Stuck on unimportant conflict

[Call Me Cordelia]

I had a pretty absurd interaction with a stranger yesterday. I was at our local park with my little kids. Sunday afternoon, not many people there. A birthday party is getting set up in the pavilion. Then a petting zoo rolls up and animals start unloading. My kids are watching the animals of course. There's food and baby bottles getting set up, but my kids aren't touching them, just looking at the animals as they set up. The birthday party mom says to them, "If you aren't here for the birthday you need to get away, okay?" I said calmly excuse me this is a public park. This mother gets really snappish about how she purchased this and this is a private event and she doesn't want there to be any "little issue." Super rude. I said, "Is it?" But I felt about three inches tall and terrified. She was a little scary haha.

I had already let my kids stay a little longer than I had planned and it was so not worth the fight so we did leave. But I'm having a hard time just getting over it. I took the meek path and let her be "superior" and have her way. I feel like this is a trauma thing, like I need to be soothed and comforted and have it absolutely proven to the world that I am okay. For all the times I took the meek path and endured humiliation. Also ashamed for reacting and even being still upset now.

I also had some other much more important conflict with my teenage girl yesterday, but the rude stranger at the park is what I'm stuck on. Like I have to somehow win this before I can move on. Anybody relate?

[walking on broken glass]

I can definitely relate. Conflicts with rude people always rattle me. If I give way, I feel ashamed for not reacting louder; if I push back, I worry that I might have been too combative or unreasonable. I have often wished I was more assertive and confident about my reactions.

In my view, you stood your ground and showed this rude woman that she was behaving in an entitled and invasive way. Further engagement would have been pointless because you can't win with these people and it didn't matter as you were leaving anyway. But you didn't stay silent and you voiced your annoyance.

[Pinkos]

I completely relate to what you're describing. For me the shame (afterwards) comes from feeling scared. As if I were a kid and I was going to get in trouble for talking back. Maybe something in her expression put you in an emotional flashback? A look is all it takes sometimes. I remember that from Pete Walker and it helped put things in perspective for why I kinda freeze in these moments.

She was way outta line. It's a public park and she has no authority to direct where the public should go. If she didn't want any "issues" then she should've paid to have her event at a private venue. Your taxes pay for the park and you/your children had every right to be there. Sounds like someone who has champagne tastes on a beer budget.

[Adria]

I had a situation in a store a couple weeks ago where a woman followed me around, and stood in front of everything I was trying to look at. Very bazaar behavior.  It was making me upset, but I thought if I say something, she could turn around and punch me or something. Who knows. She obviously was trying to get a rise out of me. I walked away, and because I was done shopping, left.  However, like you, I went home feeling the shame of not standing up for myself. But, you really don't know who or what you are dealing with these days, so in this day and age, I think it's better in a lot of cases to turn and walk away.

I think you did the right thing.  For some reason, it just seems like people, these days, are more rude, intentionally in our faces and looking for a fight.  Someone that acts this way may be unpredictable and enjoys antagonizing people hoping for some kind of an altercation, so they can cause a scene.  If you took it any further, who knows, she could have done something to hurt you.

[Call Me Cordelia]

Thanks, WOBG.  Yes, I think I handled it ok too, it's just all the aftermath that happens on the inside!

Yes, Pinkos, emotional flashback. I am so sick of those. I was vulnerable already because of the conflict with my daughter. I've noticed that when I'm already struggling to stay regulated it's just so easy for the least little thing to just be the last straw and send me off into the spin cycle. It was also easy to feel self-righteous here, and cling to that, because with my daughter I am very well aware I do not know how to handle this raising teenage girl thing. It's very easy to feel about 14 and rejected myself right now.

Adria, that sounds like a very disturbing experience. Also perhaps a scapegoat response, to feel shame as a response to somebody else doing something wrong. 

I do not validate myself naturally, but I am proud of how we celebrated my daughter's birthday at the age this OTT party was for. We all decorated our big van with chalk markers, drove around and filled the "party bus" with her friends, played music, and went to the car wash! It's a favorite memory.

[NarcKiddo]

I totally get why you felt that way. I am very familiar with the terrified feeling and taking the meek way out.

However, in practical terms you handed it well and set a good example to your kids. You did not meekly roll over - you spoke calmly to the woman and showed her she was out of order. Then you calmly left because you were going to leave anyway and there was no value in making a scene or allowing her to continue making one. Your kids have seen what looks like a sensible adult reaction from you.

When I get into an EF it is usually based on some awful childhood feeling. I don't know if IFS or parts work is something you have looked at but if you are familiar with the inner child concept you might consider comforting yourself as if you were younger, and reminding yourself that adult you is strong and capable. Adult you managed the situation safely and well both for your kids and for the younger parts of your own self.

Well done.

[1footouttadefog]

I shamelessly walk away from any risk of an escalation by a rude person. 

I have have enough experience with unhinged people to know it's just not worth it to risk an escalation with one. 

It can feel crappy to access that it's safer to give in

[bloomie]

Call Me Cordelia - just something that I have learned to be aware of in myself that may or may not apply here... I can find myself putting my emotional energy one step removed, or proxy, so to speak, for the harder, more complicated place.

Example... rude woman at the park easier place to put my 'stuff' then the more important conflict with a beloved daughter.

A personal example for me was the unexpected death of a coworker versus that both of my children left for college within two weeks of each other. I was grieving so hard for that coworker, just outsized (not that I wasn't sad, but...) and was not able to connect to this seismic shift in my children's/our family's lives for awhile.

May not resonate, but wanted to share.

And this...

I do not validate myself naturally, but I am proud of how we celebrated my daughter's birthday at the age this OTT party was for. We all decorated our big van with chalk markers, drove around and filled the "party bus" with her friends, played music, and went to the car wash! It's a favorite memory.

I cannot even say how much I love this for all of you! What a clever way to celebrate.

[1footouttadefog]

Wanted to add, when an encounter has a disproportionate amount of emotions connected to it, I try to sort out what from the past w as triggered then think my way through that.

I find that identifying the trigger and working it over helps make it less powerful.

Example of reminded of a party where I was shamed in front of others my my MIL, I pinpoint that, try to identify what about that encounter triggered her and why.  She was jealous several people were actually interested in what I was saying. She needed to squash it and came over to embarrass me.  How I reacted might have made things more awkward than they had to be bit MIL was the one at fault.  She was jealous and acting unkind. 

I think through how I felt, and how I don't feel like that at encounters since she has passed, unless PDh plays a game.  I protect my social live from pd-ness these days.  O remind myself that I learned lessons around this topic, am more mature now, and that a decades ago event that no one but me likely even remembers does not define me.

Working through a trigger like that helps reduce it's power for me.