As you know, I took last week off from blogging because I had a very busy week juggling both of my part-time jobs. On top of this, I came down with a cold on Sunday night, so it was quite a week. On Wednesday, I put in an 11-hour day at one job, two hours at the other job, and did all of this while dealing with a cold. I was worn out!
In the middle of all of this, my son pulled something that he got from his father … something that drives me absolutely out of my mind. I made a comment about cutting me some slack because I was sick. His response (just like his father) was, “Oh, you’re not sick.”
Let me tell you – If you want to p@$$ me off, that’s the way to do it. Don’t presume to tell **ME** what **I** am feeling. You are not in my body. You are not qualified to tell **ME** what **MY** body is feeling.
Coincidentally, I had my annual physical the day before this conversation, and my doctor noted that she could see evidence of my virus, both in my red throat and my swollen lymph nodes. So, I popped off at my son that I am so sure that he, at age 10, is in a better position than a MEDICAL DOCTOR to make a determination about whether or not I am sick.
Now, I know exactly why they both do this. They view me as superwoman, and I am supposed to take care of them. If I am sick, then they might have to – G*d forbid – do a few things themselves. I don’t ask them to take care of me. All I ask is that they back the f@#$ off and not make additional demands on me while I am feeling sick.
The same thing happens sometimes with how I am feeling (although not really with the two of them – neither is particularly perceptive when it comes to emotions). People will try to tell me what I am feeling or how I should be feeling. My feelings are **MY** feelings, not anyone else’s, and nobody else gets to tell me how I feel.
I suspect this topic is such a hot button for me because my needs were disregarded so much as an abused child. Even my own body was not “mine.” I didn’t get a say in what was done to it, and my abusers sure did not care about how it felt. Perhaps that is why comments like that are so triggering to me. Regardless, it really p@$$es me off when people try to tell me how I am feeling. I already know how I am feeling, and they don’t get to override that.
Photo credit: Hekatekris
Blooming Lotus 
I get the exact same way when somebody else tries to tell me how my dyslexia should work. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to explain that yes, I actually know all the spelling rules. No, I’m not being careless. Yes, I actually did study for the test. I just can’t freaking spell, no matter how hard I try! (And the only reason I’m spelling things correctly right now is because I have spell check on Firefox.)
Only you can truly say what’s going on with your body and your mind. Nobody else can really, truly understand what’s going on. It’s your body & brain. Not theirs.
My son also has dyslexia, and my sister and I are pretty sure that she has it as well. I am getting my son tutoring or his dyslexia this summer and already have modifications for him re: spelling. He truly cannot tell the difference between a lowercase “b” or “d.” They look interchangeable to him. :0(
– Faith
I had the same problem with “b”s and “d”s. (And “p”s, “q”s, and “g”s. One trick that helped, (which I didn’t learn until I was much older) was to actually write “b”s and “d”s differently. I write “b”s where the sticky-up part is straight like a stick, and I write my “d”s so the sticky-up part is looped. The change in the mechanical writing process allowed me to differentiate between the letters.
But tutoring and an IEP are probably the most important things a dyslexic can have, schooling wise. Your son is very lucky you’re so on top of things. My cousin didn’t get his accommodations until high school, and then my aunt basically treated the problem like it didn’t exist. It caused him huge problems when he had to take the ACT. (When he got his accommodations, his score jumped so much he was investigated for cheating.)
This is why I can’t have proper relationships at the moment; if someone did that to me I’d punch them repeatedly till they were unconscious. Blah. Sometimes I hate being a danger to people. And it is for exactly the reasons outlined above. I just go straight to “under lethal threat” mode and defend myself.
I saw a comment on another blog a week or so ago that I keep thinking of.
“I’m sick of strangers telling me all about me. Mind your own damn business.”
A few weeks ago i broke my elbow, and have had to have help getting dressed, washing my hair, etc. I also haven’t been able to shave my underarms, and have felt very embarrassed having my husband apply my deodorant. He kept flinging my arm up in the air, exposing its lovely hairiness. I kept saying that it was embarrassing. He kept telling me it wasn’t. Finally, when he said that again, I looked him in the eye and said that if I say it is embarrassing, it is embarrassing. That is the first time i can remember sticking up for my feelings in that way. The thing is, I hardly ever think to say something like that. I usually just take it. I felt kind of proud of myself.
Hi Faith,
I have to say it once again: I am so thankful for what you are doing with this blog!
A while ago my therapist gave me a homework – to try and figure out any pattern or triggers for my anger…I was not very successful, but now in reading your post it became sooo clear! A lot of the time my anger is connected to other people telling me what I (should) feel! I just had never made the connection…
Also, a few weeks ago, my therapist said that my correct diagnosis should be borderline personality disorder with strong dissociative features (instead of the DID he had suspected before), but for various reasons (insurance coverage etc.), he will keep the DID on my official chart. In a way I am glad that he is doing this, but on the other hand it just got me thinking…this is another thing where someone else is trying to tell me what I am feeling: like to the insurance companies borderline is often not a recognized, acceptable diagnosis, so they don’t want to pay for your therapy. Who are they to tell me that the symptoms of borderline are not real??? I wish I could invite them to just spend a few hours in my body, feeling my feelings (or trying to figure out if they are feeling something and if so what it is…) this makes me so angry – so I guess, I definitely found ONE reason for why I get angry: if others try to tell me what or how I feel (and have NO clue!)!!!!
I understand exactly how you feel! Your feelings are your feelings, your body is your body, period.
For me, it isn’t so much about someone telling me how I feel. My trigger is someone telling me what to do or not do. Controlling behavior is a big trigger for me because my abusive dad was a dictator who told everyone in our family what they could do and what they couldn’t do. My husband is usually the one to set me off. I will come right out and tell him that he is not my dad. If you order me to do something, forget it. It will never get done, even if it is something good for me. Do not order me. That puts me back into helpless child mode where I was not in control and I will not go there. I refuse to be helpless victim ever again.
Argh…wrote this once and somehow deleted it. Am going to try it again to honor the parts who wanted me to write this.
I’ve only just begun to realize that no one gets to tell ME how to feel about or inside of ME. I was never allowed. “They” were always right. I was always making a big deal of nothing and I should shut up and make everyone happy. Even tho i don’t remember anyone specifically telling me this after I left home at 16 , but that time the message was pretty well embedded and life seemed to indicate it was true.
What does seem to trigger me is when I’ve told a bit of my story and someone says, “I know how you feel…” and then starts to tell their story. I try to listen, but inside I’m thinking, “You don’t have a friggin’ clue what I feel…maybe…if you’d been tortured for 16 yrs daily by family…maybe…and maybe not.” I feel awful to think that way. I know they’re only trying to relate and i don’t mean to diminish their story. But…without the the intensity of those 16 years how can they possibly “know” the feelings that come from some primal, cellular level that I can barely touch let alone “know.” As a result, when I listen to someone else, I’m trying to say, “Wow, I can’t even imagine how that must feel…” because I probably don’t know either.
Thanks for allowing my rant,
ruby
My father always told me I wasn’t getting sick when I said I was feeling sick too. What is really odd is you can even spot this tendency to disregard others’ feelings in virtual strangers. I’ve had quite a few acquaintances I barely knew tell me that pain and illness is mind over matter. These were times when I was injured or sick. They said my mind controlled everything and it wasn’t real. I was younger then so I didn’t do anything. Now, I would drop these people like a hot potato 😛 I do think when people say something like that, they are telling you a lot about themselves. Of course, your son is a different matter as he’s still a child and developing.
I too get angry when people tell me how I feel or what to do. But there are also times when I wonder if I fall into these same traps when I am trying to support someone (I know I have in the past). I find myself lately paying attention to the people around me who make me feel supported and validated- noticing the kinds of things the say, how they say it, what they don’t say. Sometimes my head gets all into a scramble trying to be so careful about what I say to someone who is feeling crappy- I really want to help, I don’t want to say the wrong thing. Feels like I’m better at it now that I’ve gone through a lot of my own challenging times- before that I was kind of tuned out of my feelings and really didn’t know how to be supportive of someone else. Even though it kind of stings a bit, I like it when people call me on my unskillful comments. I learn from it. And I REALLY like calling other people on their comments rather than just letting it slide- makes me feel like I have power in the situation (which I do). Mostly I’m nice about it- speaking from the heart and all that, but not always and that’s okay too 🙂
Glad you’re back Faith! Hope this week is a good one
Welcome back Faith. I did not check this morning as I figured you would take memorial day off. I should have known better. Smile
I have a wit and when anyone tells me anything about myself I respond. If you say all men … golfers …. Does not matter anymore if it is good bad or indifferent. I may have at you.
“The odds of a simple brain like yours understanding anything meaningful about me are null. Do you understand what I just said”
I have a theory. Are you surprised? There is much said about not picking up non-verbal clues. There is not much said about giving them. I am practicing using my non-verbal clues to communicate. It seems if I just give a look idiots seem to be able to process that better than being clear.
One thing that I am finding important is that I do not need to give an explanation. NO is good enough. Using Faith as an example she needs no reason to have someone cut her some slack. She does not need to earn it or have it because she has suffered or is suffering. I do not know Faith and so I can not tell you about her. I can guess that if we were working together on a project and I said “I need some slack today she would say “OK”
On of the many reasons that I read and comment on Faith’s blog is she does not write “All survivors ….” or everyone that has DID …. Sure sometimes she will write something stated as a absolute. It is hard to always add the some, most, many, in my experience …. I know her style and if she writes an absolute that it is really her current understanding is inferred.
On my blog I do not even try. I write in absolutes all the time. I don’t believe them. Often my absolutes are mutually exclusive.
Pretty much tell me about you and I will tell you about me. I don’t even care what anyone else told you about you.
I have not cut my hair in two years. I used it as a study. Why in the world would anyone feel they can comment negatively on my hair? or feel it is OK to question me. It is good practice for the look. It took a while and I did kinda a verbal non verbal thing. I would look at the top of a bald guy head or look real close at a persons hair.
I seem to be saying. “Pretty much I am me.” a lot.
I do not really have a pat answer for what I do. I don’t really have a reason for this comment I just do it.
We have a term for this that is from the younger ones and it is called disappearing. When someone tries to invalidate us they are disappearing us.
Welcome back! I just wanted to say validate your anger and say that that sounds like an incredibly irritating thing to hear, even for someone who doesn’t have that particular trigger. (Of course ten-year-olds are good at being irritating!) I hope you are feeling better now.
Totally agree and relate to what everyone is posting here. For me it isn’t just about how I feel physically, but also emotionally, or how I am thinking about things, or how I am handling things, etc. It is a supreme form of invalidation. My original PTSD came from someone who was so out of touch with what I was about, and she kept telling me her version of what I was about. Since I looked up to her, and she was in a position of authority, I believed her over me, and found myself very traumatized. I’ve healed a lot since then, and most of my own reactivities around these issues was put to rest. Since I have been at a more vulnerable time in my life again, I have found more reactivity and have actually distanced from some friends who think they are well meaning, but totally don’t get it so they label it in their own terms and speak to me as though they understand my reality better than I do.
In my healthiest times I have become an advocate for those who others tend to constantly invalidate because I know the destructiveness of that.
In my most reactive PTSD times, I remember talking about people trying to “erase” me, or I would go into a panic because they were trying to take “my space” away.
Taking aside the trigger I think your reaction is actually a very healthy one!! seriously, I mean every single one of my friends would get angry when feeling sick and have a verbal bullet like that shot at them when all they need are some kind words and rest!! simply because they have healthy boundaries and are human beings who have to be acknowledged when in need for some support. and not be denied of their feelings. To me that commment would be anger-provocating to everyone because it shows such a massive disregard for your being and feeling! and a comment like that from a grown-up indicates someone who does have a problem with themselves, boundarywise or other issues.
I SO hear you on this! NO ONE can tell another person what they are feeling…in the heart or the body! That used to drive me nuts from my former MIL. She would tell people what they were thinking and feeling. It drove us all nuts!
Good for you in standing up for yourself.
it is very sad if someone’s confused about what he/she’s feeling anyway. it can be very hard to understand yourself.
a friend of mine keeps telling me I’m angry! in fact this is, I suppose, when I’m stressed out and can’t find no way of releasing the pressure or cry.
but what makes me really angry is when someone tells me he’s feeling a lot lot worse than I do.
“I am sick myself!” “I’m having a hard time, too” etc.
It makes me feel like I have no right to feel that way and I’m causing a fuss about nothing much (which I think all the time anyway).
I wasn’t allowed to be physically ill as a kid. my parents just ignored it. it also was wrong to ‘feel’ (sad, angry, etc). so I learned not to or cried when I was on my own. it is hard to learn both of it is actually ok so I don’t want people to tell me it’s not.
[…] 1, 2011 by faithallen Reading through the comments on my blog entry entitled Don’t Tell Me How I Feel!! got me thinking about the first person in my life who routinely disregarded how I felt – my […]
I have cyclic vomiting syndrome and I can see where you are coming from. When I have an episode, i have terrible vomiting and nausea, but there is no virus that makes me sick.
I’ve been told I am faking and should get over it