Apparently, I come off as crazy and mentally retarded. Help?
August 21, 2015 11:27 PM Subscribe
It seems that people assume I'm crazy and/or mentally retarded at first glance, and I'm not sure why. What should I do about this situation?
For most of my life, it seems that everyone has assumed I'm mentally retarded despite being in a competitive profession and attending a prestigious institution for graduate school. People constantly ignore, belittle, ridicule, and humiliate me, often without taking the time to get to know me first. I.e., at a volunteer summer camp, several other physicians made a point of making fun of me in front of others, and told everyone in attendance that I was mentally retarded, without ever talking to me first. I don't understand why or how this occurred, but it hurts me to this day. Another example of this happening is when my former personal assistant stole thousands of dollars from my bank account after I fired him and called me crazy when I confronted him with the evidence and attempted to report it to the police. Worse still, I was unable to recover the nearly $4,000 he stole from him because he told the police officer I was crazy. I had to get the money back from PayPal (and they gave it back because they rock). However, I don't understand why this happens over and over again. As far as I know, the only "weakness" I have is that I'm less desirable aesthetically. I say this because people constantly ridicule me to my face about my looks (or, ahem, lack thereof), but I don't understand why they write me off without getting to know me. I think I'm a nice, fun person, but nobody gives me a chance, and I don't know why. Is it a looks thing? Or is it a social skills thing? Save from expensive plastic surgery work and just putting up with the abuse from other people, what are my options? Thanks so much.
For most of my life, it seems that everyone has assumed I'm mentally retarded despite being in a competitive profession and attending a prestigious institution for graduate school. People constantly ignore, belittle, ridicule, and humiliate me, often without taking the time to get to know me first. I.e., at a volunteer summer camp, several other physicians made a point of making fun of me in front of others, and told everyone in attendance that I was mentally retarded, without ever talking to me first. I don't understand why or how this occurred, but it hurts me to this day. Another example of this happening is when my former personal assistant stole thousands of dollars from my bank account after I fired him and called me crazy when I confronted him with the evidence and attempted to report it to the police. Worse still, I was unable to recover the nearly $4,000 he stole from him because he told the police officer I was crazy. I had to get the money back from PayPal (and they gave it back because they rock). However, I don't understand why this happens over and over again. As far as I know, the only "weakness" I have is that I'm less desirable aesthetically. I say this because people constantly ridicule me to my face about my looks (or, ahem, lack thereof), but I don't understand why they write me off without getting to know me. I think I'm a nice, fun person, but nobody gives me a chance, and I don't know why. Is it a looks thing? Or is it a social skills thing? Save from expensive plastic surgery work and just putting up with the abuse from other people, what are my options? Thanks so much.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Couple of problems here; a) using "mentally retarded" as a description isn't okay, b) this is extremely similar to your last post, which is still open and already has advice about the general question -- taz
As just a couple of starting points, fundamental attribution error describes the extremely common tendency to attribute to personality what ought to be attributed to circumstance / coincidence / accidents / bad luck, and if your username reflects your gender, then getting called crazy probably owes something to misogyny. While neither phenomenon would explain why you might experience these issues more than other folks with similar qualities, both would explain a pretty sizable amount of this junk piling up on you for literally no good reason.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 11:43 PM on August 21, 2015
posted by Monsieur Caution at 11:43 PM on August 21, 2015
« Older Name my vegan carnival food business | How do deal with anxiety when starting new job?? Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by aristotlefangirl at 11:28 PM on August 21, 2015