Not long ago I was walking with my four-year-old niece in the woods when we were rushed by two dogs. The second I saw them sprinting towards us, I hoisted her high up in my arms. By the time the owner finally caught up to her excited canines, they were still jumping on my legs. But instead of the apology I was expecting, I got something else entirely. “You know, you don’t have to be so fucking dramatic,” she hissed. “They’re not aggressive. I have a permit which allows me to have my dogs off-leash in this part of the city.”
I’m not a super confrontational person, and maybe it was a dormant maternal instinct coming alive, but we got *into it.* (I am proud of myself for not cussing since toddlers soak up anything you say like a sponge.) Logically, I knew I was in the right. Permit or not, having snarling dogs lunge at you, particularly with a child in your arms, is an inarguably terrifying experience. But emotionally? Three weeks later, I still find myself dwelling on it for reasons I can’t quite explain.
Whether it’s someone at the coffee shop intentionally cutting you in line, someone making an unsolicited comment about your outfit or body, or a road rager flipping you off, perhaps you’ve experienced an unexpectedly salty interaction with a stranger at some point. “The propensity for people to be rude to someone they don’t know has probably increased because people are distressed,” Gail Saltz, MD, a psychiatrist and clinical associate professor of psychiatry at New York Presbyterian Hospital and Weill-Cornell Medical College, tells SELF. Basically, she says when people are feeling tense, their ability to make sound social choices—a.k.a. not react with fiery anger after being cut off on the road—diminishes.
Why do these situations sting so badly, even when we know, rationally, we’ll probably never see these weirdos again? Let’s unpack what’s really going on and how to shake off a tense, emotional interaction with a stranger, and maybe even defuse what could escalate into a dangerous confrontation.
Physically step away if you can.
So a person just screamed at you for some minor—accidental—mishap. (Say you bumped into them on the subway platform or you took a parking space they’d been eyeing.) Maybe you yelled back, instinctively laughed, or even felt your eyes welling up. (Don’t come down on yourself for whatever reaction you have when this type of thing goes down—more on that in a min!) The first and most pressing thing to do, Dr. Saltz says, is to get away from the scene. “This person’s a stranger and you could escalate the situation in some way that will be worse for you,” she advises. You could try to confront and reason with them, but unless you’re likely to see the individual again, the juice just isn’t worth the squeeze, she advises. “It puts you at risk if you engage,” Dr. Saltz explains. (They could be one breaking point away from doing something dangerous or violent.)
If you can’t actually step away (for example, you’re trapped in a parking garage elevator with them or heading in the same direction in bumper-to-bumper traffic), “emotionally leave the room,” Dr. Saltz suggests. “Look away and don’t make eye contact. Don’t register anything on your face.”
Do your best to calm your mind and body.
Whether or not you can remove yourself quickly from the situation, you need to get that (likely high) heart rate back down again as soon as possible, Dr. Saltz says. “We have at least the ability to inhibit our own behaviors when we are in fight-flight mode.” Basically, she says, this heightened emotional state can impair your brain function during the interaction and immediately afterward, which can make you less likely to keep yourself safe because you are flustered or distracted. For example, you might run a red light or enter the crosswalk without realizing you don’t have the right of way. And if the interaction is going on longer than you want, you will need to stay calm as you try to handle it and avoid further escalation. “You’re not in the headspace to do the smart thing for yourself. It’s really important to calm yourself down immediately.”
Dr. Saltz suggests noting how your body is physically manifesting that emotional stress so you can hopefully get it under control. Is your face hot or red? Are you breathing rapidly? “Some of my clients describe it like an electric current going through them,” she says. Whatever it is, recognize it, and start to take steps to soothe yourself. “Stop, take a deep breath in, hold it slowly, and then blow it out of your mouth,” Dr. Saltz says. “As you do it, keep your chest steady.” She notes that you could also try muscle tightening and relaxation—where you progressively move up and down your body, squeezing and squeezing major muscle groups—or even repeat certain mantras. “You could say to yourself, ‘It's time to be calm now.’ Having a couple of tools that you can turn inward to can really help,” she explains.
It’s not a bad idea to get your body moving in the hours that follow the exchange, Jody Thomas, PhD, a clinical psychologist and CEO of the nonprofit Meg Foundation, tells SELF. That’s because the interaction likely kicked off what she calls a stress cycle, or an external event that removed you from your resting state to a fight-or-flight mode. You can divert that tense energy by taking a walk or going on a run as opposed to being so mentally absorbed by what happened that you can barely have a convo with your family (which happened to me when my niece and I returned back from our walk). “You need a physical release to complete a stress cycle,” she says.
Listen to—don’t invalidate—your emotional response.
In the hours that followed my interaction, a sadness hit: Why did I react so intensely to a person I’d probably never see again? “Part of getting past this is validating your emotional experience,” Dr. Thomas says. “If you said to yourself, ‘You know what? I'm being silly. I was acting ridiculous. I was crazy.’ You have invalidated your own emotional experience; you’re punishing yourself for having a natural response.”
As Dr. Thomas notes, even if you’re not proud of your reaction (perhaps you flipped someone off after they tried to brake-check you), it’s hard to fault yourself for a situation you weren’t prepared to be in and, frankly, may have been dangerous to you. “You had a very instinctual response in protecting your niece,” she explains. “Preventing your response is not really the name of the game. It’s figuring out what to do with that response. In a lot of these situations, people tend to deprive themselves of the ability to really process that.”
Dr. Thomas recommends texting a close pal or family member to talk about and further validate the experience—and get it out of your own head. “Your friend can be like, ‘Oh my gosh. That’s crazy. Did you yell at her?’” she explains. “We get that experience of validation so we can truly process the feeling. When we cut ourselves off from that experience, it can be hard to let go.”
Don’t take it personally.
By definition, any interaction between two strangers will be surface-level: They don’t know you, and you don’t know them. “Anything they’ve said is much more about them than you,” Dr. Saltz explains. “When your perspective is that person must be having a bad day, or something is going on with that person because it’s about them, then it’s easier to not have it stick with you in that obsessive, ruminative way.”
Of course, Dr. Saltz acknowledges, someone calling you a bitch from left field can feel understandably jarring—but it’s hard to hear because it’s so surprising. You don’t get called that by friends and family, or people who really know you, she explains.
Dr. Thomas says it’s also important to ask yourself in these situations: Was that attack personal…or are you just taking it personally? “We’re putting character intent on a situational thing,” she explains. “So the guy that cuts you off in traffic, it affects you personally because you just got cut off in traffic. But that person doesn’t know you, they don’t know your situation. It has nothing to do with you per se. It’s not actually personal.”
In doing this—recognizing that you’re having an emotional response to something that has nothing to do with your true character—Dr. Thomas says you gain control. “There are exactly zero humans—or, I don’t know, maybe the Dalai Lama is—immune to being in that state of stress and vulnerability,” she adds.
If you can’t stop ruminating about what went down, know there might be something else going on.
Detaching yourself from the situation, and doing your best to focus your energy on healthy activities, is your best bet following a tough interaction with a stranger. But if you find yourself obsessing over it weeks, or even months, down the road, it might not be a bad idea to talk to a licensed therapist. “Ruminating is a symptom of something larger, like being angry, depressed, or anxious,” she explains. “It can also sometimes signal someone who is rejection-sensitive—they perceive any interaction that doesn’t go swimmingly as their fault. But it’s not. They could probably use some therapeutic help to identify what’s happening.”
Unfortunately, rude people are always going to exist. And as Election Day draws closer, and the world gets even more stressful and sometimes combative, there’s a nonzero chance you’ll have a rough interaction. Just know that the person who dishes out disses to total strangers probably isn’t living their best life. Personally, I pictured the dog lady trekking back to her house and hopefully digging her bare toes into a humongous pile of puppy shit. That may or may not be true, but I’m in control of how I interpret the situation—and that fleeting, petty (and gross) thought sure makes me feel a hell of a lot better.
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