Love shouldn’t hurt, but it does. As the memory of sitting close to each other and chatting about deep stuff last night comes into view, so do the uncalled-for words of a loved one: You’re having a casual conversation, maybe three to four people involved, and out of nowhere comes a remark intended to make you feel bad about yourself. I’m talking about them making you feel bad about your current career, mental health, lifestyle, or social life, not about your silly views on something that relates to politics or pop culture.
The next thing that happens is that you’re puzzled: did I say or do something wrong? Hurtful? Am I talking insensitively about someone or something? If the answers are no, you become even more confused because—why would anybody in the right frame of mind try to hurt you with verbal insults out of the blue?
But that’s only in your perfect little world. In your perfect world, people, especially your closed ones, do not make rude comments about who you are. They do not smirk and call you annoying. They don’t choose you as their target to direct all their stress and negative feelings. They do not purposely trigger you, and they would never verbally attack you for no reason. All this, in your perfect little world, that is.
In reality, people are anxious, and this anxiety generates all kinds of things. Whether someone withdraws from you or hands out destructive criticism, they’re two sides of the same coin— the person is feeling threatened. The withdrawal is the flight and the aggressive criticism is the fight. Some people also freeze.
Some people are more prone to the “fight” response when feeling anxious. Why is this so? In other words, why do some people verbally attack others for no good reason?
2 Simple Reasons a Closed One Verbally Attacks You For No Reason
First Reason:
As people who lack self-awareness, that’s just how their brain works. They’re not attuned to their feelings, especially the uncomfortable, threatening ones. They refuse to reflect on how they play a part in the birth of unpleasant moods that arouse in themselves, choosing to find another source that somehow must contain the true “cause” of the terrible itch they’re experiencing right this moment. In short, “you’re the problem!”, they say, but in other words. As a result, until they’re able to find a way to be in touch with their pain, they’ll never understand that their pain really is their’s.
The thing is, though, with closed ones, boundaries may have become weak: people start believing that they understand everything about the family member, that they have the right to say anything they want to, that their own feelings are the other person’s responsibility, or that none of their own actions have any impact on the other person. All of these factors, and the fact that we believe our family members will always be there, help make sense as to why our closed ones (if they remain oblivious to their inner world) may easily dump their aggression on us i.e. verbally attack us.
Second Reason:
Their way of coping with the uncomfortable feelings they’re unaware of— which is by degrading you as a person— has become a habit, and no one has told them off about it.
Even worse, if your family happens to have a history of past generations being judgmental and critical when making verbal statements in conversations, they would only feel rewarded and affirmed, like they truly belong to the whole family system, and who doesn’t like to feel like they belong to something?
Solutions:
- Keep a distance from that family member (do not respond to their words)
- Tell them nicely that you do not appreciate uncalled-for statements that are intended to drag you down
- Pray that they join you on a mental health awakening
- Realize that you’re family which means you’re caught up in the dynamics too, meaning that you’ve most likely treated others that way some time ago
- Write about it to problem-solve (like what I’m doing now)
- Empathize with them. Know that they’re suffering inside
- Create space for your thoughts and feelings that are related to you having been verbally-attacked, and observe them without judgment, trying to remain in the present moment all the while
- Remind yourself that it takes the person itself to decide whether or not to learn to be self-aware
Meanwhile, let’s try not to verbally-attack others. You and I are nowhere near perfect, but let’s try to be a little conscious of how our inner world affects the way we treat others, especially our loved ones.
