I can't stand up for myself anymore.....so ashamed!

Thank you for the kind words. And I'm sorry that my post upset you.

But I have quoted your post selectively so as to clarify a few comments you made about me and my intentions:
I never said you were not truthful or what happened to you in the past was insignificant (I don't know you, so how could I?), nor did I say what happened to you now was insignificant (the description clearly states your terrible feelings in that situation). Those are your interpretations, not mine. I simply said that given the title you chose, that you felt "so ashamed" and later on while reading, that you felt "humiliated" and so forth, I had expected to read something more dramatic, like you standing up to someone who had abused you in the past, etc. In short, I was saying how I "felt" and what I "expected" when I read your post.

I then reasoned you may not have been feeling such intense emotions based on the incident, given that your explanation did not indicate an objectively horrifying encounter ( as awful as the situation was) involving severely inflicted psychological or physical damage. Since I get triggered in many sorts of assertiveness related situations, I reasoned that probably the encounter, as irritating and upsetting as it was, must have brought up other much stronger memories. Which you seem to agree with, because in this post you reference people who have invalidated you in the past, and even my post seems to have triggered you. As someone with PTSD, I am familiar with that. If you've been bitten by a dog and had to be hospitalized, simply seeing a neighbor dog bark might make you scream in terror. The bark is going to startle many people but not all of them will feel the same depths of terror that you might feel, as PTSD sufferer. Would you not expect one dog owner to ask why you were so terrified, or would you see that as invalidating?

I am a reader and poster on a public psych forum, nor am I familiar with your posts, so I got into this thread only based on the title. Since there was no background to the incident and I don't know you, I simply expressed my reaction and my curiosity as to what kind of trauma you had yourself that such an incident was so horrifying to you. And then adding that I can not make light of it, as much as I want to, which is why I asked questions in the first place to hear what kind of trauma you experienced in the first place (if someone was stabbed in a restaurant, surely restaurant incidents of all sorts will be extremely triggering, and someone trying to make light of it is going to come across as terribly invalidating).

Perhaps you did not expect anybody to ask you any questions of you or share their own feelings when reading your post, and only expected people to say validating things like, What a rude person or how horrible of an experience! But please don't view my question as judgment of any sorts because that was not the intention.

Oh, I definitely expect people to ask questions, which others did, and I will answer those that I feel comfortable answering. The purpose of this post was not to investigate my deeper understandings of why I find it difficult to self advocate(although I did talk about that a little as a by product), the post was clearly asking if others struggled similarly and what they specifically did to manage this.

I am fairly sure I said "I felt....I know why" in expressing my feeling of invalidation, and my feelings of sadness at feeling this way.

Maybe what you had "expected to read" highlights your own desire of "standing up to someone who abused you in the past" and you felt disappointed at not having an example of this to read? Just a thought.

I know for myself that I have often day dreamed of doing that very thing, of standing up to those that abused me in childhood(and adulthood) and those that sexually assaulted me in my early teens and early adulthood. Ahhh now that would be sweet justice. However I have not and did not. That is why this lack of self advocacy is soo hard, shaming and humiliating for me.