Pauliina FlamToday I want to write about abuse, not the one that comes with fists and screams, but a subtle one. The one that is hard to recognize, hard to call out, and hard to address. The one that makes people wonder why they feel bad when it seems like nothing bad is happening. In another case, one might wonder why their communications end up making someone else feel bad. Or why when another person starts doubting themselves you finally feel right and relieved. The examples and explanations I bring to your attention in this post are just scratching the surface of violent communication. Exactly because this issue is so big – it is important to start scratching that surface.
“In toxic phrases, the abusive part can hide behind the words when a nice thing is pronounced out loud.”
Making someone deliberately feel bad about themselves is, probably, the most common toxic trait. Let’s take an example of a physical look. Now, when the abuse is straightforward it would be something like “You look stupid”. But the subtle abuse is not that easy to recognize. In toxic phrases, the abusive part can hide behind the words when a nice thing is pronounced out loud. It could be for example saying:
“I never say if I don’t like something about my partner’s body”. If this is told to a partner – it indicates that there is something one doesn’t like, but it is not said straight so it is a passive-aggressive way to make someone feel bad about themselves.
“..if you were never taught how to express anger safely – the anger didn’t go away. It is still there, inside you, and it still finds ways to come out.”
A passive-aggressive way of communicating is tricky – it can come from a place of having an emotional lock around anger. When you were not allowed to be angry as you grew up, or if you were never taught how to express anger safely – the anger didn’t go away. It is still there, inside you, and it still finds ways to come out. Passive aggression can be one of these ways. But it can also come from a desire to hurt someone while acknowledging that doing so makes you seem like a bad person. So the way to perform it subtly could be passive aggression.
Hurtful ways
For example, sarcasm is a form of passive aggression. Enjoyment from the practice of passive aggression is not always abuse. But it is abuse when you enjoy the goal of praising yourself at the expense of putting others down, using passive aggression as a tool to mask your intention. For example, if you and your bestie laugh hysterically being sarcastic with each other – it is a consensual way of experiencing anger through passive aggression, and probably feels safe for both of you. But when you find passive ways of hurting someone and feel joy when your goal is achieved – you are behaving abusively.
Here is an example I experienced. I have light eyes that can seem blue or grey, depending on the weather and the clothes I am wearing. I was in abusive communication for a while with a person who told me the same joke many times. He said there is a saying that people have blue eyes because there is nothing but water in their brains. He would say it once in a while, and he would laugh hysterically every freaking time. Another example could be saying:
“I do not care how you dress. My friends might think it is weird that you are always dressed like this, but I don’t care if I really like a person. And I have options, you know. People are flirting with me all the time and I could easily be with someone who dresses normally. But I choose this ’cause I truly like you.” Did you spot the abuse behind the words? Things that are said loud here are that a person does not care for how you look: a nice thing overall! But reading behind words – they don’t like it and feel like they should get praise for still being with you, despite your looks. That is very belittling, which is a very usual practice for abusive communication. Let us check that one next.
When your good feeling of self depends on putting someone else down you will try to belittle them all the time subconsciously. This is also a subtle abusive technique because it cancels other people’s experiences, feelings, and self-worth in favor of yours. When somebody belittles you it seems like their own experience matters, but yours does not. Here are some examples. “I have traveled the world, and that is how I know: all men are pigs, and all women are manipulative bitches, and you should not trust anybody. You must be stupid not to see that.” What is the message behind it? “There is one only truth and it is the one I know”. This is belittling because it means anybody else’s opinion and experience does not matter. It is also insulting to call someone stupid if they don’t understand how your truth is the right one. The message behind these words is “You either think like me, or you are stupid.” It is also a way of control because it does not leave you any options to think differently.
Another example could be “I don’t think you really believe these things, I think someone told you that, or you just heard it somewhere and now you think you feel this way”. The message behind this can be “Because I don’t want to accept that you think this way, I will make you believe it is not how you think”. Did you spot idealization (I only accept you in the way I want you to be) and control (I will make you think and feel the way I want)? For many of us who did not have a healthy communication example in our families, this can be big news, but insulting, belittling, controlling, and idealizing is violent communication.
The power of words
“..popularising scientific terms can sometimes strip them of their original meaning.”
A few words originated from psychology that became popular, like “being toxic”, and “narcissism”, and I think “gaslighting” starts to be one of them too. From one side I appreciate that people are discussing mental health issues more openly. Statistically nowadays people are asking more often for help when they are facing mental health challenges. It is a positive thing and means that stigmas around mental health conditions are slowly breaking. On the other hand, popularising scientific terms can sometimes strip them of their original meaning. This makes people use words irresponsibly and how they please, which again, builds more stigma around the meanings.
Googling gaslighting one might face very hardcore examples, but since today we are talking about subtle ways of abuse, I want to bring a few lesser recognizable examples. One of them is when someone uses other people, let’s say friends, to make your reality or opinion seem less. It can be phrases like:
-I talked to my friend about what you did and she said “No way he said this, he seemed so nice!”
-This is normal! Most people think like that. Ask anybody.
All that makes it seem like your truth is less probable because this person has other people on their side. Another example could be also complaining to your besties about how badly you behaved, hoping that they will tell you, that you are wrong and your partner is right. Gaslighting in general makes you doubt your own reality and your own perspective, and shatters the grounds you stand on. When an abusive person gets your friends and family on their side, that naturally narrows your getaway options.
Games we play
When one must play a show to get constant validation – all communication becomes a playfield. It is a game in which they are best ever people: successful, beautiful, nice, and kind. It must be a stressful game to play because naturally there will always be something that will challenge that idealized picture. Something will always compromise your illusion, for example, there will always be someone who is better at something. In reality, people can always say things that put the game you play at risk, or challenge you to face your insecurities. And since you are playing a game where you don’t have them, that will always be a place for a conflict.
“Facing your insecurities is a part of being secure.”
Imagine how frustrating it is when a partner does not play along or does not fit the picture. If your self-worth depends on this show, you will naturally use all your strength to make everything fit the game. The fact, that this process turns out as control and abuse will not be recognized, because a controlling person simply does not fit the role you are playing.
One of the unhealthy communication methods that is abusive is projecting your emotions onto other people. You feel jealous but you do not want to be the “bad jealous toxic partner”, so you can not consciously accept this feeling in you. And when you don’t want it, you force it on the other person. Suddenly they become jealous, competitive, or unsatisfied when truly you are the one experiencing these emotions. When feeling anything that does not fit your “nice person game” it is easily projected as someone else’s feeling. So saying “I think you are a very jealous person” when you are the one feeling jealous becomes a logical outcome of this gameplay.
Abusive communication holds a lot of control, because of a need to shape everyone and everything to fit this game. At the same time, a hurting person does not feel bad about demanding others to behave, talk, and look in a specific way. When an illusion of self-worth depends on this game protecting it becomes a primary matter. When a bad self is projected onto the other person – it brings relief and satisfaction. It constitutes, once again, how good and right you are.
Facing your insecurities is a part of being secure. When you don’t have the tools to face them and reality constantly forces you into it – having control might bring an illusion of security. Thus control can feel like the equivalent of security when there are no safe communication options. A way of getting that control could be seeking knowledge about the other person, with whom they talk, what they do all day, where they go, what happened in your life previously, especially the juicy traumatic details.
When seeking control is a primary matter it doesn’t feel bad to break boundaries and can naturally get very demanding. Now, again, the more straightforward way of this can be by asking you to show your message history. But a subtle way would be masking the demand with something nice: “We don’t need to have secrets from each other. Don’t you trust me?” It can result in somebody you just met demanding personal information or juicy details asking things like “Tell me your traumas” or
“Tell me what is the worst thing that happened to you”. Or even dictating you what to answer: “When we talk I want you to tell me how your day went, what did you, what you ate, where you went, with whom you hung out, you know, just the usual things.”
There is nothing wrong with these phrases on their own, but in a specific context, they can mean a person is seeking control. I think this is also a tricky thing about subtle emotional abuse: there are some phrases that are not bad or abusive on their own. But in a specific context, they can be a hurtful tool to take advantage of another person. Also, it might have an impact on how your friends react when you share these things with them. Let’s say you felt bad hearing something but can not figure out why. You share the hurtful phrase with a friend. But since your friend has a healthy example of using this phrase they can tell you that it is okay and a perfectly healthy way of communicating. Because they do not have the context. You have the context. I think that is a tricky thing about subtle abuse that makes it harder to get understanding and compassion.
Blame and Projection
”in mental health escaping always strengthens the symptom. So the further you take yourself from accepting the problem, the further you are from dealing with it.”
The tools a hurting person has for handling emotions are limited, which is why dealing with their own insecurity feels impossible. It is far easier to play a game, where your own insecurities do not even exist, even though this game dominates all your life choices. Praising yourself, feeling superior, putting time and effort into looking good, and being successful helps escape the feeling of worthiness inside. The problem is – in mental health escaping always strengthens the symptom. So the further you take yourself from accepting the problem, the further you are from dealing with it. If you feel subconsciously insecure you will have to play a big shitshow where you are ultimately great, and all this for the sake of not meeting with your real traumas. Let’s be honest, to be compassionate you gotta have your shit together. If most of your energy and resources are spent on escaping your true emotions – no way you gonna have enough tools to be compassionate, loving, and understanding towards anybody else. Most likely the relationships you gonna build around you – are also gonna be part of the show you gotta play not to meet with your own issues.
The reality is not a scripted show though, and there will always be something that challenges the game you are playing. For example, seeing people who are happy and successful can remind you of how you want to be, but at the moment you are not. So instead of being happy for them you will feel jealous, and bringing them down will make you feel better about yourself, but just for a moment, until there is something else that challenges your reality. If all your life goes on covering for your demons – there is no resource to develop the emotional intelligence that is necessary for healthy communication.
When you don’t have healthy tools to deal with your emotions – they still gotta go somewhere. Using other people as a dumpster for the bad feelings you don’t accept in yourself is a natural way for a person whose communication ways are not responsible. But it is an unfair and abusive way of acting around your feelings. Another thing from the same insecure space is constantly blaming how you feel on another person. An example of this could be “I did not understand why I felt bad, but then I realized, it was because you had a sad face all the time. My evening was ruined.”
“I think there is a phrase that goes for both, a person who is being abusive and their victim: It is not how it looks – it is how it feels. “
If you are constantly blamed for your behavior, your true motives are ignored or gaslighted – you naturally stop believing your own thoughts and feelings. As a result, the victim of emotional abuse starts to question their values, life choices, rightness, and feelings. You might think “Well it looks like they are right, they claim doing nothing wrong, I must be wrong then”. When a hurtful partner plays a show that their worth depends on – they put all their effort into the way things look. Of course, none of this cancels the way you both feel. The thing is – your feelings can be contradictory to how things look. Feelings can be irrational and unlogical, but in any case, accepting them and going through them is the only way out. I think there is a phrase that goes for both, a person who is being abusive and their victim: It is not how it looks – it is how it feels.
What can help to recover from a covertly abusive relationship? I think no matter if you are a victim or a persecutor (one can also be both at different times of their life) the important step is naming things their names. You experience bad things being said but denied, and negative feelings being felt but denied for too long. Calling them out, even just for yourself on a paper, listing them, and naming them accordingly gives feelings a sense of reality. And a sense of reality is something you might be missing after a hurtful communication.
Here are examples of words one can put on hurtful communication: shaming, criticising, gaslighting, blaming, or belittling. Another helpful thing that works in the long run is finding healthier ways of communicating. One can go through phrases they thought did not go respectfully and rephrase them. One can also go through answers to hurtful comments in the same way and try to make them beneficial. That gives you practice you possibly did not have enough. Being on any side of this communication means you learned hurtful ways and they became your patterns. It can happen because you never had different ones, so creating and practicing healthy ones is a useful thing.
Have you ever participated in emotionally abusive communication? Did you find tools that helped you to overcome it? Your shared experience is much appreciated. I think the things I mentioned are just a small part of a vast universe of hurtful communication. We had so much experience in it that we became creative in being hurtful. All experiences are unique, so sharing them broadens the horizon, and I think we all need a better view of these matters.
