A big test

Today was a bad day.  It started out with some anxiety hang-over from yesterday.  I woke up and thought I should roll over and stay in bed.  But, I had a presentation to give today at work so I got up and went.  And then it got worse.  And incident happened with a co-worker that ended up with me crying I was so upset.  Upset at feeling blamed for what I views as either a miscommunication or the co-workers mistake.  Upset because my co-worker wouldn't stop.  Upset because I'm pretty sure that he/she already had come to a conclusion and it didn't matter what I was going to say or do, that conclusion wasn't going to change.

And yet, on some level I feel proud of myself.  I stood up for myself and told this person that their assumptions were incorrect.  I stood up and said it was unfair to blame me for the situation and I was doing exactly what I thought was appropriate in the situation, and the same thing I have done many times before in the same situation. I didn't let the person push me around.  I didn't take the crap and internalize it.  I still firmly believe that I didn't do anything wrong and there was absolutely no reason for the reaction.

There have been many times in my life where people have done this to me and for a lot of those times I just took it.  I took the blame and internalized it, and then put on the face that nothing was wrong.  This only gave those people permission to keep going and keep doing it.  It also allowed them to start to believe that I should be blamed for things, even when that was unfair.

In this situation, as hard as it is, I am doing things differently.  I stood up for myself.  Frankly even crying, as much as I hated doing it at work, showed the person that they had upset me and their actions were not ok.  I also talked to a co-worker and my boss about what to do, instead of just taking it and walking away.  These things are positive signs for me.  In fact, the mere fact that I was crying is a good sign.  I was letting myself feel something.  I was letting myself react to the situation, I was letting myself be connected to my life.  I think my reaction was at the appropriate level for what happened and a normal reaction to the situation.  As much as it sucked and was hard, it is progress.

This story is not over.  I am not sure how it will play out, but I refuse to put up with this this time.  I like my job and I will not let this person screw that up for me.