To get out of the land of "if only..." I took the fork in the road to "Next time..."
One of the big down sides of PTSD and dissociation is a large lag time between an upsetting event, processing the information, and coming up with the appropriate answer. I kept being discouraged that If I ONLY could speak up faster. Yay, I know where that leads. Well, one of the things I am learning from counseling and fellow bloggers is the same old crap comes back, time and time again. Shaun over at Suburban Black Sheep posted the idea of collecting "Talking points." http://suburbanblacksheep.blogspot.com/2011/03/talking-points.html
People use the same tired put downs and attacks over and over again. He suggested posting a comment with a question or statement that is meant to put us down and to have a suitable answer all ready to go. I actually did this when I chose to have 6 kids. Where we lived there were not many families that the same two parents had all six kids. (Small town, major cliques, not afraid to ask rude questions about choosing to have kids.) I gathered several quick come backs. A few examples:
Q. Didn't 6 kids drive you crazy?
A. Oh no, I had to be crazy to do it in the first place.
Q. Why did you have 6 kids?
A. Because I didn't want 7.
My all time favorite came during the time when grocery stores were switching to scanners and the checkout clerks were 'supposed' to make conversation with the customers. Bad idea for some. The clerk looked at my loaded cart and 6 kids....
Q. Are they all yours?
A. Oh no, I check them out at the library.
I am learning that many questions keep coming back for just the right answer so NEXT TIME, I am going to be ready...
7 comments:
Great post! That's what I do with the Nparents.
I have also prepared myself to leave and go home if NF gets into one of his rages again. Ns have a way of sensing these things so it's been over a year since I made that decision and there have been no rages.
Hugs!
Clever! Love this!
mulderfan that is a great idea to have a plan when they disrespect you.
Thanks Mellisa. :)
What I should have said always seems to find me the next day in the shower. This is why I thought of coming up with an N Q&A. Sometimes it's just better to have pat answers to some of the pat questions we seem to endlessly get.
Shaun, I appreciate you pointing out how often the same put downs are used. I like the idea of having a list to counteract their usual comments. Thanks.
I had a should have said finally show up in my brain about seven years later. The good thing about that is that I can finally put the incident to rest.
Nice to get closure.
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