Triggered

[Family Court Strategies: When Your Partner Has BPD OR NPD Traits.]

I had an interesting experience that really triggered a lot of anger in me the other day.

My elderly mom is 90. I'm the only child/relative still left in the area near her. I work full time in a demanding helping profession, and 1x a week, I travel 1.5 hours to pick her up, we have lunch together, and I run errands with her etc. for things she needs. I've been doing this for 5 years now, and I'm the only one here when she is sick or there's an emergency or she needs anything at all.  I've done many midnight runs to the hospital and I try my best to be of help, but I have a really busy schedule so I can't do as much as I would like.

So I'm eating lunch with mom the other day. At lunch, she has 'orders' she asks me to place for her on amazon.com of products she wants mailed to her assisted living residence.  So I do that for her on my iphone when we are at lunch, then, after lunch, we go to stores where she wants to shop etc, too. This is a work day, I have to do all of this in time to drive 1.5 hours back to work for the last half of my day, which means I won't be done until 7pm.  So, I was placing orders for her on my Iphone the other day while with her at lunch, and I looked up at one point and noticed a man alone in a booth who was looking at us. His back was turned to us in his booth, so he had to kind of turn to look at us. He had a weird smile on his face, almost like he knew me or something, but I've never seen him before in my life. I just shrugged it off and got back to what I was doing with my mom and didn't give it anymore thought.

About 15 minutes later, my mom had just told me she wanted to go to a shoe store next, and I didn't know the address so I was looking that up on the iphone, when this man got up to leave the restaurant... . and on his way out he stops at our booth and he first shakes my mom's hand (she just looked confused but cooperated with the hand shake) and he said to my 90 year old mom "good afternoon young lady, you have a very nice day". And then he handed a small slip of paper to me saying it was a 'fortune cookie' for me.  (we were at a Chinese restaurant).  I was like "huh?", but he just walked on... . though he did stop to turn around a few feet away, and looked back at me while I labored to put on my reading glasses and open the small piece of paper ... . but he hesitated and looked back, with a very self satisfied smile on his face, and he clearly, obviously wanted to see my reaction to his note.

The man was probably about 55-60 years old. I am 49, I look young for my age, but I'm clearly a grown up, I don't look 16!

Anyhow, it took me a few seconds to get the darn thing open and read it.  Here is what it said:

"make sure you stop playing with your phone and spend some time with your mom during lunch"

This happened last Thursday.  It is still coming to my mind. I find it extremely triggering.  It brings up so much anger... . more anger than a stranger reasonably deserves.  It truly pisses me off.  

I did NOT say or do anything about it, he had started to walk away by the time I got the danm note open. But it just pisses me off to no end.

[MaybeSo]

I had an interesting experience that really triggered a lot of anger in me the other day.

My elderly mom is 90. I'm the only child/relative still left in the area near her. I work full time in a demanding helping profession, and 1x a week, I travel 1.5 hours to pick her up, we have lunch together, and I run errands with her etc. for things she needs. I've been doing this for 5 years now, and I'm the only one here when she is sick or there's an emergency or she needs anything at all.  I've done many midnight runs to the hospital and I try my best to be of help, but I have a really busy schedule so I can't do as much as I would like.

So I'm eating lunch with mom the other day. At lunch, she has 'orders' she asks me to place for her on amazon.com of products she wants mailed to her assisted living residence.  So I do that for her on my iphone when we are at lunch, then, after lunch, we go to stores where she wants to shop etc, too. This is a work day, I have to do all of this in time to drive 1.5 hours back to work for the last half of my day, which means I won't be done until 7pm.  So, I was placing orders for her on my Iphone the other day while with her at lunch, and I looked up at one point and noticed a man alone in a booth who was looking at us. His back was turned to us in his booth, so he had to kind of turn to look at us. He had a weird smile on his face, almost like he knew me or something, but I've never seen him before in my life. I just shrugged it off and got back to what I was doing with my mom and didn't give it anymore thought.

About 15 minutes later, my mom had just told me she wanted to go to a shoe store next, and I didn't know the address so I was looking that up on the iphone, when this man got up to leave the restaurant... . and on his way out he stops at our booth and he first shakes my mom's hand (she just looked confused but cooperated with the hand shake) and he said to my 90 year old mom "good afternoon young lady, you have a very nice day". And then he handed a small slip of paper to me saying it was a 'fortune cookie' for me.  (we were at a Chinese restaurant).  I was like "huh?", but he just walked on... . though he did stop to turn around a few feet away, and looked back at me while I labored to put on my reading glasses and open the small piece of paper ... . but he hesitated and looked back, with a very self satisfied smile on his face, and he clearly, obviously wanted to see my reaction to his note.

The man was probably about 55-60 years old. I am 49, I look young for my age, but I'm clearly a grown up, I don't look 16!

Anyhow, it took me a few seconds to get the darn thing open and read it.  Here is what it said:

"make sure you stop playing with your phone and spend some time with your mom during lunch"

This happened last Thursday.  It is still coming to my mind. I find it extremely triggering.  It brings up so much anger... . more anger than a stranger reasonably deserves.  It truly pisses me off.  

I did NOT say or do anything about it, he had started to walk away by the time I got the danm note open. But it just pisses me off to no end.

[seeking balance]

I would be pissed too - pushing those "not good enough" buttons.

The anger is residual, from past crap - and you know it 

Let yourself be pissed as long as you need to be, work through the other times in your life you have felt this way, then consciously let it go.

4 Agreements come to mind immediately on this.

These situations really let me practice the "don't take things personally" and "don't assume" skills.

He assumed, judged and had the arrogance to "try" and help you see the light.  Jackass.

On the flipside - he may have seen you with your mother having lunch, thought of his mother who was no longer alive, wished HE would have spent more time with her and wanted to share his experience although he did a poor job of it.

At the end of the day MaybeSo - you know you are a good daughter and you know the truth.  Let yourself be as angry as you need - you have every right to be, then let it go... . you know your truth.

,

SB

[MaybeSo]

Jackass.

What a great word. 

Yea, it triggers the not good enough button.  Shame, really.  That no matter what, I'm not REALLY doing things right or of not doing enough or not being selfless enough.  Shame.

It also brought up stuff regarding codepenence; I was thinking... . you codependent jerk... . here you are judging me from afar, you do not know the full story, you are not in my shoes... . but you come over and make yourself feel like a good guy by putting ME in a one-down position, magnanimously going out of your way to show me the light. His smug self-satisfied smile was  just nauseating.

How many times have I done that?  Not to strangers, I'm not that nuts to just comment like that to a perfect stranger who hasn't asked for my feedback. 

But I certainly pushed my nose into other people's business and felt I had the right to dictate to them the 'correct' more 'appropriate' way to live their lives without knowing what it's like to walk in their shoes. I've had my neck turned around to make sure I'm judging someone else instead of keeping my eyes on my own paper. So, some of  my anger at him was probably that he was a mirror of the yucky, smug, controlling, icky side of MY own codependence, and I did NOT like what I saw in that mirror.

It does not feel good to be judged.

[LoneWolf768]

MaybeSo, was the note handwritten or do you think this jackass broke open as many fortune cookies as he did to find the note he gave you?

[MaybeSo]

Ha! No, it was lovingly and painstkenly handwritten on a teeny tiny strip of paper that looked a little like a "fortune" from a fortune cookie.

A creative jackass who apparently has waaaay too much time on his hands.  

[eeyore]

wow, I'm surprised a man would even notice such a thing. (sorry couldn't resist and I am just kidding.)   In any event he made some very bad assumptions that were hurtful to you.  I'm sorry that he didn't really take the time to find out.  Most likely he had good intentions.  That doesn't excuse anything. 

My opinion is you do way more than most people do for their Mom.  And it's remarkable that you are so dedicated.  Please try to forget what this person who doesn't know "YOU" did.  The rest of us know better and think very highly of you. 

[MaybeSo]

That was awfully nice of you, thank you eeyore!

I am kind of surprised a man would take notice or focus on such a thing, too.

When he passed me the note, since I had no idea what the heck he was doing... . I had a quick flash that maybe he was just flirting or was going to say something nice or complementary in the note. I wasn't the least bit attracted to him, but, I couldnt fathom why else a man would be kissing up to my mom and passing me a note.

Talk about a "narcissistic injury" to open it and find I was just being scolded instead.

Oh well, compared to the last 5 years,  what's one more narcisstic injury? 

 

[Cumulus]

Hey maybeso, that triggered me as well. No one should ever pass judgement on another person, what gave him that right. I too cared for my mother in much the same way until her death a year ago. It is hard, sometimes I felt like I was looking after everyone and everything but myself. And, I often tried to get more than one thing done at the same time. Often just having my presence beside her was all my mom needed, I could do emails, read articles etc., every once in a while sharing a tidbit with her. The point is like you, I was there, physically present and available. So what about this great man with the succinct advice? How did he get to a point in his life where he would make arbitrary, cruel and really controlling comments. What great power to hand you a "treat" filled with maliciousness. Mores the pity to someone like that.

[talithacumi]

Arrogant/entitled/narcissistic blindsiding boundary crashing. No wonder you were triggered. Jackass is right. Probably has a couple of exes who post regularly here already!

[connect]

Wow Maybeso! I am getting angry about that over here!

What an arse!

I too hate being judged. Yep - the smug expression on his face too must have been the icing on the cake!

I got ranted at in a road rage incident the other day where I was forced to maneuver my car to allow someone to get out of a space who was having difficulty. I was being nice. The third driver on the road decided to shout a list of my faults at me before speeding off into the ether. Wow I wanted to hunt that guy down and give him a piece of my mind!

You are a great daughter to your mum with all you do for her. Maybe you should write fortune cookie guy an anger letter and then burn it to help get it off your chest. I have found this really helpful when dealing with anger that I cant place on the doorstep where it firmly belongs  

[Forward2free]

Maybeso, I would have been triggered too, so much that I probably would have found him on the sidewalk and thanked him for his note, and told him that unless he was sitting at our table, his opinion wasn't required. Actually, I would have wanted to say a lot more, but that's all I would have said out aloud.

Have you thrown the piece of paper away yet?

I used to remember comments that hurt me in my mind and repeat them over and over, getting angrier and more upset.

They are just words, and perhaps you could replace them with affirmations instead:

I can trust my own actions and perceptions.

I am not the cause of someone else's irritation or anger.

I am a worthwhile person.

I deserve to be treated with respect.

I can decide for myself what's best for me in any situation.

I have an excellent relationship with my mother.

I am proud of the daughter that I have become.

etc... .