Walking my dog is my peaceful time.g Gives me fresh air, exercise and time not to think. My Dog is 80lbs. He walks and I follow.
Today a man came out of his house very angry that I let my dog on his lawne has multiple videotapes of me doing this. He said when I see them I am friendly. He wanted to know why I hated them to bring my dog to pee on their lawn and told me in the future to walk on the other side of the street.
I apologized profusely and even thanked him him for coming out to let me know
I felt horrible. I can't stop ruminating (which triggers ruminating about every bad thing. I'm back to being afraid if interacting with people,etc All of the energy drained from my body want to hide in my house.
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When things like that happen to me, I often feel like I am ruminating about it for hours. I don't know how effective this is, but when I catch myself doing it, the more I fight it, the worse the ruminating gets. I was never allowed by my family to be angry. So, I tend to suppress my anger and that makes it worse, because I am fighting with myself. So, I choose to try to just give myself permission to have an angry afternoon. I am not saying to go out and throw a tantrum and go to jail, but at the same time, I guess I just have to accept that I am angry and, although I want different, it is okay to be angry. I try to give myself permission to have a bad day and feel what natural feelings I should feel. Easier said than done, but that seems to be all I know to do. People can be jerks, and sometimes I guess I was just meant to have a "bad" day. Hopefully for you, and me, tomorrow will be better. I hope this helps. Best wishes to you.
BTW - I forgot to tell you that, the way you dealt with that man, was very appropriate in my opinion. I see that you wanted to try to keep the peace and that is great. You did the right thing. Sending peaceful vibes to you. 🙏🙏🙏
This is what I need, just that support. I'm going to check in on this tomorrow and see how it is going. Fortunately, I already have a therapy session for Wednesday. I'm actually scared and self-conscious to walk my dog tomorrow. Catastrophizing.
I was brought up the same way Stippler. Anger wasn't allowed in my childhood and nor where any emotions deemed negative. This always upset my mother more and she 'had a hard enough life' as it is! I would let anger build up until it exploded.
However now I don't do that any more and if I am angry I let it out in very small doses. I try to be self assertive more and lay down bounderies about how I let others treat me.
One example was at work years ago when I asked my line manager a question not realising she was at lunch. She got annoyed and shouted at me.
I stewed about it for around an hour or so then decided to tackle it. I went up to her and calmly apologised for disturbing her lunch break but told her please not shout at me again. She never tried that one again.
I was a bit annoyed at the attitude of a man I was playing darts against yesterday evening because he kept messing around on the ochre and being a misogynist so I messed around too. Unfortunately he did beat me and said to me patronisingly after that I had played well. I snapped 'No I didn't I played crap'. He didn't say another word.
That’s the downside of having a dog…you always get in bad situations with people, at some point. No matter what you do. For some people the dog (chihuahua mix) looking at them is already enough.
Look, this guy is the one who should ruminate. You were getting along, so god only knows why he didn’t bring the subject up politely, with you. He chose to be an asshole.
You apologised, you’re good. If he doesn’t apologise soon for his threatening overreaction he doesn’t deserve even one more thought from you.
I haven't got a dog but there were times when someone just didn't like people passing their house on a walk and the person was suddenly outside of the house, very rude.
Someone's angry tone and words can hit pretty hard.
I am aware that some people are very private regarding their front yard and might be very sensitive to anyone or anything. It is frightening when it happens and it takes a while to recover.
I talked to other people and some of them had similair experiences so it helps knowing that it isn't my fault for being in front of someone else's house on a public footpath.
One time I had a very aggressive person who wanted to physically fight with my husband.
It triggered my PTSD badly and I was on high alert walking anywhere.
I don't know if all of you can see this or just Nathalie99. Thank you all. I am so touched by your responses. I don't like (vs I accept) my PTSD, my Anxiety, and my Bipolar Depression. And the work is not letting an incident like this take me down. I just revisited this poem If you've never seen it, it is worth a read.
you did the right thing. Handled it beautifully. I am a dog lover. Its not the dogs fault. Forget it. Some people are bitter and look for something to complain about. Go love your dog.
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