She is a very verbose person, fast thinking, highly confident, good with words and I am not. When she started yelling at me, listing all the things I could have done differently and all the bad decisions I made and insisting that I didn't do my job right and so on… it was a very embarrassing scene for me in the middle of this production hall with a bunch of other people watching and some even taking her side… I just froze up. I couldn't speak.
My cheeks began to quietly pulsate and my face felt like it was on fire and then my throat cramped up and I couldn't speak even if I wanted to. Worst of all - my brain was blank. Everything she said, the way she phrased it, sounded convincing. My first inner reaction was "well I guess you're right. I messed up. It's my fault. I suck. I'm incompetent. I'm a fraud. I shouldn't be here. There's nothing I can say in my defence."
I guess that was my default state of low self-esteem going haywire in my brain under adrenaline.
Later I rewinded the situation in my head and I was like waaaait a second. That wasn't fair. She can't blame me for a) this and b) this and c) this because we had discussed it and she okayed it so it's her fault as much as mine and I can't be blamed for d) because I couldn't have physically done anything about it in the time I was given and e) is really not supposed to be my job at all and.. so on. Basically I realised I had an awful lot of arguments to defend myself with right on the spot. I could have saved my dignity and perhaps even changed the whole outcome of the situation - I could have convinced her there was no need for extra expenses for what she thought was necessary to fix my error because it really wasn't an error at all and there could have been a better solution for the whole situation… I actually could have offered a better solution and avoided causing her financial damage, which I will most likely now have to reimburse, BUT, I thought of all this too late. I accepted her version of the story and all the blame on the spot because my brain froze and I had nothing to say for myself.
Hours later when I already came home, took a xanax and discussed it with my family through tears, I realised this really shouldn't have been so. I saw all these other angles and now I'm SO angry with myself.
I have this problem, chronically: in conflict my brain freezes up and my throat gives in. I want to well up and cry and all my concentration gets channelled into attempting NOT to cry and embarrass myself even more. Always. I am never able to defend myself when confronted by someone that's better with words than I am, even when I am in a situation when I truly, in theory, could. Very often, a person that is well skilled with words can even convince me I am guilty of something I truly am not and I only realise that was unfair and totally wrong later when I calm down.
These kind of conflicts usually occur in minor personal disagreements and they blow over quickly but this time it's really taking a toll because I readily accepted blame for things I shouldn't have been blamed for, and I am now most likely losing this client, who was by the way, an important source of my regular income for years (I'm a graphic designer), and I am probably going to have to reimburse her for it as well.
So….this is really becoming a problem.
I would like to ask the community here - do you experience similar problems, and how do you feel it when it happens to you? How do you handle it? Has anyone successfully improved on this horrible whirlpool reaction of freezing in conflicts, through some kind of therapy or counselling?
What are your experiences? I am actually desperate to hear I am not alone.
