| Verbal abuse is toxic, especially when you are on the | | | | to regain perceived lost power (whether real or |
| receiving end. It can wear you down, burn you out, | | | | imagined). This is the most important thing to realize. |
| and literally change the way you think and feel about | | | | As psychologist Donald Dutton, Ph.D. says, battering |
| yourself. But it doesn't have to... | | | | is "impotence longing omnipotence." |
| Here are some insights that will help you hold your | | | | Regardless of whether the battering is physical, |
| own in the face of verbal abuse. | | | | emotional or verbal, see it as a bodily and psychically |
| 1) Know that the verbal abuse says more about the | | | | felt underdog overcompensating. This one insight will |
| verbal abuser than it says about the abused. You | | | | save you in the face of verbal and emotional abuse. |
| may have heard this without understanding why, and | | | | Far too often, victims of verbal abuse internalize the |
| therefore not fully trust this to be true. | | | | message of the verbal abuser. However, if you stop |
| 2) Realize that the actual content of the verbal | | | | yourself and see this aggression as belonging to and |
| assault is not about you (the victim); rather, it is a | | | | fully about the person delivering the message, you |
| fired-up projection of the abuser. The words, the | | | | will more likely walk away from the encounter |
| names, the labels, the messages define the abuser, | | | | untouched by the content. |
| not the victim. | | | | True, you may be shaken by the noise, but you will |
| 3) And moreover, it (the verbal assault) typically | | | | discover that this racket is far easier to deal with |
| springs out of the abuser's insecurity. It is actually the | | | | when you see it for what it is. Just noise. |
| abuser's effort, both consciously and unconsciously, | | | | |