Actually, it helped me to look at whether the challenge was warranted or not, was true? Then it didn't matter so much who did the challenging.

I had a boss who humiliated me in public and I was humiliated because he was making fun of my "speech" and that hurt because I do have trouble making myself understood/speaking plainly and completely. But, I looked and saw how hard I was working on this in therapy (why I was in therapy in the first place) and accepted that, yes, it did hurt to be prodded in such a tender spot.

However, I then looked at the criticism and the whole picture and I was being criticized when I was trying to be helpful and there was no mention of that, no "useful" words in the criticism, not even any negative should/shouldn't do this or that advice, just negative, you're-an-idiot, type name calling.

Looking at the whole picture, I was able to find my anger at being treated that way and came up with a "plan" for how not to be treated that way again by him or what to do if I were; I determined to not offer to help that boss (he wasn't my boss, just a generic vice president of the company) and to stay out of his way as much as possible, only doing what he directly asked me to do (despite liking to be helpful and volunteering to be helpful generally) and keeping that "doing" as spartan as possible. If he ever made fun of me again I would call him on it and tell him if he did it a "next" time, I would quit (I was, fortunately, in a position to do that). The whole plan really made me feel better/empowered.

I learned looking at and weighing the challenge, itself, first, and then the people making the challenge, second, was helpful to me.