How To Be Indifferent To Someone Who Hurt You

The Web address of this article is http://sfhelp.org/cx/apps/indifference.htm

Updated  01-24-2015

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      This is 1 of a series of brief articles on how to respond effectively to abrasive social behavior. An effective response occurs when yous get your  master needs met well enough, and both people feel heard and respected enough.

This article offers useful responses to someone yous experience as indifferent to yous. It assumes you're familiar with...

• the intro to this Web site and the premises underlying information technology

• self-improvement Lessons 1 and 2

• basic options for all responses

• how to give effective feedback to someone

• effective assertion and empathic listening skills.
  

Perspective

      Healthy kids and adults are social animals. We strive to be accustomed and liked by selected other people, and feel hurt if they disapprove of or reject us. It can injure even more if others don't care about the states at all - i.e. if they're indifferent to us. Is there such a person in your life now? If so, how does their attitude and behavior affect you?

      How about the other side of the coin. Are there people you know who offer friendship, but you lot feel no interest in them at all? If and so, how practise you acquit? Pretend interest? Ignore them? Confront them? Endure? Avoid them? Exist short? Something else? Do yous experience expert nearly your behavior? Guilty? Irritated? Frustrated? Amused? Indifferent?

      You or they may have a version of Asperger'southward Syndrome, or were hindered developing a normal sense of social empathy.

      If someone you similar or care about seems indifferent to you, how do you react? Hibernate your feelings? Go ambitious? Plead? Endeavor to please them? Criticize them? Guilt-trip them? Demand? Persuade? Whine? Something else?

      The painful message that indifference suggests is "S/He thinks I am a dull / uninteresting / worthless / unattractive / unpleasant person." People who are comfy with themselves can shrug that off without pretense or repression. Insecure (shame based) people may be significantly "bothered' by someone's indifference. Children can be peculiarly sensitive to other kids' indifference.

       They too may be bothered if they expect the other person to like or care well-nigh them - e.g. "family and church members must support (like, care virtually) each other." Unfortunately, human reality doesn't follows that ideal, as eloquently expressed in Dr. Fritz Perls' Gestalt prayer.

Note the important difference between indifference (I don't care about yous), dislike (You aggravate / disgust / annoy / scare / me), disrespect (Your nobility, worth, and needs are inferior to mine), and rejection (I don't desire y'all in my life. Go away!). Each of these deserves unlike responses - practice you lot agree? Information technology's often hard to differentiate these, so consider these...

Southward ymptoms of Indifference

• not returning calls or emails promptly, or at all;

• making excuses to avoid talking or getting together;

• fugitive eye contact when you are together (this can hateful many things);

• speaking or answering briefly, without extending conversations;

• never asking how you are, and/or not seeming genuinely interested in your response;

• never initiating contact, and making excuses well-nigh that;

• showing no interest in past or current shared events or relationships;

• often seeming distracted or bored in conversations;

• showing lilliputian or no involvement in improving your relationship.

      If someone presents you with behaviors similar these, let's look at your...

Response Options

Fix

• Apply sensation skill to find the indifference. Alternatives: deny, minimize, ignore, repress, justify, and/or endure information technology.

• Identify how y'all feel virtually the person's lack of interest (vs. about the person) - Hurt? Irritated? Aroused? Frustrated? Resentful? Sad? Guilty? Puzzled? Curious? "Nothing"? Fatalistic? Analytic? Something else? Your feelings signal to your needs.

• Determine what you need to do well-nigh this human relationship now or later: Vent? Learn? Cause activity? Ready or enforce a limit? If you decide to respond, exercise then to honor your own integrity, rather than for the other person.

• If appropriate, meditate on the Gestalt prayer.

• If you lot experience the other person "must" or "is supposed to" intendance about you, identify where y'all got that expectation. Past definition, genuine caring must be spontaneous, not dutiful.

• Assess whether the other person may be wounded and ruled by a false self. If that seems likely, use this article to guesstimate whether s/he is unable to bond with some or all people - like you . (i.e. whether the indifference is really an inability to intendance). And then utilise these ideas to help you decide how to relate to him/her.

• If you feel "Due south/He ought to care after all I've done with/for her or him!" doubtable that's a well-intentioned simulated cocky making that assumption, and consult your true Self. Caring can't be requested or demanded - it can only be spontaneous!

• If you need to affirm something to the person afterwards these preparations, select from the following options based on what you need:

Answer

"(Proper name), are you open to some personal feedback?" This is a courtesy. If yous get a shrug or "No," go ahead anyway to honor your integrity, not to impose.

To Vent - these are meant as observations, non criticisms or complaints:

"(Proper name), I feel unimportant to / ignored by / you."

"When you don't return my calls and emails (or avoid my eyes) I feel disrespected, hurt, and unimportant to you."

"I'm lamentable you're not interested in friendship with me."

"You say you're concerned most / interested in / me, but your actions say you lot aren't."

"You rarely inquire how I am or what I'chiliad doing."

"When you lot send me a holiday card, I dubiousness that you mean information technology."

"(Proper name), I feel used and disrespected by you."

To Larn

"(Proper noun), who's needs are more than important to you now - yours or mine?" The best respond is "both of ours."

"Would yous be interested in learning of some psychological wounds you may be suffering from without knowing it?"

To Face or Set a Limit

"(Name), I'm going to stop initiating contacts with you. I experience you're not really interested in a relationship."

"I no longer believe you lot when y'all say 'We have to assemble shortly.'"

"I wish you well (Name). Adieu."

"I feel you're being polite out of duty, non 18-carat concern for me."

"I need you to finish pretending I'thou of import to yous."

Expect the other person to "resist" responses like these - i.due east. to deny, protest, excuse, explain, justify, blame yous, go silent, leave, modify the subject, or similar. When s/he does, use empa-thic listening to acknowledge that, and then calmly re-state your response with good eye con-tact. Your goal is to stand up upwardly for yourself and be heard, not to change or punish the other person .

Responses to Avoid

      All the examples above assume your Self guides you and you lot have a genuine common-respect mental attitude. If these aren't truthful, you may respond with antagonistic "You" messages like these:

"You're really self-centered / a hypocrite / egotistical / inconsiderate / insensitive!"

"You're a real phony. You say things but y'all don't hateful them."

"You treat your goldfish better than me!"

"I try to be friendly and you walk all over me."

Responses like these risk lowering your self-respect and causing ongoing or escalating lose-lose conflicts.

      If at that place is an indifferent person in your life, can you imagine using responses like these with her or him? If non - why? Be enlightened - not wanting to hurt someone'southward feelings is a relationship based on fright, distrust, and guilt.

Lesser line - once yous're enlightened of someone's indifference toward you, y'all have many proactive options - yous don't have to endure or exist a victim!

Source: http://sfhelp.org/cx/apps/indifference.htm

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