How to Respond Effectively to Verbal Abuse
Physical abuse is easily identified. The bruises and scars leave no room for doubt that you have been physically abused. You don’t have to second guess yourself, thinking “Am I being physically abused?”
Verbal abuse is different. The damage is internal, there are no physical bruises or scars—just a wounded spirit and sense of self-esteem.
Dr. Berit Brogaard says,
Verbal abuse is a way of attacking or negatively defining another person using words—or silence—as a weapon. It can take a variety of forms ranging from loud rants to passive-aggressive remarks.
She goes on to identify some common forms of verbal abuse:
- withholding information or purposely failing to share thoughts and feelings
- countering the victim's memories, thoughts and feelings
- blaming the victim for things that are outside his or her control
- calling the victim names or using hurtful and defining labels such as liar, child, and opportunist
Verbal abuse may not always be easy to identify because it doesn’t always include harmful and hurtful words.
Why? Because a master at verbal abuse can damage your self-esteem while they simultaneously appear to care deeply for you.
The use of words to punish is a very covert attempt to control, and regardless of how loving your spouse may appear to be, verbal abuse is wrong and can be as harmful, if not moreso, as physical abuse.
One Very Effective Strategy
A fundamental law of negotiation states, “A recognized tactic is no longer effective.”
The most effective strategy is to call out the abuser every time they attack you with their words.
According to Psychology Today, the natural instinct to respond to verbal abuse is to attempt to provide a rational explanation. But the fact is you cannot reason with a verbal abuser.
Dr. Brogaard states,
Let's say that your friend blames you for leaving too late and ending up in unexpected traffic. Instead of attempting to convince your friend that you could not have anticipated the unexpected traffic, it's more effective to firmly state, ‘Stop blaming me for something I have no control over.
Or let's say that someone is using a label such as ‘child’ or ‘liar’ to define you. Trying to convince them that you are not a child or a liar is not going to have any effect. Firmly stating, ‘Stop using negative labels to define me,’ or simply, ‘Stop the name-calling,’ is more powerful.”
7 Suggestions for Dealing with Verbal Abuse
HealthyPlace identities the following ways of responding to this abusive behavior:
1. Ignore it
Ignoring verbal abuse may sound like unrealistic advice. How do you ignore someone screaming in your face or calling you names that make you want to punch him or her? Believe it or not, ignoring an attack is extremely effective because verbal abusers thrive on the way their victims respond. His goal is to hurt you, if you are seemingly indifferent, it will trip him or her up and keep the abuser from getting the desired result.
2. Set boundaries
Setting boundaries is initially difficult but with courage and consistency, it can be extremely effective. Not just in potentially changing another’s treatment of you, but also in altering your own level of confidence and self-respect. This practice will help you to develop a sense of self-worth. It is up to you to teach people how to treat you. Try using responses like, “I won’t respond to you if you scream at me, please lower your voice.” or “If you continue calling me names, this conversation is over-- you can communicate without name-calling.”
3. Don’t get emotional
Again－easier said than done. Crying, yelling, falling apart, and other emotional responses are what your abuser is after. Don’t give it to them. Rather than cry when you’re hurt by something they’ve said, try to focus on how screwed up they must be to treat people so poorly. Shifting your perception of what’s happening will help you to not take it personally.
4. Give it time
Letting things cool down before you attempt discourse can positively impact the overall tone and result of your discussion. Agreeing to or insisting that you give one another space for a set amount of time and then revisiting the conversation later helps to keep your responses more rational than emotional. You can say something like, “We’re both upset right now, let’s revisit this in a few hours when we’ve had a chance to calm down.”
5. Don’t add fuel to the fire
Meeting crazy with crazy doesn’t generally help anybody -- it escalates conflicts to unnecessary levels. When someone pulls all the crazy out, remain calm, cool, and collected. Don’t respond to screaming with screaming or name-calling with name-calling. When he goes low, you go high. He may realize how belligerent he's behaving and it should help to de-escalate matters to a more reasonable level.
6. Anticipate and avoid
In verbally abusive relationships, there is an abuser and a victim and they go through a recurring and familiar cycle of abuse. The victim begins to know when an abusive attack is coming, she can feel the hostility building and she knows what sets the abuser off. When this is the case, and you know an altercation is in the foreseeable future, avoid it. Go visit a family member, stay late at work, take the kids out, do whatever you need to do to avoid an explosive environment until the dust settles.
7. Stand up for yourself
There are calm and rational ways for a person to stand up for herself without being emotional or hostile. Find ways to be assertive and confident. If someone is degrading and belittling you, it is okay to say, “Those things are untrue and it is unacceptable to say that to me.” or “Don’t speak to me that way, I’m worth much more than that statement implies.”
The Gray Rock Method
Therapist Ellen Biros describes grey rocking as a technique for interacting with manipulative and abusive people. This can include people with narcissistic personality disorder or antisocial personality disorder as well as toxic people without a mental health diagnosis.
This strategy involves becoming the most boring and uninteresting person you can be when interacting with a manipulative person,
Biros says.
Mentalhealthintervention.org explains that the gray rock method is primarily a way of repelling a bully, stalker or other toxic personality to encourage them to lose interest in you. “When contacting you becomes consistently unsatisfying for the bully, their mind gets re-trained to take another look at the situation rather than continue to revel in drama.
By becoming dull and boring as a rock, they will find themselves drawn to you less and less often. When we stay the course and take our power back by showing increasingly fewer emotions, the bully will eventually implode.”
So how do you apply this technique? Here are 5 tips according to Biros.
1. Offer nothing
Toxic and manipulative people thrive on conflict, thrill, and chaos, Biros explains. To make yourself less appealing, you want to seem more lackluster and uninteresting.
If they ask questions you can’t avoid answering, keep your face blank and your response vague. Biros suggests replying with “mm-hmm” or “uh-huh” instead of “no” and “yes.”
You might respond with a shrug and “eh” without looking up or making eye contact. Sticking to this noncommittal response, even when they persist, can make it seem as if you really have nothing more interesting to say.
2. Keep necessary interactions short
In some situations, you might need to have fairly regular conversations with a verbally abusive person, particularly if this is your partner.
Communicating electronically or by phone may work well here, since doing so allows you to avoid prolonged interactions that might cause stress and make it harder to maintain a grey rock facade. But grey rocking can work for any type of communication.
Remember to keep responses as brief as possible, saying things like, “yes,” “no,” or “I don’t know” without further explanation.
3. Don’t tell them what you’re doing
“Do not tell the manipulative person you’re grey rocking,” Biros says.
The goal of grey rocking is to get the other person to lose interest in you on their own. If they realize you’re trying to make yourself seem dull on purpose, they can use this knowledge to further manipulate and attempt to control you.
Instead of giving them any clues about the technique, work toward treating them as a stranger you have no emotional connection with. Remind yourself that you have no obligation or need to share anything extra with them.
That said, spending a lot of time in this mode can start to affect how you express yourself in other areas of your life, so it can be helpful to tell people you trust about what you’re doing.
4. Avoid diminishing yourself
It’s important to take care not to lose sight of yourself when grey rocking.
“Grey rocking requires a disconnect from your emotions and feelings,” Biros explains. “So it’s possible to experience symptoms of dissociation or complete disconnect from your own feelings and emotions.”
You may find it helpful to talk to a therapist if:
- you begin having trouble connecting with people who are important to you
- it becomes difficult to express yourself within the positive, healthy relationships in your life
- you feel like you’re losing your identity or self-awareness
5. Disengage and disconnect
“Avoid eye contact with the manipulative person when practicing grey rocking,” Biros recommends.
Since eye contact helps facilitate an emotional connection, focusing on another activity or looking elsewhere can help you remove emotions from the interaction. It can also help reinforce your sense of detachment.
Toxic people are often looking for attention. By giving your attention to another activity, you send the message you won’t give them what they need.
Strategies for Specific Abuser Tactics
Psychcentral.com recommends several tactics to use in response to verbal abuse. In this article, they also identify mistakes to never make that can escalate abuse.
Abusers use the volume and tone of their voice either by yelling or ignoring to establish dominance
Resist the urge to scream or give the silent treatment. Instead go to the middle ground and stay there. If the abuser yells, respond in a pleasant voice slightly quieter than normal. If they ignore, speak to them anyway. Pretend they are responding to the words and have a conversation out loud.
What is not recommended:
Arguing. Verbal fights with an abuser lead to more resentment on both sides. As anger escalates, so does abuse. Nothing is gained. You lose and can end up feeling more victimized, hurt, and hopeless.
Abusers use swearing and threatening language to instill fear, intimidate, manipulate, oppress and constrain
When attacked in this manner, strong positive self-talk is essential. Say, “I am not afraid” or “They can’t make me do anything” over and over. This is not something to be said out loud, rather is repeated inside the victim’s head. Two things are accomplished. First the victim feels better and second they won’t be tempted to respond to the threat from a position of weakness.
What is not recommended:
Explaining and Defending. When you’re wrongly blamed or attacked, trying to defend and explain yourself leaves you open to more abuse. This behavior is often based on a desire to seek the abuser’s approval. However, the motive of the abuser is to have power over you. So if you’re seeking approval, this will be what the abuser wants.
The abuser’s manner of speech is argumentative, competitive, sarcastic and demanding
When they interrupt, stop speaking until they are done. Then go back to the original point instead of the point the abuser was trying to make by interrupting. When they interrogate, answer the question they should have asked instead of the question that was asked.
What is not recommended:
Appeasement. Most victims try to placate an abuser to de-escalate conflict and anger. This tactic only empowers the abuser, who sees it as weakness and an opportunity to exert more control. Pleading sends the same message.
Abusers use personal attacks such as name calling, mocking responses, defaming character, berating feelings, and judging opinions
This condemning tactic leaves the victim feeling inferior and defeated. Again, counteract this with positive self-talk and the truth. It might sound overly simplistic but it is highly effective. Do a reality check by running each personal attack through a best friend test. Would a best friend agree with the insult? No. Therefore, there is no validity to the verbal assault.
What is not recommended:
Seeking understanding from the abuser. This is a futile objective, yet drives the behavior of victims who desperately want to be understood. They mistakenly believe or hope that the abuser is interested in understanding them, while the abuser is only interested in winning a conflict and having the superior position. Arguing over the facts is thus irrelevant. Most abusers aren’t interested in the facts, only justifying their position and being right.
Abusers refuse to take responsibility, become hostile, invalidate or dismiss feelings, lie, and conveniently forget promises or commitments
Everyone is responsible for their own actions and responses. Victims tend to take on more than their own fair share thus letting the abuser get off the hook. When the abuser is faced with a real life consequence for the verbal assaults, don’t bail them out.
What is not recommended:
Criticizing. Because abusers are basically insecure, although they may act tough, inside they’re fragile. They can dish it, but can’t take it. Criticizing an abuser can provoke rage and vindictiveness. It’s more effective to be assertive and communicate your needs.
Therapist Christine Hammond says, “Typical abusive sayings include:
“I’m critical for your own good”
“I was only joking when I said that…”
“If only you would…, then I won’t have to be this way”
“You don’t know how to take a joke”
“The problem with you is…”
and “That (verbal abuse) didn’t really happen.”
These phrases are a signal that a verbal abuse rant is about to begin. Use it as a warning sign and get out of the conversation as quickly as possible. This is a great time to become distracted by something or someone outside of the conversation.
The following resources can also help people experiencing abuse:
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233
National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673
Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline: 1-800-422-4453
