Dealing with abusive conversations
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Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 104
Dealing with abusive conversations
I found some information I thought might help others on here so I want to share. I have done a lot of investigating personality issues and i have come to realize my RAH has a lot of narcissism traits AND some codie traits. This website deals with both issues. Anyways, the suggestions in this article are great ways to detach with love (I know many struggle with what this is and how to do this) and ways to take care of yourself in the midst of an abusive conversation.
Here is a link to the actual article if anyone is interested. Hope this helps someone out there as much as it has helped me 
Narcissism Daily Mirror: Verbal Abuse
Some Scripts for Dealing with Verbal Abuse ...
"I don't like where this is going and I am not prepared to talk about this anymore, I need to get to work/home/cleaning up (or whatever)."
If you say this it is vital that you disengage at this point and go and do what you said you needed to.
"I am concerned that you think you can talk to me/us this way, if this continues I will need to talk to [choose the most appropriate person for the situation who has some authority over the abuser but is not a friend of theirs or family, such as a superior at work, your minister, doctor, the local police, the school principal (if it relates to the kids) etc.], to get some advice on how to handle you when you are like this, because I don't know how to."
[It is important that you give this first as a warning but it cannot be an empty threat. If the abuse continues, it is vital that you find the courage to speak to someone with authority over the abuser to get them help.]
"I feel very hurt by what you are saying but I don't want to say anything that I will regret later so I am going to go calm down now and I hope we can talk about this in a day or two when you are feeling calmer too."
You can also say simply (and you may need to repeat these regularly)
"Stop putting me down."
"You are not better than me."
"I won't give you a hard time if you don't give me one."
(said with one arched eyebrow and your chin tilted down, or looking over your glasses at them)
"You have obviously had a bad day, why don't you cool off and I will talk to you when you are calmer."
"Sometimes I am and sometimes I'm not."
(in retaliation to statements such as, you are stupid, careless, clumsy, etc.)
"I need to cool off before we talk about this any further and I hope that you will too. I will talk to you (time) when I have finished ------."
At this point I should mention that it is very important that you let your partner know when you will get back to them if you leave. If you simply storm off and don't say where you are going or let them know when you will talk to them again it will not make the situation better but worse.
"I am going to need an hour or two to calm down, I will call/see you at (time) and I hope that you decide to calm down too before we see each other again."
"I am going for a walk to calm down, I will be back in a while and I don't want to talk about this again tonight as we are both too emotional now. Let's agree to give it a day or two, I love you but I am not going to discuss anything while you are shouting at me."
"I can see that you are upset/angry/distressed about this but I cannot talk now as I am feeling extremely overwhelmed and I need some time to accept that you feel the way you do about this and think about what you have said. I will call/see you (time)."
Besides these scripts there is clear body language you can use such as putting your hands out in front of you with your fingers pointing towards the sky out a slight distance from your body before you turn and walk away.
"I am not going to argue with you; when you are ready to consider my point of view and discuss something that suits us both, then we can talk more about this."
"I need sanctuary now, please do not come in here again until you have calmed down. Please let's agree to talk about this tomorrow."
The finality in your voice with these statements is very important as is keeping your voice even and in a deeper tone. Thinking that you need your partner to be nice to you or resolve the fight right now is a HUGE mistake. Learning to self-soothe and be able to calm your self down and find your own source of inner happiness regardless of how others are treating you is the most important skill you can work on. Emotions are contagious and so if you are surrounded by other people's anger or negativity you will pick it up, but if it is not yours you cannot resolve it. Because of this it is essential you learn to let go of bad feelings you have picked up from others and be able to get back to feeling happy as soon as you can. If your happiness is genuine this will help the people around you decide to be happy too. This is not the same as pretending to be happy however!
So here is an exercise that might help you with this ...
If you are feeling angry, hurt, depressed etc. ask yourself if the emotion is yours or if you have picked it up from someone around you. If the feeling is not yours, feel it in your lungs and heart area and then imagine it contained in a balloon inside you in that area that is getting bigger and bigger as you continue to breathe. As it gets bigger than your body see the balloon now become more like a soap bubble that will eventually pop on it's own and all of the bad feelings float away.
Now imagine your own happiness like a spring bubbling up inside you washing anything left of the bad feelings away and making you feel better. After this, when you feel ready, begin very gently to share your own natural happiness with the people around you.
This exercise will take longer when you first try it, but soon you will get better at doing it more quickly. If you can, then try and be sympathetic for why the person/people you are with are feeling angry or negative. Giving them some validation and understanding (once you are feeling better) will usually help.
"I know that work is really tough for you at the moment, I understand how you must be feeling very stressed about providing for us."
"Being a mother is a very tough job and must be very lonely, you must miss your independence and feel really overwhelmed by it sometimes. I know it takes most women a long time to adjust to being a mother."
If there is a positive virtue missing in a situation rather than escalate the negative emotions, once you are able to access your own sense of happiness at will, you can then think about what virtue is missing and attempt to add it.
For instance ...
Someone who is showing little understanding to others my need some understanding offered to them.
A person who is showing little valour may need protecting or defending (from unrealistic expectations or too much pressure at work or from the expectations or pressure from their friends or family).
A person who is showing little humility may need others around them to demonstrate humility.
A person who is irresponsible needs very responsible family and friends.
A person who is insensitive may need to be treated with extra consideration and care.
A person who rarely appreciates others may need to feel appreciated themselves.
A person who lacks empathy may be very anxious inside and need someone to feel for them and put themselves in their shoes.
This is not exactly the same as 'turn the other cheek'. What I am suggesting here is not offering yourself as a victim but instead as a positive influence. If someone is regularly abusing you verbally (or in any way) you are not doing them a favour to let them continue in this way. Calling in the help of an outside agency may be necessary but will work best if it is done out of concern for the abuser rather than as retaliation or punishment or as an 'eye for an eye'.
Again, these ideas are not going to work in the heat of the moment unless you have taken time out to really think about these new strategies and practice them if you can. The truth is that if you are being verbally abused, this situation probably occurs regularly and in similar situations and you need to start preparing yourself to respond next time in a way that better defends yourself or those around you who may also need protection. In some instances it may be necessary and possible to cut contact with the person in question entirely but this is not always a guarantee that the abuse will stop and can even escalate the problem, so please take care.
No one gets used to being abused and your skin doesn't naturally get thicker to it over time. It has been proven that if a person is constantly subjected to verbal abuse they will actually become more sensitive to it and may suffer anxiety attacks or PTSD. It can be a nasty world out there and even though some people try, it is impossible to avoid ever being abused by becoming a cold, hard and nasty person yourself. I believe it is much healthier and better to face that as unpleasant as it may be, we will all sometimes face the wrath and disdain of another or being balled out or put down by someone else and so it is well worth the time practising these techniques (even if only in your head) that can be used to help deal with this type of dehumanising situation.
I also suggest that you think about this; if you are to be successful not everyone is going to like everything you do ...
"I don't like where this is going and I am not prepared to talk about this anymore, I need to get to work/home/cleaning up (or whatever)."
If you say this it is vital that you disengage at this point and go and do what you said you needed to.
"I am concerned that you think you can talk to me/us this way, if this continues I will need to talk to [choose the most appropriate person for the situation who has some authority over the abuser but is not a friend of theirs or family, such as a superior at work, your minister, doctor, the local police, the school principal (if it relates to the kids) etc.], to get some advice on how to handle you when you are like this, because I don't know how to."
[It is important that you give this first as a warning but it cannot be an empty threat. If the abuse continues, it is vital that you find the courage to speak to someone with authority over the abuser to get them help.]
"I feel very hurt by what you are saying but I don't want to say anything that I will regret later so I am going to go calm down now and I hope we can talk about this in a day or two when you are feeling calmer too."
You can also say simply (and you may need to repeat these regularly)
"Stop putting me down."
"You are not better than me."
"I won't give you a hard time if you don't give me one."
(said with one arched eyebrow and your chin tilted down, or looking over your glasses at them)
"You have obviously had a bad day, why don't you cool off and I will talk to you when you are calmer."
"Sometimes I am and sometimes I'm not."
(in retaliation to statements such as, you are stupid, careless, clumsy, etc.)
"I need to cool off before we talk about this any further and I hope that you will too. I will talk to you (time) when I have finished ------."
At this point I should mention that it is very important that you let your partner know when you will get back to them if you leave. If you simply storm off and don't say where you are going or let them know when you will talk to them again it will not make the situation better but worse.
"I am going to need an hour or two to calm down, I will call/see you at (time) and I hope that you decide to calm down too before we see each other again."
"I am going for a walk to calm down, I will be back in a while and I don't want to talk about this again tonight as we are both too emotional now. Let's agree to give it a day or two, I love you but I am not going to discuss anything while you are shouting at me."
"I can see that you are upset/angry/distressed about this but I cannot talk now as I am feeling extremely overwhelmed and I need some time to accept that you feel the way you do about this and think about what you have said. I will call/see you (time)."
Besides these scripts there is clear body language you can use such as putting your hands out in front of you with your fingers pointing towards the sky out a slight distance from your body before you turn and walk away.
"I am not going to argue with you; when you are ready to consider my point of view and discuss something that suits us both, then we can talk more about this."
"I need sanctuary now, please do not come in here again until you have calmed down. Please let's agree to talk about this tomorrow."
The finality in your voice with these statements is very important as is keeping your voice even and in a deeper tone. Thinking that you need your partner to be nice to you or resolve the fight right now is a HUGE mistake. Learning to self-soothe and be able to calm your self down and find your own source of inner happiness regardless of how others are treating you is the most important skill you can work on. Emotions are contagious and so if you are surrounded by other people's anger or negativity you will pick it up, but if it is not yours you cannot resolve it. Because of this it is essential you learn to let go of bad feelings you have picked up from others and be able to get back to feeling happy as soon as you can. If your happiness is genuine this will help the people around you decide to be happy too. This is not the same as pretending to be happy however!
So here is an exercise that might help you with this ...
If you are feeling angry, hurt, depressed etc. ask yourself if the emotion is yours or if you have picked it up from someone around you. If the feeling is not yours, feel it in your lungs and heart area and then imagine it contained in a balloon inside you in that area that is getting bigger and bigger as you continue to breathe. As it gets bigger than your body see the balloon now become more like a soap bubble that will eventually pop on it's own and all of the bad feelings float away.
Now imagine your own happiness like a spring bubbling up inside you washing anything left of the bad feelings away and making you feel better. After this, when you feel ready, begin very gently to share your own natural happiness with the people around you.
This exercise will take longer when you first try it, but soon you will get better at doing it more quickly. If you can, then try and be sympathetic for why the person/people you are with are feeling angry or negative. Giving them some validation and understanding (once you are feeling better) will usually help.
"I know that work is really tough for you at the moment, I understand how you must be feeling very stressed about providing for us."
"Being a mother is a very tough job and must be very lonely, you must miss your independence and feel really overwhelmed by it sometimes. I know it takes most women a long time to adjust to being a mother."
If there is a positive virtue missing in a situation rather than escalate the negative emotions, once you are able to access your own sense of happiness at will, you can then think about what virtue is missing and attempt to add it.
For instance ...
Someone who is showing little understanding to others my need some understanding offered to them.
A person who is showing little valour may need protecting or defending (from unrealistic expectations or too much pressure at work or from the expectations or pressure from their friends or family).
A person who is showing little humility may need others around them to demonstrate humility.
A person who is irresponsible needs very responsible family and friends.
A person who is insensitive may need to be treated with extra consideration and care.
A person who rarely appreciates others may need to feel appreciated themselves.
A person who lacks empathy may be very anxious inside and need someone to feel for them and put themselves in their shoes.
This is not exactly the same as 'turn the other cheek'. What I am suggesting here is not offering yourself as a victim but instead as a positive influence. If someone is regularly abusing you verbally (or in any way) you are not doing them a favour to let them continue in this way. Calling in the help of an outside agency may be necessary but will work best if it is done out of concern for the abuser rather than as retaliation or punishment or as an 'eye for an eye'.
Again, these ideas are not going to work in the heat of the moment unless you have taken time out to really think about these new strategies and practice them if you can. The truth is that if you are being verbally abused, this situation probably occurs regularly and in similar situations and you need to start preparing yourself to respond next time in a way that better defends yourself or those around you who may also need protection. In some instances it may be necessary and possible to cut contact with the person in question entirely but this is not always a guarantee that the abuse will stop and can even escalate the problem, so please take care.
No one gets used to being abused and your skin doesn't naturally get thicker to it over time. It has been proven that if a person is constantly subjected to verbal abuse they will actually become more sensitive to it and may suffer anxiety attacks or PTSD. It can be a nasty world out there and even though some people try, it is impossible to avoid ever being abused by becoming a cold, hard and nasty person yourself. I believe it is much healthier and better to face that as unpleasant as it may be, we will all sometimes face the wrath and disdain of another or being balled out or put down by someone else and so it is well worth the time practising these techniques (even if only in your head) that can be used to help deal with this type of dehumanising situation.
I also suggest that you think about this; if you are to be successful not everyone is going to like everything you do ...
Narcissism Daily Mirror: Verbal Abuse
Member
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: rural Germany
Posts: 311
Unfortunately, it makes no sense to talk at all to my AH when he's drinking. I can already imagine his angry comeback lines at any of the proposed scripts. Plus he usually won't remember any of it later anyway. So I just refuse to engage, don't say anything at all except for occasional non-commital sounds like "uh-huh" or "ok" and answer any direct questions with "not sure" or "will have to think about it" while desperately trying to stop myself from saying "yes dear". 
Member
Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: USA
Posts: 94
'The finality in your voice with these statements is very important as is keeping your voice even and in a deeper tone.'
I have never been a shouter in my life. I always try to keep my voice calm even when having disagreements with romantic partners. Staying calm seems like a pretty foolproof strategy to keep disagreements from escalating further. This has always worked for me.
But with current ABF, all the rules seem inverted. My tone of voice seems to enrage him even further:
'Just because you speak in a neutral voice, doesnt mean you're not also being mean,' he would always say.
Actually, I have tried many of these techniques listed above and they all seem to enrage him further when he is in that state. He baits me and baits me and if I lose it finally, he can point to it as a sign that we are the same. Ugh.
As you say, though, talking with an out of control drunk is a fool's errand.
That's where the walking away becomes critical.
I have never been a shouter in my life. I always try to keep my voice calm even when having disagreements with romantic partners. Staying calm seems like a pretty foolproof strategy to keep disagreements from escalating further. This has always worked for me.
But with current ABF, all the rules seem inverted. My tone of voice seems to enrage him even further:
'Just because you speak in a neutral voice, doesnt mean you're not also being mean,' he would always say.
Actually, I have tried many of these techniques listed above and they all seem to enrage him further when he is in that state. He baits me and baits me and if I lose it finally, he can point to it as a sign that we are the same. Ugh.
As you say, though, talking with an out of control drunk is a fool's errand.
That's where the walking away becomes critical.
Community Greeter
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 16,246
Dear Jr, thanks for posting this very useful information. It is all very basic material for dealing with any "difficult people" from moody teenagers to personality disorders, to anyone, literally, who has lost their ability to respect your needs for respect.
For dealing with ACTIVELY USING alcoholics or addicts (drugs), I think these "golden tools" are best used in the moment of these ugly confrontations---as a "stop gap", to collect your wits, to prevent FURTHER escalation, to buy time to figure out how to handle the BIG PICTURE of the relationship, etc...
LOL---right now, today, I needed to be reminded of them while dealing with my very "prickly" and bitter 92yr. old mother who who is projecting her anger (from a lifetime of having surrendered her power) all onto me---the one who is trying so hard to help her!
She does live independently in her own home--which makes it more tolerable for me. If she did not, I would have to engage other professionals to do the major interaction with her.
I would like to underline the statement made in the above post which points out how destructive it is to be living, daily, in the face of verbal abuse (or any abuse). It wears down the victim and under cuts their self esteem and the ability to even trust their own judgement. Their ability to cope diminishes as they become more and more worn down. It is also very damaging to any children who are exposed to it---even just watching it.
I, personally, am going to print this post and keep it on my desk---so I can review these golden tools.
Thanks, Jr,!
dandylion
For dealing with ACTIVELY USING alcoholics or addicts (drugs), I think these "golden tools" are best used in the moment of these ugly confrontations---as a "stop gap", to collect your wits, to prevent FURTHER escalation, to buy time to figure out how to handle the BIG PICTURE of the relationship, etc...
LOL---right now, today, I needed to be reminded of them while dealing with my very "prickly" and bitter 92yr. old mother who who is projecting her anger (from a lifetime of having surrendered her power) all onto me---the one who is trying so hard to help her!
She does live independently in her own home--which makes it more tolerable for me. If she did not, I would have to engage other professionals to do the major interaction with her.
I would like to underline the statement made in the above post which points out how destructive it is to be living, daily, in the face of verbal abuse (or any abuse). It wears down the victim and under cuts their self esteem and the ability to even trust their own judgement. Their ability to cope diminishes as they become more and more worn down. It is also very damaging to any children who are exposed to it---even just watching it.
I, personally, am going to print this post and keep it on my desk---so I can review these golden tools.
Thanks, Jr,!
dandylion
Member
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: Hants
Posts: 16
Wise words. Unfortunately wasted on my AH. He never listens to or acknowledges a word I say! When he goes quiet for a minute, it is only to think up something even more venomous and vile to throw at me. On a bad night, he will start at 5 in the evening and still be ranting at 3am. If I leave the room, he will follow me. If I leave the house he will follow me up the street shouting vile abuse. I am generally a patient individual, but after 5 hours, I swear Mother Teresa would have swung for him!!
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