my imagination or pushy person?

dblg0503

Hello

I have a new neighbour. The family just moved in. My husband was nice to them and invited them to our house. They invited us. It was very hard to me as I have social anxiety, but I managed with my husbands support. Our kids were playing together.

Then I started noticed that when I see the wife (we live just next door) she started using words "you must do it", "why you did not do it" a lot and tone seems very patronising. It felt like a teacher was speaking to me. Especially when conversation was about my daughter. I started to feel very uncomfortable. I told my husband. He thinks that it is just my imagination, my social anxiety.

Today I met the wife and we were talking. Suddenly she was started to ask questions about my pip, if I have a free bus pass, if I have reduction of council tax. I did not answer, I felt that it was very personal.

When I came back to my house I was very upset and crying as it reminded me of my disability. I wish people see me, not my disability. I am not judging her, I do not think she upset me on purpose, but now I feel not ease when I see her.

I wonder if any of you had been in such situation.

And how you dealed with it.

Thanks.

Rachel_Scope

Hi @dblg0503. I'm sorry your neighbour has made you feel this way. I think sometimes that people just don't know how to be tactful and will just say what's on their mind. You did the right thing by not answering questions you felt were too personal. Hopefully once she's got all the questions of her system she'll start talking about more casual things.

It's really hard to be reminded of your disability, as you say, you want people to see you as a person, not the disability. A lot of people feel uncomfortable around disabilities as they're not sure how to act. Maybe that's the case here? Your anxiety won't help the situation, as someone who also has anxiety I always go straight to the worst case scenario and overthink everything! You could try just brushing off any questions about your disability and talk about your children, the weather, anything else. You don't have to spend time with this person if you feel too uncomfortable, remember that 😊

dblg0503

Thanks Rachel