I got an idea of how extra sensitive I am today. Last week and this week especially I have been having issues with people banging into me.
I work in Chicago so it gets pretty congested and people crowd the streets. I’m sort of used to getting pushed around a little but, I don’t know, it seemed a little worse over the past week or so. Then this morning a woman was passing me on the right and she banged into my shoulder so hard it hurt for awhile.
At first I thought I must be so large that people can’t avoid me. I have a heavy woman’s mindset. But then I reminded myself that I’ve lost 40 lbs. I only weigh 127 and I fit in size 8 clothes. How small do I have to be?!
So then I started wondering what is wrong with me that people bump into me all the time? What am I doing to cause this? What is it about me? I could feel tears pushing at my eyes.
I sucked it up but as we walked I sort of mentioned the bumping thing to my husband. He seemed surprised and said it happens to him all the time, that people are just inconsiderate assholes downtown and when he sees it coming he tries to make his shoulder really hard so they’ll get hurt too. (He’s 6‘2” and 228 lbs so he’s got a little bit on me.)
We talked some more about it and I realized I was taking this way too personally. It was nothing about me that was causing it. It was just random hurried people ramming their way through the crowd.
Our reactions were just a good example of how our parents raised us. When my husband was a little boy he would bump into a table or something and his mom would say, “Stupid table!” When I was young and my older brothers would hit me just for being a younger sister, my mother would ask, “Well, what did you do to cause it?” Thus we have both grown up to reflect those philosophies in our perspectives in every day life. My husband has had to deal with taking responsibility for his own misfortunes and I continue to deal and deal and deal with the agony of constantly thinking that everything is my fault.
To all you parents out there - err on the side of non-blame.
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