How Empathy Can Help You Fight Abuse

The True Power of Compassion and Self-Awareness.

For some of us, verbal abuse has been part of our lives since early childhood. As adults, we are still looking to comprehend the sequels that violence produced in our lives.

The guilt and fear verbal abuse triggers can only be fought by finding emotional balance and self-awareness.

In this article, I will present you with a full list of strategies, examples, and steps to find the inner strength that can help you overcome a verbally abusive situation empathically with the abuser but, mainly, yourself.

The starting point:

As with other abuse forms, when someone uses words to inflict pain on others, it often starts slowly and goes completely unnoticed.

Those small but constant insults, the name-calling, and the gaslighting have long-lasting effects on your self-confidence and ability to trust.

Sometimes, if not always, aggressive behavior can be traced way deep into their childhood trauma and abusive family relationships.

Understanding this is key to avoid becoming another victim of that toxicity.

Let me illustrate it better with a personal story.

A great hotel will make you feel like if you were at home:

A couple of years ago, I respectfully complained to a hotel manager that my room’s conditions weren’t up to the standard.

The last guest had a great night out and left the entire bathroom covered in vomit.

The fact that I could smell digested vodka was enough for the manager to offered me to change rooms, an apology, and, maybe, a discount.

Understanding this situation could have been an honest mistake, I kindly asked the manager that, if possible, would he kindly transfer me to another room.

But the manager, who should reconsider a different professional path at least ten thousand miles away from hospitality, began to yell at me at the top of his lungs:

“I’m busy, and I’m not your slave. You should stay in another place to get the service a “princess like you” deserves. My salary isn’t enough to fix this for you. I’m not your father. Learn to deal with it!”

While I was standing there, listening to the screams of a highly abusive person, my mind went blank.

I could feel my childhood PTSD kicking in; still, I didn’t personalize a word of what he said.

Clearly, that rage wasn’t against me. Slave? Father? Is it reasonable for a hotel manager to say that he doesn’t need your business and that you should stay elsewhere?

Was the manager’s reaction justified in this particular case? No, it was not.

Maybe it was time for him to ask the hotel owner for a raise, but certainly, I wasn’t the person who deserved hearing him rant, wouldn’t you agree?

In this case, I would say that the manager’s reaction is connected to emotional and financial needs that weren’t satisfied at the time.

Fulfilling those needs was not my responsibility.

How could I explain that to him? What could I do to get out of that mess?

The first step to deal with verbal abuse is: listening.

You might be thinking the last thing you want is to keep listening to that crap. I hear you, I really do.

But assuming you don’t always have the option to walk away, this is the ideal time to let them do the talking.

Typically, a verbally abusive person explodes disproportionately in situations that, for other people, would be just another day at the office.

That mere comparison tells you all about their lack of skills to deal with self-regulation in everyday life.

Likewise, by listening to their undeserved claims, they will let you see right through their traumas, which could help calm them down.

Neither fight nor flight:

Answering with more aggression means you want to continue escalating the conflict. Avoiding conflict will leave you without a well deserve solution.

The healthier approach is to make the abuser understand that you will not accept this behavior.

Not succumbing to the lure of aggression is an excellent way to fight back.

In my hotel situation, I managed to calm the manager down. I also kept a neutral tone of voice and a safe distance between us the whole time.

As he spoke, I looked at him directly to his eyes while letting my arms comfortably hanging on the sides of my body.

I allow him to yell and scream until I disarmed him with a simple phrase that I repeated enough times to make him feel heard:

“I completely understand you. I know how you feel.”

Then we talked about his feelings, and he came back to his senses immediately after I asked him to cancel my hotel reservation.

I left that place with a well-deserved refund and even an apology.

You are not a carpet:

Does empathy mean you have to feel infinite compassion for all the abusive people you bump into on the street? Or that you must give second chances to everyone?

No, you definitely shouldn’t do that.

Understanding that other people are also starring in their drama might help you avoid appearing in the credits as an extra.

Sometimes, receiving a critique feels like an attack. Sometimes some words resonate with your other past experiences. Learning to deal with your emotional baggage is critical.

Being empathetic will help you understand other people’s outbursts, but hey! Wake up. You’re definitely not a carpet.

Have they lost it? Keep your cool

In these scenarios, having a mediator attitude will help you achieve your goals faster than confronting the aggressor.

• When you hear your verbally abusive husband complaining nonstop over spilled milk.
• Or your boss feels the need to humiliate you in the presence of your peers.
• When that new lover belittles you for your appearance or your sexual performance.

It’s time to listen carefully and not personalize their comments. Those words are often based on the abuser’s trauma and emotional pain.

You’re only responsible for self-regulating, owning your shortcomings, and communicating assertively.

Why did you happen to find yourself in this situation?

It can be bad luck. But in other cases, you should ask yourself: why are you putting up with this verbally abusive behavior?

This could be a great starting point to analyze your contribution to the cycle of abuse you find yourself in over and over again.

People raised in abusive environments -full of insults and disqualifications- find it more challenging to set goals later in life.

On the other hand, repeating the cycle by having a relationship with a verbal abuser will kill those goals.

Verbal abuse begins as a family affair that, left untreated, contaminates everything around you, including how you see yourself.

But words are just words. Well, nothing could be further from the truth.

Words can hurt worse than daggers, and the worst part is that those wounds are much more difficult to heal. Before punishing yourself, think about the facts:

• Is this person’s outburst of anger proportional to what triggered it?
• Are there better ways to say what that person wants trying to communicate?
• Do you know anything about the problems this person is currently going through? Their health? Finance? Family?

Those clues can guide you to understand what’s happening and that this episode certainly has nothing to do with you or your behavior.

Has this happened to you before with other people?

These indicators can give you a hint about who is the real target of their anger and rage.

If you are generally reactive to abuse by taking it personally or escalating the situation, neither are healthy solutions.

Here are some things you can do:

Assess the situation:

Even though you could choose to stay and listen to what the other person is saying, never forget to take care of yourself, check for emergency exits, call for backups if you need them.

Remain calm:

I cannot stress this enough:

The person who’s either screaming or saying nasty things at you probably knows they have gone too far.

If you manage to stay calm, guilt could kick in and bring that person back to their senses. By remaining calm, you give the other person a way out, a path to retreat.

Let them go:

One of the automatic reactions people have in the middle of a conflict is either fight or flight, so if you see the abuser stepping down, walking away from you, turning their body away from you, sitting down.

Those are body language cues of a “flight reaction.” Remain calm and allow them to walk away.

In the opposite case, if you notice that their body language is becoming more aggressive, you have to leave. Keep calm, don’t engage, and put physical distance between you two.

Never aim to have the final words in this type of argument.

You have no chance of them even listening, much less hearing or comprehending what you are saying. It is time to walk away.

Let them have their cake and eat it too:

A friend who’s a negotiation expert told me: negotiations don’t end until both parties have got at least a part of what they were going after. Similarly, a conversation won’t end just because you left.

That conversation will end after you make things clear:

• They have no right to talk to you like that.
• You are, indeed, going to act to prevent this from happening again.
• You’ll never be in that position never again.

“If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree.”

Jim Rohn

The aftermath:

Every relationship is a power dynamic. You can change the course of things by clarifying that their participation in your life is voluntary and optional. It works both ways.

From now on, it’s time to set the boundaries that allow you to grow and experience life comfortably. Now, you’re in control, and you don’t have to put up with abusive behavior ever again.