#easilyoffended

3. ‘I get easily offended’

I don’t mean in the response to being called nasty names or fighting sense, but rather situations such as ‘being accused of something I didn’t do’ or ‘being dismissed like I mean nothing’.

I have self-esteem issues that feel it when someone treats me like I’m unimportant, even when I technically am because I’m not necessarily involved in whatever is going on. I think nearly everyone likes to feel important – it would make my whole day if someone acknowledged my work or something I’ve contributed to a group. Even if they just give me a brief mention, I will most likely take it to heart and remember it for years. This also happens when people disregard me in the same way. I will be hurt and even if I address it with the person who caused it, it will take me a long time to recover, even if I never show it on the outside.

I get offended when people brag about things that they may or may not know I don’t have (non-materialistically), which is understandable, to be fair to myself, but it hurts a lot when it’s something like “having a loving and close family”. They might not even be bragging, but to me, they might as well be. I get jealous of happy families and close friends. I don’t hold it against the person who says those things, but I do get jealous. I do have a family (parents, stepparents, a sibling, grandparents [not including the family I have made with my partner]), but it is broken and there’s no love for me there, we’re more like acquaintances. I do have friends, but I could never tell any of them that I love them. The idea of telling anyone except my partner that I love them is such a foreign concept to me that it nearly makes me nauseous. My emotional barriers are far too strong for that kind of interaction. They would never say they love me either, because I truly believe that they don’t, I think they like having me to talk to at a nice, comfortable “friend” status distance. I have never asked, however, and I probably never will, because I don’t want to make them uncomfortable.

As I mentioned in part 2, I was bullied both at school and at home when I was young. Therefore, ‘name-calling’ has little to no effect on me. I consider whatever argument the other person may have with me invalid the second they resort to personal attacks on me. Ok, yes, heard that before, moving swiftly on.

EASILY OFFENDED Dwight L. Moody (1837-1899)

“Sometimes I am amazed to see how little it takes to drive all peace and comfort from some people. some slandering tongue will readily blast it. But if we have the peace of God, the world can not take that from us. It can not give it; it can not destroy it. We have to get it from above the world; it is peace which Christ gives. "Great peace have they which love Thy law, and nothing shall offend them." Christ says "blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me." Now, if you will notice, wherever there is a Bible taught Christian, one who has the Bible well marked, and daily feeds upon the Word by prayerful meditation, he will not be easily offended.”