Why does this live in my head rent free

[Differentstarts]

I know how ridiculous this sounds but has anyone ever said anything to you that really wasn't a massive deal but you still think about from time to time and still annoys you. So about 5/6 years ago I was in hospital for about a month I'd been really ill and nearly died. On the day I was discharged the lady in the bed opposite me husband came to see her and he recognised me from my job (retail) first he started whinging at me about how expensive where I worked had got and i was pretty much ignoring him. Then when the dr came in to tell me my last scan was clear so I was fine to go home now this bloke then pipes up and says see their nothing wrong with you so you can get out of bed and go back to work. I snapped back at him iv been here a month and just pulled the curtain back round. I don't know why this still bothers me years later or even why I still think about it. Please tell me im not the only one.

Oh I see. Some people get a little kick out of it I suppose.

A few years ago I was in ICU following a major operation. I was in immense pain.
Before I went into hospital I was really scared as I had 2 young children, so I was upset and panicking.
op went well. In-laws came to visit, I was stood in the kitchen (hubby and mil in a different room) my FIL got right in my face and said ‘you panicked didn’t you’
I was on a cocktail of painkillers and felt so spaced out and just didn’t react.
A few months later i just went NC with them - I couldn’t get over what he said. ( never liked me face didn’t fit etc) ( arrogant man)
To this day his comment haunts me.
He has now passed away, but I still think about it now and wish I had told him to fuck off.

Oh do fuck off and learn to not to say such pathetic comments.

Sometimes I behave in a way I never usually would and it's not even bad but I'm usually so fucking NICE to strangers it's out of character the other month I refused to reverse all the way down the road because some DICKHEAD came in the opposite direction fully seeing I had nowhere to pull over then they drove past the only passing place and stopped nose to nose telling ME to reverse....I put my handbrake on said no made her back up so I could pull out her way

This has played in my mind was I the dickhead? I would have had to reverse approximately 9/10 car lengths she had to go back one perhaps she was in a rush?

But yes disproportionate ruminating on an insignificant event that has passed and I cannot change and that is such a non event in the grand scheme of things

All the time.

Also silly little things I've done or said in the past, right back to childhood, that were embarrassing.

I replay them all the time, like an eternal internal cringe punishment.

oh don't be an obtuse twit, you know exactly what she meant.

Said by a girl I was at school with a couple of years above me when I bumped into her at a party aged 22. “You’re not naturally pretty but you have an elegance about you.”

I’ve never believed I’m pretty since. I barely knew her so it annoys me that age 42 it still is in my head.

There’s some weird responses in this thread. I can’t decide if some posters are really dumb, drunk or just mean.

Please don't think that. I honestly find these kind of comments are rooted in jealousy. No person who is happy and secure in their own appearance would ever say something like this to someone else. It's a nasty little spiteful bit of poison veiled by the last bit added as a 'sweetner'. I bet you are attractive!

I have a similar ‘earworm’ for want of a better phrase.

Over ten years ago, when people used Facebook alot more to air grievances etc, someone posted that it was awful that a committee member was slagging off how an event was being organised. No names were given but the context alluded it was me. I know I was in the clear, but it could have led to problems with friends. Still bugs me all this time later. Don’t know why she posted it.

Bc he invaded your personal space at a particularly vulnerable situation you were in . How dare he. The piece of shit. I might have ripped him a new one if I’d been able to pull my chin off the floor. Garbage human waste pit of dog shit. I’m angry on your behalf.

occasionally. Followed by a fantasy of what I should have said.
that guy was a miserable arse but don’t forget, he was in the hospital for a reason too so maybe he wasnt himself or extra grumpy or just a horrible person.
maybe it’s just symbolic of emotions around that time for you and a direction for negative feelings.

Dh says so but I just can’t believe him. The power of that one comment is ridiculous, and I know that. why is it easier to believe the negative things people say than the compliments?!
thank you for being kind xx

Yes, I have a few random past events, conversations that pop up in my head repeatedly for no reason other than to niggle me.

I have so many of these, OP.

I think sometimes they are really awful / stupid things that someone has said.

Sometimes they are things that have just caught me at a bad moment and on another day wouldn’t have bothered me so much.

I try and forget them, but they always come back.

I think it’s normal and most people have this.

And yes, that guy was an idiot.

He sounds like a complete arse. I'm sorry that you went through all that.

The only opinions that matter to you are from those who are important to you or whom you respect, ie. in your case your DH. That woman you barely knew who gave her opinion (which is not based on fact) doesn't mean shit to you. By giving her headspace you are saying she does matter to you, when she does not.

By taking on board an opinion means you respect that opinion, when clearly you should not given you don't respect the person. Thus it's a worthless opinion.

I had a problem about worrying what people thought of me (beyond those who matter or who I respect). The penny dropped in regard to 'worrying about people that don't mean shit to me', or the question I asked myself 'why am I valuing (or respecting) an opinion of someone who I don't value (or respect), that's a contradiction', and once as I stopped giving them value I stopped caring.

I often think of a very hurtful thing a girl said to me in school thirty years ago!

it was about my appearance - she basically told me I was ugly. It pops up every few years. I google her to see what she is doing now. She has a mediocre career, hasn’t aged well and if she has the same approach to aesthetically challenged children I dread to think what she says to her two kids(🫣).

I think I might hold a grudge.

I always do this too. There are lots of things that come back to me years later.

There are two that have really stuck with me the most though. The first was working in a takeaway as a teenager, I had been at a friend’s funeral that day and I really shouldn’t have been working as I had been so upset. One customer muttered to her friend as she left about how miserable I looked and would it have killed me to smile. I had to take a break and ended up crying in the toilet because of that.

The second was bumping into an acquaintance in town not long after I had had my DD. She looked at DD then said “she’s beautiful, are you sure she’s yours?” I know really it was just a bad joke but I wasn’t in a good place mentally at the time. I don’t know why this one has stuck with me so long though, DD is now 21!

He's a snappy one. Not medically trained and none of his business.

It's odd how we remember negative things and not the compliments.

Obviously not?

Such weird replies. She obviously means ‘do people sometimes ruminate on something annoying or upsetting that someone said years ago.’

OP - yes, it’s quite normal. And that sounds especially irritating, what a twat!

Not only do they not read the thread properly, but they come up with the weirdest interpretation that they possibly could AND THEN proceed to be a dick about it!

I actually think there’s a value in ruminating on things like this. They bother and niggle. But it’s a really useful way to process what was said, figure out what you wish you’d said, and prepare yourself for a next time. It’s like a rehearsal. And there have been times when I’ve drawn on those ruminations and had the right reply ready in the bag to go. So I think it can actually be a healthy process, until the point that you figure out what you WOULD have said - then put it away.

(Years of reliving conversations with a very difficult exh eventually equipped me with the power to stand up for myself.)

More scarily I think she might not have 😂