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.

OP yes, I do this too, especially at night when I can't sleep. On the flip side, I also ruminate over comments or things I've said over the years that were wrong. Sometimes I go right back to my teenage years but chastise myself with a 40 year olds reasoning! I think I ruminate over those times more although I like to think there aren't too many of them!

No, you're not the only one. He was a tosser. What helps for me with things like this is to imagine sending this person/memory into outer space where it explodes and obliterates, never to be seen again. Give it a try!

Or just ignore people who are as twattish as that man was. He really doesn't deserve anyone's attention. I'd feel really sorry for his wife..

I'm still pissed from comments, actions & behaviours from YEARS ago.

It's not healthy. I'm trying to let go. It's hard

Are you always so thick?

I’ve had both, I’ve had someone say something and unfortunately I’ve been the someone too, I think about that more- I worked in a book shop and a guy had been standing reading a manga book for ages. I said to him ‘I’m really sorry you can’t read that’ and he said ‘oh my god I’m so sorry,’ put it back and ran. I didn’t realise his mum was there with him and twigged he probably had special needs. She was saying where are you going’ and he said ‘I need to go’ and they both rushed out. I feel sick whenever I think of him, picturing him never going into a book shop again because of me. My brother has autism and he’d never go back. The worst thing was they looked quite poor and those books cost a lot. I could have just let him finish the book and everything would have been so different

I dare say everybody remembers things that still bother or upset them. Many decades later I still feel a bit sore at remembering my DF telling me I looked like a Soho tart. It was the 60s, so I was in a mini skirt, plus had long (natural) blonde hair loose. Not much make up, I never did, no cleavage popping out - I was only ever a 34A!
TBH it was out of character for DF, usually the soul of good manners.

Yes he was a bloody idiot

Thank you 🥰

I'm the same. I think about things that have been said. Whst I wished I'd said back and ruminate about it over and over again.

I think the fact you'd been unwell and in hospital and the way the man behaved is probably still a trigger. I mean who days these kind of things to people lying in a hospital bed. You're not there for jokes are you!

Try not to let it take over your head space. It's harder said than done. Wishing you peace.

I remember years ago, I had just passed my driving and wasn't doing great at parking.

I parked my car in a car park and when I returned, I found a note on my window screen telling me I should go and kill myself because of my shit parking.

I remember sat there crying in the car park and thinking what a nasty fuck!

I wish I could have said something to them!

I’ll take elegance over pretty any day! Hold your elegant head up and be proud 🌷

I hate it when fb groups share bad parking. I’m always of the opinion we all have bad days and the person parking might be having the worst day of their life and parking perfectly wasn’t their priority, but some people are total arseholes and love putting others down. Says far more about who they are than you!

Oh my gosh OP. I'm not surprised you took this so much to heart at a time you were so vulnerable. What a vile man. His poor partner going home to that! Imagine all his horrible words in a bubble drifting away every time it crosses your mind. That's what my yoga teacher tells us to do.

I still hold a grudge at a woman who mocked my unplucked eyebrows in the 90s, she was a friend of a friend, very vocal and opinionated, she towered over me and I was intimidated by her successful career too. I was never physically confident my mother always said I was fat, but I actually liked my eyes and didn’t think there was anything wrong with my eyebrows, but she literally called me a werewolf. I went out the next day and got my first wax and didn’t stop for years, now I have to draw them in. I know I did it but I’d never have it she hadn’t have made me so inferior.

This one wasn't so annoying, but it left me perplexed. Years ago, in my mid-twenties, I was browsing in a clothing store, minding my own business, when a woman approached me with a look of pity on her face, put a reassuring hand on my shoulder and said "Don't worry - Jesus still loves you" - and walked off! 😂

Thank you 🤩

It was 1978. Was cutting through the Botanic Gardens on the way back from my first week at Glasgow Uni to the halls of residence.

Was waylaid by a woman who "had to speak to" me because I "looked to so sad". She handed me a leaflet for The Children of God and asked whether I'd heard of them.

"Oh yes," I said, backing away as quickly as possible.

I think it's the only time that someone's tried to recruit me for a cult.

What a horrible woman. I'm sorry that she intimidated you like that.

Agreed. Some women set out to undermine those whom they envy by combining an insult with a compliment.

Someone said something to me at my DD's sports game on Friday just gone. It was purely sour grapes on her part & ridiculous but it's been rattling around my head ever since! I just keep going over how I should have responded. I know I will think about it for ages even though it only reflects badly on the other mum rather than me! I wish I wasn't such an overthinker.

When I was 10 a friend made a throwaway comment about me having big thighs when I was sat on a swing.
I'm 33 and remember it often. I'm still insecure about my thighs to this day.

I definitely hold a grudge agains the group of girls that bullied me 50 yrs ago...

It was so bad that I nearly had plastic surgery (on the NHS, would you believe - yes, I was in quite a state about it). I had to wait until I was 22 to let my features grow completely, I was told. By then, I'd grown in confidence (and things had improved a bit of their own accord) and I declined the surgery.

A few months ago, I got a FB request which I accepted. It was someone with whom I had several mutuals, but I couldn't quite place her. Lo and behold, I got a message from her. It was one of the bullies, begging for forgiveness. A bit weird - we're both 65 this year.

I told her - truthfully - that I didn't really remember her. I got one of those "If I did anything to hurt you..." non-apologies. She blethered on about "peer pressure" and "possibly being jealous" of me.

I just said that she was on the periphery of the group, it was a long time ago and not to bother about it.

She kept at me to accept her apology. I just told her not to let it worry her.

Next thing, she's wanting to meet up with me at the upcoming school reunion... I don't think I'll be going. To be honest, the unexpected contact has brought it all back and I'll be damned if I'm going to accept her apology.

A pp commented that this stayed with OP because she was in a vulnerable situation and I think that really rings true.
When my DS was a few weeks old I was really ill and had to have emergency treatment and surgery. I'd been breastfeeding and had to stop abruptly so after surgery as soon as I could sit I used a hand pump in the hospital to express away a small amount of milk just to release some pressure and pain. A nurse saw me tipping the milk down the sink and gave me a lecture about how wasteful it was and that there were premature babies elsewhere in the hospital who could have had a better chance of survival with the milk I was throwing away. Obviously I knew that it was rubbish- there is no way the SCBU would have wanted small amounts of breast milk from a random patient and definitely not with all the medication I was taking. But at the time it made me feel even worse than I already did and I can't forget it.