Dismissive people

One of the worst things about anxiety is when other people don’t take your feelings seriously.

My father has been doing that all my life. Yesterday I was on the phone with him, and he did it again.

In general, men do that more than women do. Even Mr. Kat does it, somewhat.

What if I have good reasons to be anxious? What if I’m right? (That does happen occasionally - me being right.)

Even if I’m wrong - and I really hope I’m wrong - your obvious impatience when trying to “reassure” me hurts.

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SW-User

My therapist (who was a really odd duck) once said the strangest thing to me (but it clearly stuck with me).

She said... "you don't just make a face like this (she scrunched up her body and face) for no reason. You make a face like that because someone farted in your face."

Her point was... something or someone at some point made you always have that reaction (anger/anxiety/etc) to things. You have to figure out who farted in your face before you can help yourself deal with the reaction.

In my case (being a male), I really took it to heart that I don't get anxious about things without a reason. Now... usually... I can't figure it out on the first try or on the spot... but I learned to try and figure it out. Sometimes I learned how hard my brain worked to hide the answers.

Men are a little different where we don't even have the anxiety... we almost put it straight into anger and make it part of our personalty. (much worse than dealing with the issue)

My therapist helped get me to a new place. I try to recognize what my "bad reactions" are and apologize and work through them.

This video always makes me laugh about how different men and women are with talking about "issues."

[media=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWcEhtg7W3s]