@Captain24 first off, big mood about the washing shenanigans. That would be something that, if I was as overwhelmed as you, would send me into meltdown territory for sure!
Secondly, can I just point out,
@Captain24 wrote:
Well there was three of us in the meal room, me and those two. They were having a conversation and I joined in and was completely ignored. I get that they don’t like me but it was so rude and I kinda felt bullied. Then one of them broke their truck, they were standing in the rain so I pulled my truck up to offer them a lift but they said no and continued to stand in the rain. That’s his own fault but I tried to be a good person.
Hun, you are nothing short of being a class act. That is exactly how to handle people who refuse to give you basic respect, by showing em how it's done. It just goes to show how much integrity and true empathy that you have - you could easily have been petty and just laughed at him and drove away. But you stopped, looked at this person who tried to make you feel small, and offered to help anyway. I'm so impressed!
I do want to fully acknowledge that it doesn't necessarily make it easier to be ignored. Can I just highlight how damaging it is? First example - solitary confinement and other 'punishments' that prevent a person from connecting with other humans is often considered a form of psychological torture. Second example - this guy called Gottman (and his wife I think) did this long-term experiment where they observed couples over time. They came up with this 'four horsemen' concept to describe the four patterns of behaviour that would almost always lead to relationship breakdown; the final one being 'stonewalling', i.e. ignoring someone's existence. They said that of all four, stonewalling was the one that would almost always indicate that the relationship would not survive.
My point is, when we are ignored, go unacknowledged, or are excluded - even by people we don't even like - it can wound us on a really deep emotional level. It's really hard not to take that personally, especially if you don't have good a social network in other areas of your life. So when you say 'it shouldn't matter', I want to point out that, whilst the opinion of your disrespectful coworkers doesn't matter, the effect of their disrespect does. It matters so deeply because when you're being treated like that every single day, it can be like actual psychological torture. That's worth some tears in my opinion. You're not weak for not coping with being treated that way hun, and your usual ability to 'shrug it off' speaks volumes to your strength and resilience. To me, the only 'horrible' people in this story are the ones who consistently fail to demonstrate basic human decency when they ignore you.
Good luck with this evening hun. I hope the shift goes smooth and swift 🤞💜
