When people don't notice your suffering

I often find myself in situations where I was suffering inside, and when I finally say something, the other party responds with either

a) Becoming super defensive, and angry in their turn

or

b) Utter and complete shock and claiming that they were ignorant about my suffering

I have found from experience that the main reason why this happens is that people fail to put themselves in someone else's shoes and really try to see what the other person might be experiencing. People are just too caught up in their own experience to notice another's.

I also recognize that this is not always a conscious, malicious thing, but whether it was accidental or not, the effects are still the same.

However, this form of suffering due to people failing to notice how a situation might look from my perspective seems to happen to me a disproportionate number of times and I'm wondering if there's anything I can do lessen it int the future.
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Now for some specifics:

I wrote someone a letter in which I absolutely invested my heart and soul. The letter went for days and days without a response. I gave them time and space to respond. But after a long while, I started thinking all sorts of self-abusing things like "I'm not worthy of a response." "the person has cut me out of their life" etc. After doing this for weeks, I finally sent the person another letter asking why they never responded to the previous one. Their response was in this vein "Oh, sorry, lol, I didn't know what to say. are you feeling better, now? I gotta go out to work. bye"
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A group of co-workers are talking about going off somewhere for lunch. Suddenly, they all get up, walk out and leave me behind. So there I was thinking all sorts of negative things about myself again, and beating myself. They had a great time though,and when they came back, they saw me sitting there looking out of spirits. So they asked, "what's wrong?" When I say, "well I was kind of hoping you guys would have invited me along." The response was in this vein. "we didn't know you wanted to come."

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At this point people will say. "you're just being too sensitive." or " *shrug* it's not that serious, just get over it" But when things like that consistently happen on top of dealing with acute anxiety, depression, alienation etc the experience for me is a lot more intense than I am capable of conveying in a forum post.

For the examples you provided, you should have been more firm and demanding on your convictions. That doesn't mean you have to be an over-demanding brute, but sometimes you need to take the initiative to make yourself more involved.
For example, in that lunch example you provided, instead of just waiting to be invited you should have asked if you could come along. Seriously there is nothing harmful in asking "can I join you guys?". Likewise with the letter example, after a day or two you should have politely asked what was up with the long delay. Again, you don't have to be rude about it i.e "Why the hell didn't you respond?!" but you should have been firm, and get you point across that that letter was very important to you, and you put a lot of time and effort into it.
If I were you, in that first example I would asked that person after a day or two something along the lines of "Hey, did you get that letter I gave you? I would really appreciate it if you responded back because it is really important to me that you did". The fact that you waited weeks to inquire the status of the letter, gave off the impression it wasn't that important in the first place, even though that was not your intent.

You just need to be more firm in where you stand in situations like these. When you demand respect (not in a douchey and arrogant way of course) you get respect. Don't be afraid to put yourself out there.

OP, do you notice how you don't ask a question in your post? Was your letter a similar situation where there aren't any questions but just statements that may make it seem there isn't an implication for a reply? That's my initial hunch as there can be times where if you don't ask, you won't know something. Your post doesn't ask, "What do you think?" or "How would you handle this?" or any of the 1,001 other questions I can think that may make sense but since you don't ask, I'm not going to write the novel of answers here for that.

On the lunch case, I'd second Harley's idea of just asking if you could go too. Granted there can be the challenge of figuring out who to ask and directing the question appropriately, but that usually isn't that hard to do, IME.

Just some thoughts.

Thanks for the thoughtful post, Harley.

(By the way I had originally written a longer response here, but for some reason it didn't go through.)

If I'm going to put myself forward like that, it will have to be in ways that would be fruitful, like you said.

The problem is that I'm a very non-confrontational type,and putting myself forward like that is harder for me than I suspect it is for other people. Also, in the few cases in which I managed to confront the situation, things didn't quite work out so well. Like I said in my op, I either got a reaction of extreme surprise (gee, I didn't know you felt that way about it!) or a very defensive reaction (you can't expect me to read your mind dammit !)

Going back to the lunch example. The people were chatting and bantering non-stop before they left. I didn't feel like I had any opening in which to speak up and invite myself without it feeling rude on my part. I'm already quiet, and had just started working at the place. It would have been a hundred times easier if someone had just reached out to the quiet, new guy.

P.S. What does the thumbs down above my post mean ?

Originally Posted by jbking

OP, do you notice how you don't ask a question in your post?

I see what you mean here. I did ask a question though, although there is no question mark. I wanted to know how to do deal with situations like that and lessen their frequency. This doesn't apply to my letter example though because there were explicit question marks in that letter.

Originally Posted by poetic cafe

Thanks for the thoughtful post, Harley.

(By the way I had originally written a longer response here, but for some reason it didn't go through.)

If I'm going to put myself forward like that, it will have to be in ways that would be fruitful, like you said.

The problem is that I'm a very non-confrontational type,and putting myself forward like that is harder for me than I suspect it is for other people. Also, in the few cases in which I managed to confront the situation, things didn't quite work out so well. Like I said in my op, I either got a reaction of extreme surprise (gee, I didn't know you felt that way about it!) or a very defensive reaction (you can't expect me to read your mind dammit !)

Going back to the lunch example. The people were chatting and bantering non-stop before they left. I didn't feel like I had any opening in which to speak up and invite myself without it feeling rude on my part. I'm already quiet, and had just started working at the place. It would have been a hundred times easier if someone had just reached out to the quiet, new guy.

P.S. What does the thumbs down above my post mean ?

Don't let a few negative experiences stop you from being assertive. Like you said yourself, you are a non-confrontational individual which is probably why people got defensive or shocked when you voice your opinion. They are probably so used to you being quiet, that when you do speak up they probably think that whatever issue you are bringing to light must be really serious. I know it's not the easiest thing to do, but establish yourself as a person who will not be stepped upon and eventually people will pick up that you mean it, and will respond less harshly to you voicing your opinion.

I am also not the confrontational type, but I know my boundaries and am willing to stick up for myself if they are crossed. Really, being assertive is not about being a bully or raising your voice it is all about your language and tone. For example, people take you more seriously if you don't use contractions i.e instead of saying "that really wasn't cool when you didn't respond" try "that really was not cool when you did not respond". Again, you don't have to raise your voice or be rude, but rather just be firm.

As for the lunch example, don't beat yourself up about it too much. I understand it's hard to jump in a conversation with a bunch of strangers when you're not the outgoing type but it's all about baby steps. You're right, it might have been to fast-paced for you to just ask if you could come, and if you don't want to do that next time you're in a situation like that, you could instead just politely ask what they're talking about, so that way you are already in their group, and it would make the transition to asking if you could join them easier.

Originally Posted by poetic cafe

P.S. What does the thumbs down above my post mean ?

If you look down a couple of boxes when you type in a reply, you should see a box called, "Post Icons," and in there are a few smilies, some thumbs and a few other ideas for ways to summarize your post. Note that in this post, I have a green face with a big toothy grin. The thumbs up or down could be a way to signal, "Way to go," or "You suck," or at least that is my interpretation of what they could mean as it is a rather symbolic point.

I tend to be the type of person that when asked a question, I answer it, but if not asked then I may rarely volunteer information unless I believe I have something to share that is of great interest for someone in the group.

What about the simple idea that there are jerks out there? I've seen this kind of thing happen a lot. I think that's all they are, the first example especially. As for the people at your job, sometimes people can be unaware or shy or non-confrontational themselves.
You can just try to surround yourself with people you respect. On the other hand, be wary with having expectations for other people. Sometimes it will just disappoint you even more. If you expect something, you'll have to try being a little assertive.

I'm glad at least you are not the kind of people I've met. I've been told I also exclude people from things. In my case, I just don't know what to do with them, I don't know why they are where they are, I don't know what to say to them. And they get extremely insulted and take it as a personal attack... They never said anything directly to me, they just started spreading things about me around the building. In the end, they realized they were wrong with their assumptions, but didn't even bother to fix what they had done. So I still have some unnecessary enemies wandering around town.

All are selfish people and they want we have to suffer so that they can show symphothy on us

They no need to notice that also