Published on 12, July, 2020
I'm just overloaded right now. Our nearest pharmacy is in a supermarket that's just been done up. New layout, louder, brighter lights. I just went alone to get medicine for my son and bandages.
On looking for bandages accidentally walk into an old man. Apologised, I'm usually not too bad for bumping into people and special awareness usually just walk into objects but I was already overwhelmed.
I said oh I'm so sorry to this old guy and his response was to tell at me and call me names
I was in shock. A few minutes I decided to catch up with him and say it's not okay to tell at someone like that your language is disgusting and I had apologised yet your equally to blame. But he yelled more so I walked off and took a pic of him on my phone. I stupidly put a pic of the man on our local site and described that we both walked into each other and he had yelled abuse. (This sites usually full of youngsters doing x y and z and oh their so bad) but everyone thought an old man being aggressive was hilarious. I just dont understand the world I really dont. I'm in floods of tears writing this hate people
I understand.
I've felt like that myself & I was going to say I can't give a specific example but now I think of it I can (this is one thing that this community is brilliant for - how we can all relate!).
We got dogs a couple of years ago for the first time ever. I insisted on getting a "proper dog" rather than a hamster-sized fur ball (lesson learned now!) and we were complete newbies and went straight to our local field and played ball with the apparently well-trained & mature dog. In come a few other dogs, no problem. But then a small-ish dog comes in on a lead, and ours takes off to say hello but does so by barking quite a lot (not aggressive just boisterous). The owner (rightly, I now understand) suggests that we might want to put ours on a lead. I perceived this relatively polite challenge as an unwanted intrusion of stress into my life and we decide some obedience training is needed. At this point, I'm inwardly calling the other owner all sorts of unpleasant names as a psychological defence against the feelings associated with the fact that I was wrong and he was right.
As it happens we tick on fine with dog on lead for a few months and never see this other dog again, until the day my wife persuades me that ours has settled in and we should let her off the lead again (because if you don't try......), and within 10 minutes who comes into the field? Yep, the little dog on a lead with what I now consider as a pernickety owner (but in reality I know he's right) and he shouts "Sort your dog out mate!" across the field when ours goes again to say hello. So there and then in my mind I resolved never, ever, to let the dog off lead again as it's just not worth it and you can never be 100.00000% sure (which is my requirement for avoiding anxiety).
I also got not exactly yelled at but "stage whispered at" by an older guy in a car park once when I accidentally misinterpreted the very small and not-to-regulations "no entry" sign (it was square and blue which means "do this" not "don't do this") and went round a car park the wrong way and ended up getting into a space that he had in mind. I ruminated about this for weeks. In the moment I was suppressing an urge - completely out of character for me- to ask him if he wanted to fight over it! (rhetorically, implying "sorry - no point getting aggressive about it!" - but that's not how it would have come across!).
So I understand your impulse to put the photo on social media, but I agree with plastic that this probably won't get you the reassurance and support that you need, as you've already found.
Hope that helps - and you've given me food for thought too about whether the incidents I've described are relevant to my diagnosis.
My husband thinks that I see the world differently....them again so do most people. For example i got really upset when fellow allotment holders poured fuel in the soil and buried rubbish! My response was 1 environmental impact and 2 poisoning of food grown. I cant fathom how they poisoned the land. I was told it's under the ground dont worry about it. When i explained about ecosystems and the environment i got told no one thinks like you you have an interesting take on the world