Published on 12, July, 2020
I used to not say anything because I hate confrontation but as I’ve gotten older it’s stronger and I feel I need to do something about it. So I end up doing or saying things more so which I feel is right and justified in the moment but then I can’t cope with the backlash and I end up second guessing myself and having major panics that the other person will do something awful to me as a result.
I always handle things the wrong way.
Think it's our hyper awareness getting in our way. Anything we see as not right, we pay greater attention to and so it feels like a bigger deal to us. I remember this one time I joined this group of people for D&D like games. There was this one player who would often get shut down when he expressed himself. I thought it was mean of them, so I talked to the DM (the game host) about it and he agreed to be watchful of behaviour, but warned me that there was a reason the player was often shot down. Eventually I came to understand it for myself, that this player had a very strong sense of "my way is the right way", and the other players had been through it enough that they knew when to check him on his behaviour. Once I realised this, the struggle became to hold onto my middle ground and not join the chorus of people telling this one person to stop.