For as long as I can remember, I have noticed an immense amount of pressure in interactions with others. This goes all the way back to when I was a little kid, and although I didn’t recognize it consciously as pressure at the time, I still felt uncomfortable whenever it appeared. Unfortunately, it has followed me into adulthood and seems to be becoming more common. Here’s what I’ve seen.
One of the most common examples is pressure to respond. This often comes in the form of someone asking the same question repeatedly without giving me any time to think of an answer. It’s also an example of the harder someone tries to get something, the less successful they are. The more they repeat the question, the more they prevent me from being able to think of a response, and the farther away they get from their goal of getting a response. It’s even worse when they start talking quickly in an anxious voice to add pressure for me to respond quicker than is comfortable for me. Sometimes I’m able to wait them out until they finally stop asking the question long enough for me to put together a response. Other times, I give half of an answer out of frustration while they’re still asking me the question. I’d like to get better at staying quiet until they quiet down, though some people seem like they’ll never quiet down and wait for an answer.
Similar to this is saying the same thing over and over again, regardless of what I say in response. One example occurred at a gig when someone kept saying “You can drink here” every time I said, “I’m good” until I finally said, “I don’t drink alcohol!” Since I don’t know that person’s intentions, all I can go by is how it came across to me, and it seemed as if the person was trying to pressure me into drinking. Another similar example is when I worked at a retirement home and a coworker said I could eat some of the leftover food. Even after I twice said that I’d rather eat the food I brought from home, she still kept saying, “You can eat this.” Rather than continue giving an explanation that seemed destined to fall on deaf ears, I left the room and ate the food I brought. I don’t know why some people believe that the proper thing to do when someone declines an offer is to keep making the offer repeatedly instead of respecting the boundary and moving on.
It’s also common for others to try pressuring me into giving a particular answer or agree with what they’ve just said even if I disagree. They also try to pressure me into talking about something I’d rather avoid, or talk when I’d rather stay silent. If I resist long enough and strongly enough, some folks I know will talk in a much louder voice with much greater intensity and even hostility. I’m having some success at avoiding falling into their traps when they do that, though not as much success as I’d like.
There is also pressure to listen to what others have to say, no matter what. Some will drone on seemingly endlessly without giving me any room to add to the exchange or any space with which to process what they’ve said, and seemingly without noticing that I have no interest in or understanding of what they’re saying. A few folks have even wanted me to look directly at them the whole time, which only makes it harder for me to understand them since human faces are highly distracting to me. Even when it’s my turn to talk, most folks I’ve known will still act as if it’s their turn by interrupting me and then continuing to interrupt even when I keep talking through the interruption; some even continue to interrupt me after I request not to be interrupted. This is the strangest and most frustrating to me when someone who has just talked nonstop for minutes on end will then interrupt me when I finally get to speak again and am only a few seconds into my contribution. Did they not get enough time to speak during their longwinded monologue and so have to steal time from me to say even more while letting me say almost nothing?
One of the weirdest (and definitely most upsetting) parts of this is the difference between how everyone described above treats me versus how they treat others. While some treat everyone like this, others only treat me in that manner and treat others much better than they treat me. This always makes me feel upset (sometimes to the point of crying when I’m alone later on), and has caused me to back away a lot from the folks who’ve treated me so much worse than they treat others.
It still blows my mind how good my late dog Sawyer was at communication. Most of the times I talked to him, he got quiet and actually listened to what I was saying. He also seemed to understand most of it. I also did my best to listen to and understand him, though I believe he was more successful than I was. Sawyer definitely did a much better job of listening to and understanding me than most of the humans I’ve known have done, and without the pressure of so many human interactions I’ve had.
The few humans I’ve known who come close to matching Sawyer tend to be hard to access as they live far away and have quite busy lives. As such, I tend to mostly keep to myself in my own time and don’t talk to a lot of people in person. Text-based communication is much easier as I have plenty of time to think about what someone’s said before responding, can say as much as I like, and there are no interruptions. I don’t know if anything that I’ve said above will change. I’m not holding my breath for it. All I can do is continue healing, communicating in ways that are comfortable for me, and finding those who communicate similarly while setting boundaries against those who make effective communication impossible. Here’s hoping that gets easier over time.