Dealing with hurt.

tomstickland

Has anyone ever said something to you that instantly hurt and made you feel low for a few days afterwards?

Thinking back over the years I can recall numerous occasions, and every time it decide to withdraw a little further from the outside world. Then I get over it and things work their way back to normal.

Well, last night someone said something really disparaging to me at a social sports game concerning my slow progress. I felt like going home immediately, but a bloody minded part of me decided to keep going. I felt better after a while and started to enjoy myself again.

Today I've been thinking it over and couldn't make my mind up if I was being overly sensitive or not. Well, my conclusion is that I might have been, but they'd actually been pretty inconsiderate in their choice of words.

In the end I decided that rather than sit around feeling mildly bad about it for a few days that I'd confront the problem head on. So I've just sent them a polite email explainging that, rightly or wrongly, their remark had actually made me feel bad.

I feel so much better already.

Do people ever make you feel really bad with their ill though comments?

POSSETTE

well done ofr doing that..they may think twice about how they phrase things next time.
I too think about conversations for days and they get to me...i even stress over some from 6 -7 years ago!! But we cant change anything..so chin up and just see yourself as better than them coz you never say anything like that to anyone!!

TheWaltons_3

Yes... I understand how you are feeling, and in the same vein, I have also said some things that I have deeply regretted but can't take back.

As you said, you confronted the problem head on and now you need to forget about it, stop dwelling on it and feel proud that you have dealt with it, and not just let the person forget about it.

Well done!

tomstickland

Oh, sure, I won't be dwelling on it. I think it was a sincere comment, and I actually agree factually, but not enough thought was put into how it might make me feel.

Curious_George_2

I know how you feel.... for some reason I seem to be one of those unfortunate types that people feel the need to give me running commentary on how i look....
today alone i got told that i look tired, that i should smile and that im too big to only be 5 months pregnant and none of these comments came from friends or family

firstly... i AM f**king tired, not only am i having a baby which makes sleeping comfortably quite a challenge but my OH has spent the last 2 nights away and i just cant settle without him.

secondly - i smile when i have something to smile about... i dont wander down the road on my own grinning like a lunatic, and who is anybody to tell me that "it might never happen" how in the blue F**K do they know it hasnt already and thats WHY i look like this!!!!!!

thirdly - i AM only 5 months, there is only one baby in there and i didnt start with a flat stomach in the first place, and funnily enough i cant help how big this bump gets and until one of these sticky beaks can produce enough evidence of their medical training to tell me that there is something wrong with my bump size then they can all p*ss off.....


aaaaaaaaand breathe
sorry... this has been a really sucky week and i might be a little hormonal
(thanks, i actually feel a bit better )

Penny_Watcher

Remember - only value the opinions of the people that you value. The rest of the world can go to hell :rolleyes:

And bloody good on you for confronting this person about what they've said. Hopefully they didn't realise how much hurt they were causing by there comment (my OH often causes upset by his so called 'sense of humour'), but I hope your email will make them think twice before they make glib remarks in future.

larmy16

Hey Tom, well done for showing a reaction, maybe we all should calmly point out to people their insensitivity. Unlike Me!

All my life, like the previous poster I have had jokes and comments made about my height, (Im short), weight (even when I was at the correct weight) and my appearance. Just about everything and it HURTS.

One day, my son came home from secondary school all quiet and I could see something was wrong. Well he burst into tears and told me that he had heard his PE teacher laughing with some of the other pupils and saying that he (my son) was still the same height as all the first years and had not grown atall!

Well it was like a red rag to a bull. I went storming round to the school and demanded to see the teacher. Eventually they tracked him down and he was on the phone which they handed to me.

I said "I am blah blah's mother and I am here on reception. Would you like to come down and have a good laugh at me. I am only five feet tall and I understand smaller people give you a good deal of amusement!"

His silence was stunned. Eventually he started blithering and trying to talk his way out of it, saying it was only a joke etc. So I continued "Well for your information blah blah is at home in tears. I would not have been surprised at this coming from other pupils but it is you who were making the joke and therefore being a bit of a bully. Hope you enjoyed it. Does hurting people's feelings turn you on...............rant rant"

It was all the years of hurt against me, added to that a mother's feral instinct to protect her young and I let him have it!!!!!!!!!!!!

Boy did I feel good. I walked back from that school so proud. I swear I temporarily gained two inches in height.

My son, who had begged me not to go, was absolutely filled with admiration and the following day the PE teacher sought him out, told him how sorry he was and that he had always had a complex about his height being over 6 feet etc.

So sometimes you just gotta take the sails out of the old wind bags!!:D

SnowyOwl_2

Once on the telly I was watching some sort of chat show thingy, and that irritating and stuck up critic Brian Sewell was commenting how people with "regional" accents are clearly inferior to those who speak with a proper upper middle class like his and the royal family's. A woman in the audience interrupted and asked him what exactly gave him the right to pass judgement on and to look down at any other person. That shut him right up!! Since then it has been my favoured line if someone tries to make an unfavourable judgement to my face. It really works like magic.

However sometimes it can be incredibly hard when the critic is family. My mother can be exceptionally cutting. Her worst line to me was "After doing so well at school you turned out to be nobody and nothing". !!!!!!!! She has other lines which she often trots out when there is a crowd gathered, though I have learnt to deal with those with a shriek of laughter and tell her how incredibly narrow-minded she is. It's still very hurtful, but as she's my mother I don't really have the choice to just walk away like I would from anybody else, and try and deal with it the best I can.

You (OP) definitely did the right thing by going back to the person who was tactless to you. Nobody has the right to be scathing to another person and they really do need to know to keep their pompous opinions private.

Gingham_Ribbon

Yes. Our baby had to go into hospital for a few days last month. We had our own room and so I was relaxed and didn't worry if I fell asleep feeding him as we were private. Besides, he was at risk of getting dehydrated enough to need a tube to feed him so naturally I was feeding him round the clock and exhausted. A nurse told me she thought didn't approve of breast feeding 'in public' and that it was against personal dignity. I was crushed. (And hadn't realised that I was 'in public'.)

Later I realised that this was a nurse in a BABY ward in a children's hospital and it was HER problem, not mine. She had also said that when she goes into a room and a mum is feeding, she goes out again and asks another nurse to deal with it. From someone that unprofessional? No. I wasn't going to waste another second being upset.

larmy16

Gingham when I had my son there was a wonderful Irish girl in the next bed to me who had a baby girl. Well one day she was sitting holding her baby and this young slip of a girl of a nurse breezed in and said "If you keep holding that child, she will grow up spoiled!"

Well! The Irish girl said "What the f**k problem is it to you whether my child grows up to be spoiled or not. Will you be coming home with me to deal with her etc. f . f. f. was interspersed with it all". The nurse was agape with shock and left the ward. Silly mare. Fancy working on a maternity ward and telling someone with a two day old child you would be spoiling her by having her in your arms!:rolleyes:

Actually Gingham that nurse should have been named and shamed for her comment - after all the pressure they put mums under to breast feed and then have her going round making those comments! You are surely not the only one who has been on the receiving end of her personal wisdom???

tomstickland

I received a reply to my email and it was alright actually. I think they slightly missed the point, but hopefully it still made a difference. I explained that I had to communicate how I felt, that I didn't harbour any long term resentment, anger, or bitterness and now we could move on.

I've had a policy for a few months now of always confronting people if they make me feel bad about something. Once Iget over the initial reluctance to do it it does make me feel better. It's actually quite surprising what can happen if you are direct with someone.

Anyway, thanks for the replies, great thread.