Staying Silent Versus Cowering

Someone finally went after my mask. [Say the following in a thick Texas drawl] “Oh bless your heart wearin’ that mask. Mah wife was a nurse for 17 years & I kin tell you them things don’t do nuthin’”. I didn’t react, didn’t respond, didn’t make eye contact, nothing. Eventually the dude’s rant about Fauci & conspiracies & fake news about got him tossed from the table, after which he apologized. It didn’t affect my play.

At first. After I got tired 3 hours into the session I started replaying the responses I wish I had shot back at him. I didn’t say nuthin’, but oh I wanted to. And that has to affect my play.

Coach Tommy is clear about what to do in situations like this: nothing. Don’t acknowledge. Don’t react. Don’t respond. This is a battle called “Can I Tilt You?” You win if you don’t tilt.

Even now a day later, though, I’m still rehearsing comebacks. Why is this so hard for me?

It goes back, as so many things do, to childhood. That same chaotic, abusive household taught me that when things went purple, the best response was to disappear. Don’t do anything to call attention to yourself. I learned to dissociate as my best option for surviving, ego intact.

Not responding to a harasser feels like being an abused child. My emotions are a blender full of humiliation, terror, helplessness, & fury, the echoes of which bounce around for days.

I’m not sure how to insert logic into this situation. Maybe an affirmation like saying to myself, “I choose not to respond.” It’s not that I’m following the same dissociative pattern that got me through the day way back when. I’m doing something completely different—actively choosing not to respond in order to make more money. I have the full range of responses available to me. I’m just choosing the most profitable one.