Confronted neighbor, got yelled at, personal growth

Wait for the end of this story to get the TMS point. I have twice before knocked on the door of this neighbor to ask them to stop disturbing us.

1. They were drilling in concrete bearing walls later than allowed at night, our kids woke up crying cause the whole rooms were shaking (can't even speak to each other, that loud).
2. They several times connected to our Bluetooth speakers in our apartment and played really loud music (since they didn't understand they were connected elsewhere).

Each time I have been very calm and nice when asking them to stop what they are doing and explain why. And its totally legit reasons to do so.

Now there has been some sort of machine noise on and off every now and then for months (like 30 min each time), vibrating the whole walls and floor - quite annoying. Ask some neighbors and again end up at this particular neighbor. Turns our its their heavy baking machine they have placed against the walls propagating the vibrations like crazy. I just calmly say that "off course they should be able to use their machine, but if they could maybe try to re-place it an inch away from the wall and maybe put a vibration mat absorber under it or something for our sake". The lady of the house just looses it and start telling me off, half yelling, very aggressively for 5 min. I try to calmly point out the logical thing etc., nothing works. She is treating me like this in front of my kids, and her kids. I´m quite tall, trained man so I try to always be kind and very non-aggressive.

Well here is the change in me, before I would just had walked away to avoid escalation, but now after taking unreasonable shit for 5 min I just had it. I very sharply start to fight back, raise my voice and set boundaries how you treat me. For a while we had a staring contest. I thereafter ended it and left with my kids, asked her to send her husband later to talk to me since we are not resolving anything, maybe he can mediate. Back in my apartment I felt rage, fire burning inside. No TMS symptoms, nothing.

Key things in my message: set boundaries, stood up for myself, saying my part and not be bullied around. Result? My body now feels awesome. It´s like my inner child rewards me for standing up for myself when people treat me badly. I have taken way to much unreasonable shit from others in my life. Sure, she was probably angry about something else completely and happened to take it out on me, but I don't give a shit anymore about the reasons - you don't treat me like that. Period.

 

You're right we do need to be able to stand up for ourselves - and speak out against other's unreasonableness!!

 

You go, @Hedger - great story! I especially like how you stood up for your rights EVEN AS you understood that this woman obviously has personal problems.

You don't have to accept behavior that affects your well-being even if you understand that the person inflicting the behavior can't help it for reasons of their own. This is the same concept that is employed in forgiveness therapy for someone who has experienced childhood trauma or adversity: the victim of trauma can accept/forgive the person who inflicted it due to their inadequacies, without accepting what they did. This is the path out of victimhood.

Bread machines are obnoxious. I have one, and I have a downstairs neighbor who I was concerned might be bothered, so I did find a thick piece of stiff foam for it in my "stuff that might be useful someday" collection. So good luck - I hope you can resolve this soon.

You know, just looking back at the collection of threads that you started is a great review of the TMS journey - and a perfect example of its complete lack of linearity Stay in touch!

~Jan

PS - also nice to see @hecate105 again!