Interaction Where Felt Disconfirmed or Defensive

I can think of a variety of interactions my freshman year of college when I lived with seven other girls and I felt disconfirmed or defensive or even both. The main interaction I can think of where I felt disconfirmed and defensive was when a few of my suitemates (roommates) were in a heated argument over something that was not even important and the three girls that were involved in it, brought be into it, when I had nothing to do with it. Turns out my own roommate who was trying to play the mediator of the argument, told me one of my other roommates had said all these negative and harsh comments about me about my friends and people I knew. I found out within a week that that the roommate who had talked to my friends and others about me had squewed the whole thing, and put words into the other individuals mouths just so she can make me feel bad. Going back to the heated argument, that same suitemate had accused me of something that I had not done, so I felt defensive because I also felt disconfirmed meaning she made me feel unimportant, and uncomfortable which led me to feeling defensive as well since I was on guard and not able to be open with my suitemates. The other girls were either attacking ot pretending to understand where I was coming from. At the end of the day, I came to the conclusion that these girls thrive on drama, and become jealous easily.

Under Gibb's defensiveness-producing communication behaviors, I believe I can identify as present in this situation are neutrality and superiority. I would say neutrality is one of the behaviors because I felt defensive when one of my suitemates was responding to me and the other girls in a neutral or detached manner as the text states. I felt she did not really care about how we felt, she cared to just hear all the drama going around and she would play the neutral one and she woould get information from both sides then tell each individual what she heard the other people saying about them. I would also say superiority took place as one of the behaviors as well because the girls who started all the drama and arguments felt that they were better than everyone else in the suite, as if they mattered more. I did not care they felt that way, it was just sometimes it was hard to not feel on guard when the girls were behaving in such a way.

Overall, I learned from this experience living with seven other girls, that when you put different people with different personalities to live in one place for a year, be prepared to have to learn to stick up for yourself and not let what other people say, dictate how you feel about yourself.