Vent

There is no magical formula for "properly" standing up for yourself. People are unpredictable. How they react to your attempt to shut down their unacceptable behavior towards you can range from peaceful acceptance that they were wrong followed by an apology, to rage filled jabs in a desperate attempt to "put you in your place" for confronting them, thus leading to even worse behavior. It's a stupid game I'm tired of playing, with anyone, on any level.

If someone doesn't want to show consistent deceny and respect as I do for them, I'll just remove myself from their space since they can't reciprocate basic decency. I don't need to fight them for respect they should have just reciprocated like a decent human being. Forget that.

I try SO hard to treat people decently because I want to be treated decently. Even when I'm having a horrible day, I still manage to be neutral, because I don't want someone treating ME like crap. So, when people decide to side swipe me with horrible behavior for [insert reason], it shows me they never appreciated the neutrality and respect I've shown them, nor did they really care about consistently reciprocating basic decency. It's disappointing, it hurts. But I'm getting better at getting over it.

People need to either reciprocate the decency and respect I show them, or bother someone else with their unwillingness to do so. I'm tired of playing games with people. I'm not obligated to tolerate a person who has shown me they cannot consistently reciprocate basic decency!

I like this post of yours a lot!

Thanks for sharing!

Sounds like you've established a good benchmark for how to treat others and be treated in return.

Question: do you ever feel angry though and need to express that to the other person? Or do you just silently cut them off? If the latter, how do you deal with residual anger?

Thank you, I appreciate that.

I silently cut them off. I don't see the point in confronting someone who has revealed through their actions that they don't care about my feelings. Therefore I find it better to just walk away. But, I'm aware there were a few situations where I should have confronted the person instead due to the circumstances.

I deal with residual anger by writing my feelings in my journal, doing things I enjoy, and overall trying my best to move forward without dwelling on the person's behavior towards me.

I hope I answered your question.

You are more stoic than I am.

I like the idea of writing it all down in a journal to get the emotion out. I don't want to hold on to negative emotions...