Identifying the Ones Who are Acting Strangely
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Everybody is different, and it’s impossible to get along with everybody, but I want to. I don’t want to have bad feelings between me and anybody in my life. But sometimes I do upset people and although it’s not on purpose I can’t find any way to avoid it. So instead I just don’t take it personally. Maybe a little pain is good for them.
I also find in my life that different people play different roles. And by that I mean that there are a set number of characters and different people have filled those same roles in different times of my life.
I’ll give you an example. For me there’s always that one person who gives me what I categorize as “trouble”. If this person is in the workplace then the trouble could be them criticizing me for how I’m doing my job, or it could be them saying something like I might need to work on my day off.
And often to someone else this trouble doesn’t seem very bad at all, but to me, it feels like the worst thing ever. And as my life has changed of course so have the people, but sure enough I’ll be having trouble from one specific person again and again, and then I’ll realize that they are now filling that role.
But this is the important thing for me. Identifying them is one part of it but because I know who they are I can “expect” to have trouble from them at any time and I can be ready for it. I can also react differently to them because now their role in my life has been clearly identified.
One strategy I have is to not react to what they say. As in the example earlier they might be saying that I need to do work on my day off or that something is going to happen at work that wouldn’t be good for me.
But in the end it turns out that I don’t need to work or that the work thing doesn’t happen. I used to freak out and worry about what they had said, but now this has happened so many times over the years, with the person I’ve identified as the trouble-person, that I’ve learned to not react to what they say and just trust that it’s really not going to happen.
Another trend in my life that I’ve noticed is that people are often rude to me or say insensitive things seemingly without even realizing it. Or people ignore me when I say something, and it’s as if I haven’t even said a word.
How I deal with this is to, you guessed it, not react. The best thing by far for me to do is to let it go immediately, or if what I’ve said has been ignored I don’t pursue it or try to say it again. I take it as being something that I need to hear about myself or something that I shouldn’t have said. But I’ve gotten used to people acting very strangely around me and as I said before, I just have to not take it personally.
Another thing that happens which I’m never sure is good or bad is that people often share their problems with me or personal things about themselves, whether I’m close with them or not. Of course, it’s great that they can confide in me, but I will rarely give them advice. Giving advice is dangerous. How can I possibly know what the best course of action is?
