The best way to deal with this that I have found is to apologize when you realize you affected someone else negatively. Like you did for me (which I appreciated and accepted -- did you see that part before you signed off?) -- I have also had to do this for others at times even though I know *I* didn't mean anything bad by it, etc. Sometimes if someone has been triggered it might take them a few moments to collect themselves back out of it -- I know that's the case with me, I can't just turn off the trigger autoresponse, but if it's been de-fused I WILL eventually come out of it.

As for thinking someone is someone they are not, I don't know the answer to that one. When someone thinks that it is hard to talk them out of it even when they are wrong. And when you're the target and you KNOW you don't know that person IRL or even from other online places, it is really scary.

~mal