Verbal Abuse
Experiencing verbal abuse with a partner or family member is more common than we realize. As someone who has experienced freedom, liberation, and deep connection with their partner amidst patterns of verbal abuse, here are some helpful tips to know.
Engaging in verbal abuse is often a learned behavior, rooted in a person’s environment and childhood. Many individuals who engage in it are unaware of what verbal abuse is or that they are perpetrating it. As someone on the receiving end, attempts to change their behavior by sending them articles, reacting emotionally (silent treatments, yelling, crying and then expecting comfort), storming off, or simply stating "you are verbally abusing me" are unlikely to be effective and, in fact, may exacerbate the situation. (Believe me, I've tried it all.) These reactions, stemming from unhealthy anger and coping mechanisms, do not foster connection but rather create further distance.
Let’s define verbal abuse: It's a form of language and communication intended to cause harm to another individual, often interchangeable with emotional abuse. Verbal abuse includes belittling, using a harsh tone, gaslighting, blaming, criticizing, denying, making accusations, or using humor to demean.
Often, the motivation behind verbal abuse (beyond learned behaviors) is a need for control and a desire to mask underlying pain. These individuals feel powerless, and confronting their pain is overwhelming. Therefore, they resort to verbal abuse as a coping mechanism, a way to conceal their vulnerability and push others away. While a harmful coping strategy, it falls under the same umbrella of other harmful anger episodes.
You cannot force someone to change, but you can alter how you receive, respond to, and manage verbal abuse. Transforming your anger, your hurt, and how your partner treats you has more to do with you, than them. Imagine verbal abuse as a skunk you're forced to coexist with. You don't want to eliminate it, but you also can't embrace it. What can you do? Perhaps you create designated spaces (the skunk gets one room, you get another), or you provide distractions (offering "treats" in a specific corner). Some trial and error will be necessary to find effective strategies. The point is, alternative responses and solutions exist, but often we lack the tools and knowledge to implement them, leading us to feel trapped and perpetuate cycles of pain and anger—fixating on the perception of being permanently stuck with a "skunk."
What can you do? Practice communicating your needs, establish healthy boundaries, and address your wounds and triggers. Often, relationships involving verbal abuse resonate with our nervous systems, even if they are painful, due to our own dysfunctional upbringings. Therefore, breaking this dynamic requires disrupting current relationship patterns. The good news is that you only need one person in the relationship to break with cycle.
Here are three crucial questions to address to break the cycle:
Am I willing to do what is necessary, regardless of guilt or justifications?
Am I willing to consistently practice setting boundaries and communicating my needs assertively?
Am I willing to confront my own wounds to prevent them from hindering constructive responses?
Here are four tips and expectations:
Unexpected Reactions: A different response will likely surprise your partner. They are not accustomed to this new approach, and you might encounter an "extinction burst," where their reactions initially worsen before improving. This is a natural human response, similar to how symptoms can intensify before recovery during illness.
Grace and Understanding: No one is perfect. When setting boundaries with someone unfamiliar with them, it can be perceived as punishment, leading to defensiveness and reactive behavior. Expect this during the extinction burst phase. More importantly, adjust your expectations and offer reassurance. Consider a preemptive conversation: "I'm going to try something new in our relationship: voicing my needs and preferences more directly. I'm doing this because I care about our relationship, and I want to fight for it."
Connection & Compassion: Your partner is the way they are today for a reason, but so are your reactions. Diving deep into attachment style wounds, enneagram, childhood stories, and even relationship fears (if they are willing) will give you a better understanding why they act this way. Prioritize dialog and connection (and use apps or online resources for preset questions), and use what you learn to your advantage and place yourself in each others stories. Focus on the emotions that come up when you imagine yourself in their stories. How helpless it must have felt, how frustrating it must have been, how inadequate it must have felt.
Non-Linear Progress: Expect setbacks and imperfections. You will both make mistakes. Extend grace not only to your partner but also to yourself. Changing a dynamic established over many years is challenging. It requires time and self-compassion. Like any new skill, we don’t go from lifting 3 pounds of weights to 200 pounds of weight the next day if we’ve never worked out– we start small, rest, take breaks when necessary, and replenish ourselves to make progress.
If you want to learn more, you can book a 1:1 session with Annie and/subscribe to her email list. She will be coming out with a more in-depth course on emotions (and more) soon!
Anger & 3 Minute Hack
I have a special relationship with anger. It’s had a hold on me my entire life, until recently. I grew up defining anger as episodes of yelling, screaming, throwing items, or silent treatments. Anger was seen as something bad, because someone angry = I was in trouble, they don’t love me, it’s my fault, or I’m not good enough. When my mom used to lecture or yell at me, I would get angry and yell back at her. When my friends and I had disagreements, I would get angry and avoid them. When my partner didn’t understand what I was trying to say, I would get angry and criticize them. For the longest time, I was always in denial of my anger. I was in denial that I had anything to address or work on because I was too busy blaming others. My brain was resistant in the form of fear. Fear of change, fear of failure, fear of success even. But, there was a point in my life where I started getting tired of always feeling angry. I was tired of my blood boiling. I was tired of it affecting me physically. I was tired of it hurting my relationships. I started realizing, something is really off. Everything changed when I took a deep dive into my internal behaviors (what we call private events), as a behavior analyst. I realized I had been utilizing anger the wrong way. Not because I intended to, but because this was the relationship I was taught growing up.
Anger is not explosive episodes, yelling, or screaming. Anger is an outward expression of hurt, fear, or frustration. An experience of pain or grief that has not been processed, boundaries that have been crossed, or needs that have not been met. “What is that surge of energy I feel when I feel angry or frustrated then?”, you might ask. That surge of energy is what we call being activated in your “fight or flight”, a natural survival response our body engages in to protect us from a threat. Angry outbursts can develop when a person feels defeated, powerless, or has been betrayed in some way-- and they were never taught how to respond to those feelings of betrayal and powerlessness in a way that could help them feel safe again, so they stay in fight or flight.
But can you imagine a life where..
Where anger becomes your greatest ally, revealing hidden depths of your identity?
Where you know exactly what to do with your volcanic surges of energy, and how to use it to inspire you instead of feeling held down?
Where your anger helps you build deeper relationships?
I can. It’s my life today. Check out my 3-minute visual hack on calming your anger here.
Anger is a tricky emotion. It tricks us into thinking something is wrong, either with ourselves or that person across from us who is having a temper tantrum. But the reality is, anger can simply be a long overdue cry for help. However, when we are not taught how to sit with anger or befriend it, it becomes a threat, a chronic threat that our bodies fight until the body can’t take it anymore. We start getting headaches, body aches, we get irritated for no reason, or unexpectedly triggered. We get anxious, we dismiss, we ignore. We start attacking our loved ones, end up in fights, and start criticizing. Our palms get sweaty, our hearts beat fast, and sometimes we just can’t take it anymore. It becomes a vicious cycle of being stuck in a fight or flight with our anger.
Anger is not just moments of angry outbursts. “Subtle” anger moments can also be moments of stress, irritation, anxiety, resentment, and bitterness. It can also be silent, choosing not to speak up when we need to. Our body can be very good at masking it for the sake of survival. These feelings may eventually push us to snap at someone or push someone away unintentionally. We do this because we have a misunderstood relationship with anger. But no one truly wants that.
Here’s the good news: Anger is an emotional skill. A skill that anyone can unlearn, relearn, and build upon at any age. This means it’s never too late to build a healthier relationship with anger. If you are curious about where to start, check out my ebook here, or if you are ready to learn specific tools on how to process a wide range of emotions, click here.