Read on Twitter
I was raised with the idea that it didn't matter at all how your day was going, if anything bad had happened or was currently happening, you always had to talk to people with the exact same kindness and gentleness as if everything was fine all the time.
And I'm only starting to realize how much that's put me at a disadvantage, not because it's a burden to try to be kind and gentle when I'm having a hard time, that's fine, but because most other people were NOT raised that way.
So their relative lack of consideration toward me has always made me feel like I must so incredibly awful I've driven someone to break that sacred covenant and should do everyone a favour and disappear forever...
...when honestly their behaviour is probably nothing to do with me, they're just going through their own thing.
On the flip side of that, sometimes I just get exhausted from absorbing flat, cold, inconsiderate reactions and want to just shout at people to remember to temper their tone, their facial expressions.
Because pretending I don't feel like that behaviour is hard for me to handle is so, so exhausting. But then I remember I don't want to turn anyone else into a basket case like me, because I know what kind of life sentence that is.
And to be clear, the people most responsible for teaching me this behaviour did NOT model it toward me, though I saw them model it toward other people. And I'm sure they felt inside the same way I did.
Oh, and ALSO, this just leads to a hideous spiral of exhaustion for the other person in this situation. Because I have been trained to perceive completely neutral or frustrated-but-not-at-you behaviour as disapproval, my reaction is way out of whack to the point of irrationality.
Because remember, the disapproval I perceive can only be because I am a uniquely terrible person, or else the other person would not have broken the obvious default social contract of being perfectly kind and gentle despite anything at all times.
So if the other person notices I'm upset (this is why I tend to walk away, even completely change locations when I've been set off like this, which is also not subtle but at least it's a discrete, short-term action rather than being forced to witness a protracted anxiety attack)
...then they sometimes feel the need to comfort and reassure me and justify perfectly normal behaviour, which, you know, is understandably exhausting for them. And not fun to deal with in the long term.
(and also being comforted makes everything worse because I get mad at myself for being so broken)
