Responding to bad advice

It misses the point, it’s unhelpful, you didn’t ask for any advice, or it’s just plain wrong. What’s the best way to respond without coming off like a know-it-all or making them feel bad?

Things are kind of busy around here. I was called away before I could give detail.

To be more specific, I sometimes get unsolicited and unneeded advice for things that might not even be a problem. Often I'm simply making a statement. I'm not hurting, and I'm not asking for help. For example, I might be describing something that happened on the way home. Let's say I'm driving the speed limit when some impatient bozo comes zooming past me like I'm sitting still, and then a block later, we end up side by side at the same red light. I'm not "upset" and "venting" about it. I'm merely telling it, because I think it's funny and I want to share the laugh.

Whereupon someone wants to jump in and tell me (usually in a patronizing tone) what I should have done when it happened, and how to handle that situation next time. It usually takes some form of "just ignore it" or "don't let it bother you," which of course is totally unnecessary because it isn't "bothering" me at all.

Tell that person I wasn't asking for advice? Then they accuse me of thinking I know everything.

So what is the gracious way to respond?

I'm not making myself clear.

Situations like somebody rudely zooming past me don't bother me, and yet I get told not to let it bother me. I can't make sense of that. I'm not asking for help dealing with somebody rudely zooming past me, but I do get that advice. That's what they're telling me to ignore and get over when there is nothing even worth ignoring, and nothing that needs to be gotten over.

On the other hand, being given unneeded advice bothers me very much.

I do certainly seem to be getting good advice from this thread. Thank you, everyone.

I've often wondered if other people (in person) may somehow see me as needy and helpless and in distress, when I'm really not. Many of my own family members appear to have placed me in that category. Therapists have described it as the "identified patient" role. It happens in some dysfunctional families. Where the "scapegoat" is the one everybody else sees as a troublemaker, and blames for any problems, the "identified patient" is the one everybody else sees as sick, hurt, or damaged, and tries to rescue. I just got so danged tired of not even being able to breathe without somebody telling me how I could do it better, people checking up on me excessively when I'm doing just fine, and people rushing in to do things for me that I could do for myself if given the chance. We all need help every now and then. We all have things happen, maybe an illness or an accident... but if it happened to me, the general response would be an outpouring of, "Now, see? This is what happens when we leave you alone for one minute."

I moved across the country to get away from all that, over family's loud and strenuous objections. I can guarantee you I'm immeasurably healthier and more functional now than I was the day I made my escape. If I had stayed near the people who (with honest intentions) "love" me and "care" about me and "worry" about me until I'm practically frozen in place because they won't let me take a step, I'd still be living in government housing (or in my mother's house, which is even more restrictive), existing on disability and food stamps, and unable to drive a car. Who wants to be that dependent on other people? So I walk with a cane, but I *can* walk. So I can't see very well after dark, but I *can* drive during the day, and I *can* call someone if I need a ride. So I battle depression and anxiety, but I *can* deal with it. (And with that kind of history, is it any wonder why I do?)

Now, when it occasionally happens with friends, casual acquaintances, or even perfect strangers, when they make the same assumptions, I suppose it just brings all those memories back, and I start feeling suffocated again.

Interesting that the term "gaslighting" comes up. I am certainly more familiar with it than I would have wanted to be, but I hadn't connected it with the practice of giving unsolicited and/or condescending advice. Come to think of it, the same people most likely to gaslight me are also most likely to jump in and "help" where I didn't ask for it. Then if I protest, they call me ungrateful and tell me I think I know everything. Which, actually, is just more gaslighting, isn't it?

And it does make sense, when I think about it. Here's how it happens. To use my earlier example of some bozo I encountered while driving home: When I tell the story, intending it to be amusing, the person I'm telling it to immediately draws wrong conclusions. "Surely she must be suffering, because everybody knows how fragile and hypersensitive she is. Wait... she's laughing. That doesn't fit the description of fragile and hypersensitive. Maybe she's using laughter as a mask to hide the hurt. Deep down, it's GOT to be eating her up, because she's the type of person who would be eaten up by something like that. Oh, I've got it! This is a cry for help! She doesn't know how to handle life's little injustices. She NEEDS me to tell her what to do! She just doesn't want to admit it!" This thought process leads directly to the unsolicited and unnecessary advice to "just let it go" and "don't worry about it."

Gaslight #1: I'm not actually fine with what happened, as I claim to be. I'm too messed up in the head to be fine with that kind of thing. If I say I'm fine, then I'm not being honest with myself, or else I'm so far gone that I don't really know my own feelings.

And now, Gaslight #2: Any protest at all in response to Gaslight #1 will lead to the accusation that I think I'm smarter than everybody else, that I'm prideful and stubborn and won't humble myself to ask for help.

Yes, I now see both gaslights.