs at the same time. She said something about coyotes sighted near where we live, and that someone had seen one the day before. I responded with: "Oh, I didn't know there were coyotes around here," And she looked surprised and said, "But aren't you the one who warned me about coyotes last week?"

So for awhile she had in her head that I was telling stories about coyotes in the hood. But I had no idea there were coyotes in the hood.

How in the heck did I get in her head saying that? This has happened before with other people, where they replace me with something someone else has done or said. Not a lot, but it has happened and this time when my neighbour said this, it sort of made me realize that people could have any impression of you they dream up.

It's not like I cared about the coyote story, but I didn't like her telling other people I'd said something I didn't even know about.

It just seems to make me feel like with fellow people we can be on shaky ground and don't even know it.

I think this agitation comes from the previous job I had where I found out someone in the Union was saying a completely fabricated story about me that put me in a bad light. I think it might also come from the rumour mill in my FOO that has emerged over the years too. My father has used gossip about me and I found out only bc my friend had heard and warned me about it.

It seems to me that lying about people and spreading rumours is an incredibly harmful thing to do to someone. It can really destroy them in the community and potentially put them in the scapegoat position fast.

I guess it means we really should dig deep when someone says something about a person and we didn't hear or see them do it ourselves.

IcedCoffee · February 19, 2021, 01:38:12 PM

If it was me I'd follow up next time you see the neighbor and ask for more details about what she thinks you said and when you said it. You can always joke and say that Covid is getting to you, and you can't remember what you had for breakfast never mind what you said last week!

When it comes to things that sound impossible people will either a) dismiss immediately, b) believe immediately (who doesn't love a good conspiracy theory?), or c) go to the source and check!

Hepatica · February 19, 2021, 02:09:34 PM

When I reacted and said that, "No, I haven't known this info. about coyotes," she looked puzzled and like she was thinking hard and then she said, "Oh, yes, it wasn't you, it was this other neighbour who said it," She said the "other" neighbour's name and I realized it was this really flakey woman in the hood who is generally agitated about all sorts of things and then I was a little annoyed that she thought that that flakey, agitated lady was me. $:-\$

People can be so off, but what bothers me is that impressions can be formed about someone due to someone else's mistake. I don't think this lady was being unkind or mischievous toward me in any way, but I didn't like her thinking that flakey woman was me, and how easily that kind of mistake can happen.

Who knows why this is bothering me today???

SparkStillLit · February 19, 2021, 10:01:39 PM

Well, I'm sure NO ONE wants to be in ANYONE'S head as some flaky agitated drama queen!!
I'm sure it was just a mistake, though. Not so much that she thought you were the flake, but in her head it went more like "dog walking lady saw coyotes around here" but then when you said you hadn't, and she thought on it more, "oh, no, that's right, it was the mad flake that saw them."

Poison Ivy · February 19, 2021, 10:14:48 PM

BeautifulCrazy · February 19, 2021, 10:52:06 PM

I might have this wrong, but I think it was Eleanor Roosevelt who said,
"What other people think of me is none of my business."

treesgrowslowly · February 20, 2021, 08:29:58 AM

I think that it is normal for this to create some anxiety. It would be nice if people were paying attention and had better recall. Thankfully she did end up recalling that no it wasn't you!

Honestly I think that this has happened a lot and that most of the time we don't even notice that people get information wrong.

Mostly it is because they are not really paying much attention. So if your jacket is the same colour as flaky lady's then that's all that cued the woman at first and then she had her facts mixed up.

I don't know about you guys but the narcs in my FOO did this constantly and would often defend their wrong recalling of facts. What mattered to them as narcs was to feel right. Being accurate was not as important at all.

One of my FOO relatives would talk as if they had already told me all sorts of info about some gossip they were stewing about. Meanwhile I had no idea what events this was referring to, and I had none of the info this person assumed I had.

Maybe they told another relative and switched them with me. Similar to how she confused you with the other neighbour.

It was so disorienting.

So I think maybe for survivors of narc abuse this behaviour might upset us as we are working to recover from its past effects on us.

Trees

Hepatica · February 21, 2021, 09:49:06 AM

I know why this has come up and I appreciate all your responses. I am pretty sure that I'm in that circular healing, where you return to old traumas. I guess it gives us the opportunity to release and learn.

My character was pretty much assassinated in my old place of work, a career in a small city where, if you didn't work there, it was nearly impossible to find the work you were trained for. I was good at the job and I loved the children and families I supported.

When what I will call a malignant narcissist joined my team and decided that I was the enemy she destroyed my reputation secretly. She was very very charming and set it up that she had a crowd of flying monkeys within the first six months - including cozying up to the union. And it was some time later that I found out by a co-employee who had the courage to tell me some of the lies. And from those lies I was micro-aggressed in such a way that I became suicidal. (I know I mentioned this on another post) and I think it's come round again for me to think about and move thru. I feel real grief as I write this.

I could never fight back because I had no evidence. It was what my friend had told me and then just, no one sitting with me at meetings, or not looking up when I addressed them, or going quiet when I walked into the lunch room, or not being invited to group gatherings. If I confronted the malignant co-worker she could merely deny what was said, and play dumb. She was very very good at destroying people and she did it to another employee as well, an employee who was the best person I have ever encountered at what she did. She was a star worker and I think the PD woman I speak of was insanely jealous of her. She whispered rumours about this woman all over the agency, also making this woman into a pariah.

It hurts still and I left that job because of it, and I seriously feel afraid of being misconstrued and mis-represented because I know these malignant types will go to evil lengths to purposely destroy someone, with just a hint of a rumour, or a lie that holds a slight truth about someone and in a workplace the politics that result from that can literally put someone on the street with no job.

It scares me. It is a scary thing indeed. And I'm processing it this week, remembering how I felt back then and how it's effected my wariness now of who to trust out there.

Trust issues. Ugh. The PD can leave such a legacy of wounds that we are left to recover from and that is not fair.

I am sitting with that today. It feels like sadness. I get pain in my neck and shoulders as I write this. LIke my body has to release the toxin that still sits inside of me somewhere.

But it is true that it's none of our business what others think or say about us. Generally we can shake our heads and let it go and know deep inside that we are good people. But in a workplace and as we all know here, in a FOO, it can be quite harmful what people think of us too.

As with much of this disordered stuff we experience it is very emotionally taxing and confusing.

DistanceNotDefense · February 21, 2021, 01:46:41 PM

Quote from: Hepatica on February 21, 2021, 09:49:06 AM
Trust issues. Ugh. The PD can leave such a legacy of wounds that we are left to recover from and that is not fair.

Cycling through a similar thing lately, Hepatica (though my focus of late is my trust in female friendships...!)...big hug if you need one

I think your coworkers treatment was horrifying. It's so high school. Treatment from kids like that is unacceptable, but when I think about grade school, it's like ...we all went through a little bullying. It's still not OK....but in work situations as an adult? It makes my stomach flip and it's sickening.

I had a few similar encounters as a workplace scapegoat. Fortunately I wasn't long at those jobs. It just feels like certain personalities "smell" something about you-- kindness, empathy, morals, maybe having something others don't have-- and they go right after you. I think above all else they choose someone they know it will have an effect on, and it sucks that the marker for all that tends to be basically being a good person.

I look back on my experiences and they really make no sense the more I think about them. Probably because they are just that: senseless acts.