It's different for me all the time. Sometimes I'm stronger than other times, more my old self and I deal with it one way. Other times I'm not like that. And angry people who make me have to get angry, anger me. And anger hurts my brain chemistry. Then I get pissed off. And I cry. Go ahead and cry. It'll help. Hug.

I'm so scared to lose my job right now...that i just let the trigger be and i feel enraged but not act or say anything...its very, very hard.It takes a lot to not say or do anything but i know i'll get in a fight and someone may get fired and with my luck is me..People are assholes.

Hugs

i don't do well with anger. it freaks me out, and makes me uncomfortable.

i'm mellow by nature, and i like to keep my environment positive and harmonious. if i feel attacked, i will stand up to it, but my first impulse is to just get outa' there.

sorry that happened to you.

Sorry that happened to you, I can relate and my experiences are similar, I do my best to deal with other peoples anger and it is a trigger for me. I am in the process of learning ways to cope when in places where others are expressing anger. I know that I will never be able to avoid this out in the world, it is just part of life, I am triggered even when others are expressing anger towards each other and it has nothing to do with me at all. Really frustrating in itself. I read someone say to go ahead and cry, I usually end up doing that as well after I try to stay focused until I can get home. Being at work sometimes does allow for me to get away and take care of myself. Hard to find a balance, I hope you are feeling better and this will pass, I find journaling and meditation helpful also. Wishing that everyone in this world was working on themselves!

I would have been the one who offended you in this scenario. I was raised in a large family of leeches who made me feel morally obligated to compensate for their economic incompetance. Their idea of helping me through college was placing their need for beer over my need for tuition. They figured that if I could afford books, I could afford their urgency of the day. I keep around 1800 miles between us and often wonder if I am too close.

And I am busted again... I still have a hard time staying calm about it, even with a virtual stranger. Among my coping attempts is to refuse the loan, given the dollar as charity and avoid further contact.

Then I go work out like a madwoman until I am calm enough to cry out the rest of it.

Sorry it keeps happening to both of us. Hurts on my side, too. Sure would like a better way to handle it.

Reading your situation, Di, and the responses of others, it occurs to me that part of this is the meaning we each attribute to this.

There is the actual physical event (borrowing $- angry exchange+ you feeling terrible).

Then there are the meanings that each person ascribe to the event. The meaning you apply to it may have little or nothing to do with what the person who blew up had ascribed to it.

To you, it was an innocent mistake. You breached a standard unknowingly. Knowing this, you might choose to do it differently next time, but you can't undo what was done. You might have even been feeling hard on yourself before the person got mad (like realizing you broke a rule, and thinking "shoot, I blew that one"). You might feel embarrassed. There is no specific way you should feel about it, though obviously the fact that you now recognize the misstep will help you out by allowing you to do differently from now on.

To the other person, who knows what it means to them? They may be like Arfie, used to being the person who everyone comes to for borrowing money. Their response to you could be way overblown, but the reason they went that way with it could have nothing to do with you.

I'm sorry this happened. I too am not very comfortable with anger (my own, or anyone else's). I guess you can do what you can to make amends and pay them back, and beyond that, they just have to decide to get past it (which is their choice). Unfortunately, there are people who choose to stay mad, probably because it feels like protection from future wrongs from others.

It's hard not to personalize this, but I'd say (unless you have a habit of borrowing and not repaying) it has more to do with stuff outside of what happened between you and that person.

You feeling lousy isn't going to change it, so do what you can to make amends and move on.