Why do people assume you're guilty when you get upset?
Ichinin
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I think Ichinin means that the accuser should look for clues instead of jumping to conclusions.
Correct, hence the "People (in general) are idiots." statement that followed. I really despise people who THINK they are psychic and just blurts out things.
A rational person would look at the evidence and let it speak for itself. Like the great doctor said: "Everybody lies" (i.e. have their own agendas).
_________________
"It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" (Carl Sagan)
You know, I just remembered something.
When I was a child, and I was accused of doing something (occasionally when I did in fact do that thing), my father would tell me to look into his eyes. And then, when I did, he would say that he could see I was lying. I thought it was total BS.
agreed.
I remember being falsely accused of doing something bad as a child quite a few times and running away to my room and crying.
In their minds this meant I did it.
But I was upset about being accused of doing something bad when I didn't do it.
In a slightly similar circumstance, whenever somebody tries to insult me and they completely miss the mark, it doesn't upset me at all. I just kind of shrug or look at them like "Huh?" For instance, people on the street have tried to insult me by calling me a lesbian, but since I'm not a lesbian and I don't think it's an insult since there's nothing wrong with being a lesbian, I remain totally unaffected by their attempt to insult me and I don't have any reaction. Perhaps the reaction to being falsely accused should be something like that?
Wow...this thread really hit home with me. I can still remember the day I turned completely cynical about the whole world. That was in 3rd grade when I was accused of trashing the boys' bathroom because I was the one who found it trashed. Principal kept me locked in his office for HOURS and screamed at me the entire time. It was Catholic school so every proclamation of innocence was greeted with not only screaming about how he knew I was lying and was going to keep me there until I "told the truth" but lots of bits about eternal damnation and sin for being a liar. I guess I'm going to Hell because after almost 4 hours I finally lied and admitted that I did it. Since then I've been wrongly accused of many things and, in fact, am in the middle of a drama scene with someone who keeps asking if I did something I promised him I wouldn't do.
In any of the incidents I've experienced I tried everything from righteous indignation to calmly and logically pointing out flaws in the accuser's reasoning. None of it works, ever. I even had an ex-boss say to me, in a joking manner "so now that I can't fire you tell me the truth...were you the one who stole.....blah blah blah. It was then that I came up with the only answer that gives me any satisfaction even if it doesn't convince people of my innocence. "I'm telling you that I didn't do it, I'm only going to say it once and if you think I'm lying then feel free to f**k OFF." Sadly I feel I'm going to have to use this in the next day or so with the current accuser. The only downside is that its definitely a bridge burner. But I get so pissed off at this point in my life that I"m willing to deal with that.
Another thing I have noticed is when you get accused of doing something and you say you didn't do it, the accuser asks "Then who did?" As if you are supposed to know who did it.
Another thing that sucks is being at the wrong place at the wrong time and something happens and you get accused of it. That has happened to me quite a few times.
One time when I was eight, I was on the playground and it was rainy out so we were all under cover. I was standing behind a boy from my class when a basketball landed on his back and bounced off. He turned around and saw me and assumed I did it and yelled "Stupid" at me. I yelled I didn't do it and he said I did it.
Then when I was ten, I was at track practice after school and we were practicing in the middle school field. On the track were these cheerleaders and they were walking and practicing their cheer leading routine and they had the music going while us track people were practicing throwing balls. A boy from my class threw the ball and it went over the bleachers and landed where the cheerleaders are and bam one of them got hit and they stopped the practice and they were all looking at me because I happened to be the closest to the bleachers. I said It wasn't me and I pointed at the boy and said it was him and he was yelling "sorry."
At least he was honest by admitting it was him but the cheerleaders still thought it was me. So they stopped the music and went back inside.
+1...It's ironic...but as I get older, this turns out to work more often even though like you said, it is a bridge burner. These days I have a much shorter fuse, and it takes less for me to get to the point of not caring enough to say "this is how it is, deal with it or don't. end of discussion." Not only false accusation situations, but whenever I've had enough BS for whatever reason. I've done things that I was pretty sure would get me fired but was so fed up I didn't care, and turned out to be the correct thing to do. Go figure.
Just yesterday at work I was vacuuming the offices and my co worker tells me that we were talking last week during break and I told her about seeing the womens restroom on the 6th floor and how pretty the walls were and the pictures. I told her I have never seen the restrooms on the 6th floor and she told me "What? But I swear we were talking about it and you told me."
I told her I never said it and it must have been a dream she had and she said "No I swear it was real, I was here awake."
I don't remember how exactly the conversation went but anyway, I just shrugged it off and didn't react nor get all upset just because she thought I talked about something I never even talked about.
Maybe I didn't react badly because being accused of things that aren't bad isn't a big deal to me vs being accused of not doing my job or taking things that don't belong to me. Go figure.
I think part of it is some NTs think "if I'm innocent then it's innocent until proven guilty and beyond a reasonable doubt so I'll just get a good lawyer and everything will be fine."
Of course anyone who has actually bothered studying how the justice system actually works knows that these things are often not enforced in practice.
Outside of the justice system like for rumors? I don't know, maybe it's a trickle-down effect of the attitude people take when it involves a court.
Verdandi
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Location: University of California Sunnydale (fictional location - Real location Olympia, WA)
Well, this thread certainly brought to mind some of my worst memories and insecurities. I still have serious issues with people telling me I must obviously be thinking something because they can see it in my eyes/face, let alone accusing me of something I didn't do.
My favorite was when a now former roommate angrily confronted me at work because she'd developed some kind of theory that I was plotting to not pay the rent. And when she said this outrageous thing to me, I was reasonably shocked, at which point she said "I can tell by your expression that I'm right!"
A few months later (after I moved out) she accused me of stealing money from her bank account.
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