How Do You Handle Being Challenged | Backed Into A Corner

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On the occasion when I feel confident in speaking out, I can find myself being backed into a corner, which has a way of causing me to completely, shut down, and my entire perspective of the matter, vanishes into thin air, leaving me stuck with the intensity of the other person and their view, overshadowing or overtaking my own. Why this happens, I am not sure.

I would like to think that there is a way to change this about myself, so, I am wondering if anyone else has had the same experience, and has managed to turn this around for themselves, and, how you've gone about it.

Thanks in advance !

I think this often happens with the hyperempathic aspies; to pick up on another's feelings to the exclusion of one's own.

My workaround is aggression, I don't know if that'll work for you. I've spent years learning to argue and fight. It didn't come naturally.

Thank you, underwater. I hadn't related this to hyper-empathy, but, interestingly, I was just speaking with another member about how most of my difficulties, I believe, have been the result of hyper-empathy. Do you remember the HFA/Hyper Empathy thread that we had both participated in? I imagine it would be interesting to view it, at this juncture. Thinking back on how effected I was by that thread, as I had been clueless as to the nature of my own experiences, emotions, etc. I think I have learned so much, since that time. Thank you, again, for your response.

I have trouble with conflicts like arguing. I try to avoid them as much as possible. When I am challenged it makes me very anxious an nervous and I have hard time keeping up with my views as I have to process everything that I said and the other person as well and can miss words or misunderstand a person.

I tend to do it subconsciously when someone challenges me, I just agree with their opinion and leave mine bottled up inside. I don't even know how to stop myself from doing it!

Over time their views end up overriding mines.
After doing it so much I'm not sure what I truly do or don't believe.

Yes, you were in that thread too, weren't you?

It's one of the most interesting threads I've participated in.

In that thread I felt less like a one-woman army.

I can't speak for everyone, everyone's strategies are different, and if I don't understand what's going on, I can't really fight back. But taking the initiative and setting the agenda can help. That's where adrenaline and anger come in, they sharpen my ability. But it depends what kind of temperament you have.

Do you mean literally backed into a corner, or metaphorically? Because some people will resort to physical intimidation or otherwise become an overwhelming physical presence. In that case, I think aggression is a good response, if you can manage it (personally, if I don't get aggression going early enough, I become entirely passive in these situations).

If someone is overwhelming my position with "rational argument" -- or sheer emotionality, for that matter, but verbally overwhelming anyhow -- that's a little different. I think underwater is right, and that often it's just picking up another person's feelings to the point of seeing them as more important than your own. My dad was trying to convince me of something I intuitively knew wasn't right for me, and my perspective vanished on me so I agreed to do whatever, and I literally turned around and walked a few steps and suddenly realized I did not agree with that at all, so I turned back again just long enough to say, "Nope, not doing that," and left before the same thing happened again. It's like, so long as I was focused on him, I was seeing the world from his perspective, but the minute I was myself again, I knew it wouldn't work.

I think the only cure for that sort of thing is learning who you are and being confident in it. You can still get overwhelmed temporarily, but you'll come back to yourself as soon as that influence is removed. And for me, this only happens with stuff that I haven't thought through and/or stuff that doesn't have a moral aspect. Things I think are flat out right or wrong, people can overwhelm me to the point I can't speak, or can't muster arguments in my own brain, but I never buy into their perspective that way.

You said you felt confident in speaking out -- I'm not sure if you meant confident with that person, or confident with that topic? If I feel confident someone will hear me out, and they won't, I haven't found a work around on that. But if I feel confident about a topic, and I know I've researched it way more deeply than they have, then a bit of aggression helps, but it's internal, not external. I just need enough aggression to keep them from overwhelming me, so I can stay calm. Then I keep patiently presenting my points until they go away or drop the subject.

AquaineBay, I hate conflict, too, but as you've discovered, just agreeing with them doesn't work well in the long run. I started researching things on my own to the point I knew how I felt about something (I lose track of my own emotions easily), or what I believed, and that helps a lot. For me, at least, I don't have to argue aloud with the person, but I do have to argue their points to myself sometimes in order to remain stable.

It's very tough, and I wish I had good advice. I've always had the same difficulty, so it's a relief to see I'm not alone. I think this is one area where you can see that the difficulties between NTs and NDs are so rooted in information processing and communication. I've often been told I'm not assertive enough, because that is the NT perspective. My perspective is that I will assert myself, but sometimes it's just more subtle or I get ignored/talked over because I'm not quite as loud as fast as most people. There's nothing more fun than being constantly interrupted as you try answering the question someone's about to interrupt you to ask.

Thank God for the written word.

I've spent many years not understanding (before I found this place), and beating myself up over this, so I hope you don't do that, Britte. Otherwise I don't know what advice to give. It's hard to want to evenly and logically express a point of view in a world where most people are pushier and less interested in what's being said than in how it will connect people.

Realize that you don't need to justify your views to anybody other than yourself. Once you understand that, it removes a great deal of pressure.