Nauseating Confrontation

Today at the grocery store, a little scene played out at the register. An elderly woman and her friend were checking out at neighboring registers. The one in front of me had nearly finished. The woman in the next isle was haggling with her cashier about the price of her bread. She thought it should have been $1.28. Apparently, it was ringing up twenty cents more expensive.

In my mind, I was saying "Ma'm. it's a darn loaf of bread.  You're giving these people an aneurysm, you're going to give yourself hemorrhoids, and you're making my nervous. Is it really worth 20 cents? Please be nice. Ok?" but on the outside, I was silently panicking. I scanned the area for another open register. No others were open. I was stuck. The walls of the store seemed incredibly close, and I was getting kind of dizzy. I made myself breathe very slowly while I waited for the confrontation to pass.

Conflict makes me nauseated  It doesn't matter what it is. The fact that it exists and I'm aware of it gives me an eye twitch. Once, in a prenatal visit, my OB/GYN demonstrated the bedside manor of a drill sergeant, I wanted to tell him in very vivid and adamant terms to be more polite because my baby was in my uterus and not his, but I was terrified of the confrontation and barely managed to make a polite exit. 

 Even if it's just a serious conversation with a best friend or my husband, I agonize over every word before and after, and almost invariably choke up and shed a few tears under the imagined pressure. Sometimes, When dealing with conflict at work or with family, I only keep it together long enough to get home where I can cry in private or to my car where I can eloquently speak my mind to the imaginary versions of my antagonists. 

It's not that I don't know how I feel about things. It's not that I don't have an opinion. It's not that I am not confident in those opinions. It's just that I care more about peace than being heard, but when I am heard I want to be heard clearly. I know that I am perfectly capable of handling confrontation in a mature and competent manner because I have done it. It just makes me sick when I have to.

I used to think my anxiety over confrontation was a terrible thing, but I've come to accept that it’s just a part of me.  Now, instead of trying to change myself, I try to prepare myself. I try not to berate myself for a mistake. I try to learn from it, and I try to find an opportunity to take a break and come back with more composure. Whatever the approach, my goal is to learn to use the tools in my own tool box, I'm learning to handle confrontation in my own way. Confrontation may always make me nauseated, but it will not always beat me.