How to stop crying when someone raises their voice at me?

As a kid I would always cry whenever I was in trouble or if someone was mean to me or if an adult shouted at me. Always been a massive sensitive softie and it’s carried on into my adulthood. When I started my first job at a shoe shop when I was 19 my manager was a b*tch and would get at me almost every day, and I would always cry in front of my coworkers. It’ll come and i won’t be able to stop it’s, it’s almost like a fight or flight reaction.
So lately it’s been a problem as sometimes (not often) my boyfriend gets mad at me for stuff, like if I’m taking to him while he’s trying to play video games and he’ll snap at me. Usually it’s not even bad, like he’ll just get slightly mad and I’ll just end up in tears. I want to just be able to tell him 'don't talk to me like that' but in the moment I just crumple up, go really really quiet and then start crying and I can't stop for ages.
I just want to stop being such a baby and just toughen up because I hate doing it. How can I do this?

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Originally Posted by sadtimes

As a kid I would always cry whenever I was in trouble or if someone was mean to me or if an adult shouted at me. Always been a massive sensitive softie and it’s carried on into my adulthood. When I started my first job at a shoe shop when I was 19 my manager was a b*tch and would get at me almost every day, and I would always cry in front of my coworkers. It’ll come and i won’t be able to stop it’s, it’s almost like a fight or flight reaction.
So lately it’s been a problem as sometimes (not often) my boyfriend gets mad at me for stuff, like if I’m taking to him while he’s trying to play video games and he’ll snap at me. Usually it’s not even bad, like he’ll just get slightly mad and I’ll just end up in tears. I want to just be able to tell him 'don't talk to me like that' but in the moment I just crumple up, go really really quiet and then start crying and I can't stop for ages.
I just want to stop being such a baby and just toughen up because I hate doing it. How can I do this?

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Just out of interest, how did you manage to cope with all of the shouty teachers at school when you were a kid?

For me, they were a real nightmare to contend with, especially those who were perpetually angry and power-mad, and virtually incapable of reasoning with us pupils. There was this one old battle-axe of a teacher at the final school I attended between 1988 and 1993 who yelled and screamed at me willy-nilly back in 1991 (I think) when I was nearly 14 and I was doing a favour for my own class teacher by going to fetch stuff from the stock cupboard at the opposite end of the school building and that old battle-axe teacher started bawling at me because I was (in her view) wandering the corridors out of lessons and she refused to listen and believe me when I tried to explain to her that I was doing a little task that my own teacher asked me to do as a favour and actually gave me permission to leave the classroom to pursue, but old battle-axe Mrs H. weren't having none of it and ordered me to go and sit in the headmaster's office 'right now', with the words 'I don't want any feeble excuses'!

As it happened, the headmaster was out at the time and the deputy headmistress saw me walking towards the headmaster's office and asked me what was the matter, and I said 'Mrs H. had had a right go at me for being out of class and I was only doing Miss O. (my own teacher) a favour by going to fetch her some stuff from the stock cupboard', and ended up bailing me out (thanks Mrs A, the deputy head), but not even a word of apology from Mrs H. to me!!

I still have a hatred of that nasty woman almost 30 years later. With her attitude and delusions if grandeur, she definitely wasn't fit to be a school teacher IMO, especially as she almost always seemed to be arsy, even on better days!!

There’s a great book called, “When I say No, I Feel Guilty” about how to become more assertive.