Verbal Aggressors: How To Deactivate Them Without Getting Hurt
For some time now, our conception of what violence is has abandoned the rigidity of yesteryear to include many behaviors that are not based on physical attacks. Insults and verbal attacks in general, for example, are also considered types of violence. In fact, they are one of the most common.
That is why it is very important to ask ourselves if we know How to deal with interactions with verbal bullies those people who systematically and sometimes almost unconsciously use words in order to damage the sense of dignity of others.
There is no demographic or socio-economic profile of verbal abusers, but there are certain behavioral styles that define them. For example, a low resistance to frustration and impulsivity which makes them, among other things, bad at following a line of reasoning in a debate or discussion.
The emotions linked to anger or contempt control the type of speech they use to explain their point of view, so the only aspect of the content of their message that they take care of is the one that expresses how little the person they are addressing is worth. their verbal attacks.
Also They are relatively incompetent when it comes to understanding arguments of others; If they are made to feel bad, they act as if they had not heard them. Not because they are not very intelligent, but because of their high emotional involvement in discussions, no matter how minimal they may be. Furthermore, they try to make others complicit in the disqualifications, mixing them with humor to ridicule the other.
Verbal aggressors are very numerous, since the use of insults and pejorative labels is relatively permitted in many contexts.
Symbolic and emotional disqualifications
Another aspect of verbal aggression is that it has even more indirect and subtle allies. They correspond to symbolic and emotional attacks, which despite being non-verbal they function through a code that transmits ideas and that, consequently, can cause harm or discomfort.
Coming to recognize cases of non-verbal symbolic disqualifications can be somewhat complicated in some cases, since the margin for interpretation is wider, but in any case it must be clear that it is not something that can be admitted.
Any attack on us that does not occur physically, but through symbols and words, has an effect on us ; Although we do not see matter or energy flowing in our direction as would happen if we were kicked, that does not mean that the insults and bad words are any less real. Part of assertiveness consists of safeguarding one’s own dignity, and if verbal aggressors compromise it, they must be confronted… but not in any way.
How to deactivate a verbal bully
When someone uses a term used to disqualify (whether it is an insult or a word used to minimize our opinion, such as “little” or “child”) and we understand that it has been an unusual outburst, it is important to send the message that That specific behavior has clear consequences from that moment on.
That is why, instead of worrying about refuting the content and arguments that the other has used, we must draw attention to verbal aggression and not allowing the dialogue to continue flowing until the other person recognizes their mistake and apologizes. No matter how important the other’s argument appears to be, it must be ignored until an apology is obtained.
This blocking of the conversation is presented as an incident whose responsibility lies with the other for breaking the rules of good communication. In this way, you are forced to choose between an option that will make him give up a good part of his position of fictitious superiority or another in which he shows his inability to maintain a dialogue without incurring a very basic fault against which the youngest children are educated.
In case of recidivism
When verbal abusers fall again and again into disqualification, we must make our reaction follow the same rhythm; the dialogue is stopped as many times as necessary to focus all attention on verbal aggression.
When apologies don’t appear
In the event that the verbal abuser refuses to acknowledge his mistake and does not apologize, it is most effective to make him pay for that as well. As? Taking to the end the logic of blocking communication that we had followed until that moment: physically leaving that place This action will be an explicit and visible manifestation of the failure of the verbal aggressor’s attempts to communicate.
If we remain on the site but refuse to talk to that person, the impact of that measure is less, because it goes unnoticed until the moments in which we are asked to say something.
