I'm going to preface this episode with the usual reminder that these are the thoughts
that I find swirling about in my mind after certain interactions leave me feeling some
type of way.
I recognize that I may be taking things too personally or out of context, but remember,
we live our lives based on the experiences that have shaped us, what those experiences
have taught us.
That's why it's so important to communicate, to be open and ask questions when we aren't
sure and even to bravely express vulnerability so that we know the intentions of others are
not to harm us.
While I give these examples and my feelings, just remember, I'm aware I may not be in
the right with my reactivity, but it is how I experience the world.
Maybe you do too in this way, and maybe it will help you feel not so alone or ashamed
in how your mind may jump to conclusions.
It is also a good way to analyze and assess what likely stems from the societal norms
and share my observations about human interactions.
There's always room to do better and to be better.
There I go again, feeling the need to over explain so that I feel like I have some control
over how you, the listener, perceives me, so that I don't seem like a bad person for
the inner dialogue that occurs in my head.
So I don't feel so alien.
It is what it is.
Let's begin.
I do not know why it is that I always tend to feel that my reactions to people's responses
involves becoming offended, hurt, reactive.
I have a long-standing history of thoughts that involve me believing that the world and
everyone in it is out to get me in some way, shape, or form.
Many years of therapy has helped significantly, but I will say those initial thoughts, especially
when I'm not in a great place that day, are the first ones that still pop up.
Old habits die hard, but I'm hoping that they do eventually die.
I'm just going to come out and say it.
Sometimes it feels like people respond or say things as an attempt to outshine me or
to dim my own experience.
Why?
Why is that?
Why does it feel like everything we do, share, live, involves becoming a competitive sport?
Why can we simply not exist in this space where we respond to one another with the respect
that doesn't come across as you are trying to compete with me to one-up me?
It really irks me.
These situations really, really bother me.
I try to ask myself, what is it that this person is trying to do when they respond this way?
I wonder if they're trying to relate to me, possibly in a supportive way?
Or is it that they're feeling smaller, needing validation and want to feel relevant by sharing
back at you in that moment?
I find myself guilty of wondering if it is a case of people feeling bothered at the fact
that the situation is not revolving around them, and in order to ease the discomfort,
they feel a need to insert themselves into it, to make it about them, or at least allow
them to feel some sort of inclusion.
In having a bad day or feeling overwhelmed, what is so wrong with me feeling as though
I deserve to have my crisis moment, or a complaint moment, or simply any moment whatsoever,
one where I can share that something is happening to me that is out of the everyday ordinary?
I would love to be able to do this without feeling as though people need to come to me
and respond to my content in a way that says, oh yeah, well, mine's worse.
Or yeah, I've been there, I've done that.
In a sort of relax, you're not that important, sort of demeanor.
I only have simple, really kind of silly examples, but they allow for privacy of others and showcase
what I mean here all the same.
The winter storms that hit my hometown when I was visiting for the month after I got back
were quite something.
It was a record breaking amount, heavy, heavy snowfall, with tons of highway closures, more
than we typically get in a winter season.
In five to six days, we had snow that was up to my waist.
This was after my arrival where there wasn't a single snowflake on the ground.
This felt exciting and also unbelievable at the time.
All the shoveling we had to do daily to keep up so that the roofs didn't cave in so that
we could leave the driveway in case of an emergency.
Also it was just a gorgeous scenery to behold.
Naturally, I posted about my experience here.
I tried to keep it positive or neutral, but I wanted to share, especially since it doesn't
usually snow that much here, nor does it for my Western or Southern friends.
I am aware it snows in Canada and snow in general is nothing new.
With this, this was unprecedented, insane, and it even ended up in the news across the
country.
We even experienced fuel shortages when the highway was closed.
Not that it was as apocalyptic as it sounds, but it was something that certainly doesn't
happen every day.
I received responses similar to, yeah, we have really bad storms here too.
Huh.
It's snowing here too.
I couldn't help but ask myself, what is the point of this message?
I wanted to say, uh, okay, but this is severe and I'm not just posting because it's snowing.
It's snow.
We've all seen snow.
That's not new.
But this is crazy wild snow that's out of proportion.
Of course, I didn't.
I am an adult in some ways after all.
I do not compete back because I do not want to view it as competition.
For someone to reach out and tell me it's also snowing there, what is happening?
I clearly think way too much into things.
But I had to ask, is this person attempting to relate to me in a way that is poorly communicated
and that's why it's coming off in a way that causes me to react?
Or is this person trying to put me in my place, so to speak?
As in, they're frustrated with my post or want to inform me it's also snowing elsewhere.
As in, calm down, it's snowing here too.
Or is it, oh my god, that's insane, it's snowing here too.
I wonder if we'll get a similar dump.
This last one, if worded as such, would not evoke such strong emotions in me.
In fact, it's the perfect example of what I would expect to feel as, hey, I'm relating
to you.
Reading these messages, I feel irked, grossed out.
I feel the skin prickle crawling at the back of my neck.
It makes me feel gross.
Supervised.
Judged.
Why does this bother me?
I hate that.
I hate that I perceive it in this way.
I can't help but feel like I am sharing this to have a moment in my life where I'm like,
whoa, look at this.
These approaches result in me feeling as though I'm not allowed to have my moment.
This isn't the only instance, of course.
It happens more often than not, which is why I wonder if it's my upbringing and previous
experience that result in this.
I'd prefer this to the alternative, because the alternative means that there are a lot
of broken people who nip at others in order to get a sense of the ground under their feet
to ease the pain, and, well, I don't really like this version of it.
The same happens when I post the weather.
I remember when I first experienced the Western Prairie winters.
I couldn't believe my absolute everything.
Minus 45?
That's insanity.
Of course these are things to share.
I come from a place where this level of cold doesn't happen.
It's my way of sharing something others may not be aware of.
I often then receive messages from people telling me, oh, well, it's minus 47 here and
feels like minus 50.
Is this a competition?
Is this where I go, oh shit, hey, well, you win?
Is that what this is?
It just feels so fucking strange.
Instead, I probably responded, oh yeah, that's all I can muster.
In my eyes, it's not a competition to me, and our life experience is not a genital measuring
contest.
I take it as, yeah, it's cold here too, so stop being excited about it.
It's not a big deal.
It annoys me.
Oh, does it annoy me?
I don't know.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, can we just let people have their moment?
Maybe I come across in these posts as someone attempting to one up others, and maybe I am.
I'm not intending to do so, but maybe this too is a matter of perspective.
Either way, allow me to have my uninterrupted moment, where I can feel safe to experience
the, wow, this is insane, where the responses support me having my moment.
Oh yeah, that's crazy.
Instead of trying to tell me, it's like that here too.
On the other hand, if I reverse the scenario, if someone tells me how cold it is, or how
much snow they've gotten, do you know what my response is?
Oh wow, that is crazy.
I hope you're staying warm, or something along those lines.
When you compete and respond in a competitive way, it's like saying it's a badge of honor
to have it worse than someone else.
It strikes me as a really weird way to try to assert yourself in a conversation.
I just struggle, truly.
It makes me uncomfortable.
I do not like it.
I don't like the resentment that starts to settle in once I read the message that was
written.
I don't enjoy holding onto anger towards people.
But how do you say, hey, what are you trying to accomplish here?
What's your angle?
That's equally weird, right?
I'm sure I could find a way to finesse that, but that's weird too.
I don't want to seem like the over-sensitive over-thinker that I am about everything that
happens, even small innocuous-seeming comments such as that.
I already exhaust myself with how much thinking goes on in my mind.
I try to be neutral when I do respond, or acknowledge the message in return.
I am allowed to have my moments.
I am allowed to be uncomfortable, not like something, or be amazed or wowed by something.
So you live in the Arctic, and it snows 10 feet every Sunday.
Good for you.
I've never seen that before, like a child seeing a butterfly for the first time.
Would you tell them, oh, I've seen lots of butterflies before too.
They're everywhere.
Probably not.
I know I'd smile and feel the awe that creeps inside of me as I realize they're experiencing
a thing of beauty for the first time in their lives.
I'm allowed.
I'm allowed to experience all of these things, and share it and feel it.
It doesn't make you better than me, because you've seen this 10,000 times, or it's 10,000
degrees colder where you are, and you just handle it daily, because that's just how
it is.
It's not really relevant.
If it doesn't allow me to have my moment, and make no mistake, you can gladly join in
my moment with yours.
Just come into it with that knowing attitude and verbiage, acknowledge it, validate it,
then share your experience.
That would be my advice, my take on it.
If you think about it, sure, it's snowed for me.
It's snowed for you too, wow.
But it also snows in Arizona, and that means it snows on cacti.
So I guess we both just got one up.
It just seems like everything in some way gets turned into a competition.
About everything.
About anything.
We do not live in a world of scarcity with regards to validation in our shiny moments.
We can have all our shiny moments.
Not only that, but we can also have shiny moments at the same time as someone else,
while still supporting another's excitement in our unique shiny moments.
I wish this was something more people understood.
I'm all about supporting others and their shiny moments.
Even if I'm having a shitty moment, I wouldn't turn around and say, oh yeah, well my life
sucks because my cat got run over.
No, tell me about your shiny moment.
Then I get to enjoy in the celebration of that moment with you, with the best of my
abilities.
And if I also have a shiny moment, perhaps I will share.
Hey, that's great, I'm so happy for you.
I have great news too if you've got the time and capacity to listen.
Or sometimes I just let someone have their moment and I save mine for later so that I
don't dim their shine.
You know, is that so hard?
The answer seems to be yes, in my opinion.
When I reflect on all that I've gone through, there have been times where I've had to shift
and change the groups with which I've surrounded myself due to their mentalities, their behaviors
that honestly just left me feeling shitty.
I didn't want to be surrounded by that anymore.
I also don't treat others in this way, and I try really hard to be mindful of how things
would make me feel if I received those words, those comments, or those behaviors.
I can't possibly be the only person who perceives things this way.
You know, the guilt ridden ones, the ones that make me question myself and tempt me into
gaslighting myself.
The majority of people are not ill-intentioned, and maybe they just don't know how their
communication comes across, that their lack of punctuation or sentence structure conveys
an entirely different meaning than their brain is trying to produce.
Not to mention, typed words on a screen are very hard to decipher when it comes to tone
and intent, as it really has none to begin with.
It makes it difficult to understand what's being said and what's being not said.
I'm sure it's a mix of both, me and the other person needing to finesse our approaches in
these situations.
I still do believe we should let people have their moments, and when you do, those people
will come back and help you celebrate with you in your moments.
You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.
You have the power to cause people to think twice by how you treat them.
They notice when you make them feel good.
Hopefully, they're someone who can return the favor.
I know I do.