Reactions to confrontation

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I've recently been thinking about my reactions to confrontation (real or hypothetical, involving me or involving others) and how much they've changed over the years. What started me thinking about this is a group project I am doing in marketing. We were randomly assigned partners, and we emailed back and forth about setting up a meeting. All four of us confirmed that we would be there, but one didn't show up. The next class (when we might have had to present, had we not gotten lucky and been picked for Thursday) he was absent. On Wednesday we met again, and this time he didn't even respond to the email. We deliberated whether it would be more awkward to present a project with four people's names on it with only three people there or if we took his name off the powerpoint and he showed up to class. Thankfully, one of the girls in the group said if necessary, she would confront him about it. The next class, I kept turning around and looking at the door, and I realized I was almost afraid that he would walk in. This was a confrontation I was justified in, and not even directly involved in, but I still could not stop looking at the door. Thankfully, he never showed (the professor told us he dropped the class the day after).

I noticed this again in my abnormal psychology class when we watched a video on OCD (an episode of "True Life" on MTV; it was very well done). Two of the three people tended to be more positive about their compulsive routines and although their families would sometimes get agitated about them, they were generally supportive. I had no trouble watching when they were on screen. However, the third girl had much more anxiety and was much more emotional about it (understandably, as she had obsessive thoughts about her mother dying and did her routines out of a belief they would protect her). I noticed that whenever she would get upset about something, especially during therapy, I could not look at the screen. I stared either directly down at my desk or down and away. When she wasn't being emotional and I could watch, I was still on my guard and would noticeably relax when the show switched to one of the other two.

I cannot bring myself to answer an unexpected phone call (barring one from a family member or a few close friends), and when there is a knock on the door, my first reaction is to become completely motionless.

I was not always like this, and I in fact can't even pinpoint when the shift occurred. I have always been very skinny (I'm now 5'11 and just 125 pounds), and that marked me as a target for bullying my whole life. The thing is, I would rarely be bullied by the same person twice. I would tolerate it until they pushed a little too far and it became clear they wouldn't get bored and leave, and then I would snap, jump them, and pound the crap out of them until a teacher physically pulled me off. I was never punished for it at all, not by my parents or my teachers. They understood that while I finished every fight, I didn't start a single one.

One of the reasons why I am so surprised at my present aversion to confrontation is eventually my attitude changed from uncontrollable anger at the bullies to welcoming them. I would hope that they would push far enough that I was justified in jumping them, and when that happened I would methodically hit them (I had strategies for it. Since I was so small I couldn't punch too hard, so I had to make them think they were being hurt. I would do this by tackling them (I understood that being on your back is seen as a vulnerable position), hitting them in the face until they covered it, at which point I would hit them in the ribs and stomach until they tried to cover those areas, and then I would switch back and forth. I would do this until a teacher came over and physically touched me (a hand on the shoulder is all it took, then I would immediately stop and walk away), not because I was so angry I couldn't restrain myself, but because I knew that made a greater psychological impact.

When I wrestled, I had much the same reaction. The little redneck kids I would go up against would be on the other side of the mat with their dads laughing at the pale shrimpy kid they were going to clobber (I wring my hands, and I have very poor vision, so I would come out onto the mat with what my dad called 'dinosaur arms' and squinting heavily. I did not look one bit intimidating). Then, all of a sudden, I would be beating them, and it gave me immense satisfaction to see how frustrated and angry they were getting. I even devised a way to legally bust someone's nose, and if someone tried to get rough with me I would do it to them. I got a great kick out of seeing how angry they were at losing while I stayed completely level-headed, in control of myself and of them.

I had absolutely no problem with confrontation, be it physical or verbal. I welcomed it (although I never sought it out myself). Now, the opposite is true. I spent the entire hour before the marketing class practicing my part of the presentation and practicing how a confrontation between me and the fourth group member might go. I was dreading a confrontation so much that I rehearsed multiple scenarios and reactions even though another group member had already said she would handle it. I cannot answer an unexpected phone call from an unknown number at all. Last semester the phone rang while I was answering a text, and I spent the entire thirty seconds telling myself to answer it and I still couldn't.

This has turned into quite the essay; to make a long story short, my attitudes and reactions to confrontation have changed immensely. What are your experiences with this? Have they changed or stayed the same? What examples best illustrate them?

I hate confrontation. I always feel like I am guilty afterwards, a really sh***y feeling like I have done something awful. It does not matter how trivial or how justified the confrontation is, I always feel panicked, anxious and sick after it. My psychologist said that part of this is deeply ingrained childhood memories of helpless victimization, where complaining or confronting wrong was punished; and that part is autistic emotional overload from anxiety.

Reason does not overcome the problems of feeling bad with confrontation, but a Mindfulness approach to feeling the experience and being ready for it does help. That way you might accept that the feeling is a fact, while later being able to reason the justice and the benefits of any confrontation.

I have to balance the value of the outcome against how I am going to feel when deciding whether to confront an issue, and obviously there are times when confrontation is necessary.

I find I prefer to avoid more serious confrontation. Mainly because I don't trust my reactions very well if said confrontation turns physical or verbally abusive. Or rather, I'm well aware of what happens when people take it too far and I prefer to avoid putting myself back together after it.

So long as nothing turns outright hostile verbally (people screaming insults or making death threats) I'm fine. I know I get very defensive and very angry if people start questioning I'm telling the truth or accusing me of things but I can cope with that with a bit of cooling off. I just worry about people not understanding my limits are a bit more of a hard limit. Because I know I can massively overreact, but when I do it's usually because I feel threatened and that's the worst possible time to push your point - which is of course many NTs favorite time to push their point. I would probably not have as much of a hair trigger if not for some past bad experiences.

It seems to me you're describing two slightly different variations of confrontation:

1) The scripted/rehearsed physical confrontation in which you're in control, and are thereby not uncomfortable with
2) Spontaneous non-physical conflict in which you're more of an on-looker with little control over the outcome

I too was in wrestling in high school, and at first I was under the impression that the stronger of the opponents would always win...it just made sense. However, I eventually realized that it wasn't brute force that determined the outcome, but the technique used. A smaller opponent could definitely beat a larger one by concentrating on his moves and techniques, both of which are something to be practiced, rehearsed, revised and improved upon over a period of time. Both in wresting and with your bullies, you had the opportunity to rehearse and refine your technique and where therefore in control, for the most part.

Non-physical (verbal) confrontation is more random, since you can never really know how the other person is going to respond, and therefore it's mostly impossible to mentally prepare for it. This would tend to make it a bit more stressful, since you don't have any measure of control over it. The phone call or visitor at the door fall into the same category, since these random situations also don't give you the time to prepare yourself.

I'm actually very similar to this. I don't mind a verbal confrontation that I know is coming, since I can mentally prepare for it. I try to write scripts to cover any possible twist and turn of the conversation, adding to them and revising them until I know I have enough 'ammo' to use should the need arise. Conversely, I do tend to be more uncomfortable with the sudden verbal sparring that I didn't see coming and therefore didn't have time to rehearse for.

Kedman, thank you! That's just what I needed to make sense of this. Now that you explained it, I can clearly see that is the case with me also. It really wasn't a "shift" at all, it's just that it only became apparent after I stopped wrestling, and I assumed it must have been a change in attitude. That post resonated with me 100%. Another thing I realized the other day that only reinforces what you said is that if I call someone and get voicemail, I have to hang up and call again because I only prepared myself for a conversation, not for leaving a message.