Due to lots of verbal and (few times) physical abuse I’ve experienced through years, I’m very sensitive and defensive to all sorts of any aggression, even small one. I’m constantly on the lookout of the signs that someone is bullying me even though I moved out and no longer have any contact with family members who used to abuse me.
But it doesn’t mean that other abusers still aren’t out there to torture me. Sometimes I just meet petty and toxic people who like to be passive aggressive and get on people’s nerves. They are coworkers, roommates, or even a nurse who criticised me for not weighing myself regularly because I’m a woman. Basically just misogynistic or older strangers who think they have some power over me while there’s none. They don’t abuse me overtly of course, but I think we all have met people who deliver insults or are condescening in such a way that they can easily excuse this and get away with it.
I’m also extremely observant to microexpressions and tones of voice, and even when someone doesn’t even say something mean, I still can see clearly through their face what they really meant.
There are three options in which I react to those things:
1. I enter freeze response, I just don’t say anything because my brain started bufforing and processing what is just happening. I hate feeling after that because I feel like I’ve “lost” the interaction.
2. I enter fight response – I start yelling, cursing and choose open conflict, which is like shooting myself in the foot, because not only now I look like a bad guy or dangerous person since it looks like I overreacted, but also the covert bully got a reaction out of me.
3. I call them out on their behavior which of course ends up in them gaslighting and saying they meant something else.
This really happens quite often in my life, and it makes me feel as if I will never be free from trauma and abuse. I feel either blind rage or sadness that someone put me down again. Meanwhile, those random microaggressions are not such a big deal for people without trauma, so my strong reactions to them only lead to be being misunderstood too.
I don’t want to just let those people have their way with me, but I also don’t want to lose control of my emotions. I need a strategy which will defend me from them or else I might get violent one day and it’s gonna not end up well for me.
7 comments
Remove yourself from these people/situations. I was in a toxic work environment and froze up when I was uncomfortable with things they did/said that was offensive. Sorry this may not be much help, but your primal instinct is to protect yourself; so if you freeze up, have no witty comeback etc- its your cue that the environment isn’t in your favor and remove yourself completely.
You’re never going to be able to consistently “win” these interactions. I’m in a similar situation of being hyperaware to subtly; I even have the same reactions that you do, only for me, number three ends up being a feeble attempt to articulate what’s wrong. And I never can. I feel like all of my words fly away and all I can do is feel the problem, and not pin it down in words.
If you’re hyper sensitive, you are NOT going to be able to mould yourself into a cutthroat person who’s quick on the draw and can determine people’s weak points and logical failings instantly. I think this is because when you’re so intimately familiar with this type of situation, the pain of it literally prevents you from doing the same to others. I know I’ve said some fucking horrible things. I’ve acted in ways that make me disgusted with myself, for losing control and for treating other people poorly. But all I can do is lash out in an uncontrolled, chaotic way; I *can’t* be that cold, detatched person who constantly treats other people like they’re below themselves. To be that predatory and calculating is impossible.
You don’t have to be that person, either. “Gray rock” is much easier to handle. It costs less energy, and you don’t have to react so quickly. If someone says something pointed & nasty, you don’t have to smile. You can stand there and stare at them, silently. Because fuck that. Why should you have to come up with some snappy counterattack?
And this goes for instances where someone says something over the line, even if you think they’re not trying to hurt you. You don’t have to laugh, if what they said was a joke at your expense.
The other thing you can do is repeat what they said. Sometimes repeat it as a question. Keep going. “What do you mean? No seriously, what do you mean?” Force them into explaining themselves. Again, this costs you so much less energy and isn’t something that forces you to come up with a quick, witty counterattack. Plus, if they’re just being dense, it gives you a chance to see that their heart wasn’t in the wrong place– they just said something insensitive.
Learn to establish boundaries with yourself first then others. Once you respect yourself you’ll find it difficult to keep yourself in situations that don’t. Remember you can’t control how others act, only how you respond. You teach people how to treat you.
I am by no means a professional. I speak from experience. What has helped me was journaling, it allowed me to have insight of some of my hidden deeper concealed emptions. A lot of the behaviors we accept as adults stem from our childhood and how we received attention from our parents which established our baseline “normal”. But that’s just me and my experience.
You know what makes this particularly difficult? Is that most of those people have no idea they’re being passive-agressive or that they’re saying offensive things. There’s very little self-awareness going on. It’s just how they are, they don’t know any other way. They’re not targeting you specifically, they treat everyone like that, if they perceive they have upper hand in the interpersonal dynamic. Calling it out is useless, because again, they can’t admit to it, because they don’t even realize they’re doing anything at all. I don’t waste my time on those people anymore. I just look at them puzzled, or raise eyebrow or answer in plain and boring tone with short sentences.
If someone has no power over you, why would their condescension mean anything? In that case it would be as harmless as a yapping toy dog. Why fight it? There’s no threat, so no need for a fight. Condescension is not ‘having their way’ with you, it’s just noise, and it feels empowering to ignore it as such. If they have no power over you then there is nothing to defend against.
You may find mindfulness helpful, or you may not. It can help allow a person to tolerate powerful negative emotions while still maintaining control and composure. Feeling a certain way does not, after all, obligate you to act a certain way. If you have the idea that condescension by itself cannot hurt you you may still feel strongly in reaction to it, but a mindfulness practice might help allow you to begin to let those feelings go. This may allow you to walk away from those situations without either losing your cool or feeling as though you ‘lost’. There is no loss from ignoring a fool, after all.
It may also help to realize that your body may be reacting to all people as if all people were abusive. In reality most people are not abusive. Their advice, suggestions, and criticisms have no malice. Part of what makes you suffer may be alleviated by practicing being aware of the goodness of others, and by being more charitable in your interpretation of their intent. If you family was abusive you may be primed to expect that kind of ill intent, but you are free to change your attitude to better reflect the truth that most people are not abusive. Most people don’t care either way about you and mean you no harm.
Are you sure that these attacks are really going on at every occasion, or is it possible that some of your reactions are trauma related reactions?
I’m wondering because this kind of thing literally never happens to me.