Fight and Flight mode

[fluffylulu]

To cut a long story short, both my parents remarried, and I am quite close with the families on both sides. There is one new family member, though, where my brain goes into immediate "fight" mode and thinks I'm in danger when my mother talks to them. Every other time I see them, I'm fine and this "fight" thing doesn't happen a lot either, because I've trained myself to ignore the "danger". Every now and then, though, like yesterday, I slip up and spend the next week on my own because no one wants to talk to me. The only factors involved as far as I can remember, were me not being able to find directions again and people not answering phones. I tried going back to my parents' place this afternoon to explain the "fight"/"flight" thing, but it all came out wrong. Now I'm being depicted as the jealous and embarrassing daughter for trying to explain myself and don't know how to rectify it.

[smallwolf]

Hi fluffylulu,

welcome to beyond blue.

It really sucks when you try your best to explain yourself and whatever you do it either comes out wrong or you are mis-understood.

So you can speak with person X without going into this "fight" mode when by yourself, but if your mother is talking with X then you go into this fight mode?

Can you tell me how the "fight" mode appears? Are you shouting at the other person? What are thinking?

(I don't really go into an external fight mode. Rather the fight mode is internal with me. Lets just say that my dislike for the other person can grow. We each have our flaws.)

And sometimes, trying to explain something is not worth the effort. A simple apology might heal the wounds.

On the other person, perhaps they just rubbed you up the wrong way when you met? Just guessing, throwing out possibilities. If you want to talk more about it, I can listen to you.

Tim