On Friday I received a call from someone who was very upset. She had actually called the wrong place, but she decided that venting at me would be fine. Why not... when you are telling the same story over and over it doesn't really matter who you yell at, right. Then, that same day, she yelled at one of the volunteers in my organization. Same story.
I realized though, later, that 1) I should have stopped trying to understand and should have said I had to go. Being on the receiving end of her bombastic yelling wasn't necessary. and that 2) there is a good reason I don't usually answer my phone.
She actually said when I was trying to talk, "I called you." In other words, it wasn't my place to talk... it was her one way shouting moment.
Funny, I thought that the phone was a two way communication device.
This happened three days ago and I am still frustrated by it. Not in a huge way. Not in an angry way. More in a way to understand how I need to respond next time. Because there is always a next time. For my own development I have to find new ways of being in that moment when someone isn't rational. I don't want to feel the level of anxiety it brings up in me - I want to be able to move that through me faster or not absorb it at all.
I figure that because of my mom's irrational behavior I am particularly attuned to it in other people - you grow up with crazy you can see it coming at you... although thwarting it off is a whole other skill.
Maybe excercise would help. It isn't my first reaction. Talking it over and then nesting quietly is my first reaction - but I am finding that those both perpetuate the feelings much too long. Maybe exercise and if there is still energy in what happened I can write about it.
You can see that this is all a process - a process to figure out how to cause the least harm in myself and in others. One that I think I will be learning forever.
Photo: Vincent Van Der Pas
