By Ox Drover
The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense was written by Suzette Haden Elgin, an applied psycholinguist and an associate professor of linguistics at San Diego State University. Though first published in 1980, I think it is a nice, easily read and understood book detailing the “hidden” motives in some conversations with just about anyone, whether they are a psychopath or not. It teaches us easily understood ways of deciphering the unspoken messages in language and easy to remember “come backs” that are appropriate for just about any situation where there are “hidden messages” in conversation.
Ms. Elgin wrote:
For every person in this society who is suffering physical abuse, there are hundreds suffering the effects of verbal violence. For every person who just got a fist in the face, there are hundreds who just took a verbal blow to the gut. And there are major differences between these two kinds of injury.
The physical attack is at least obvious and unmistakable; when someone slugs you physically, you can call the police. The physical attack hurts horribly and leaves a mark, but is usually over fast, and the mark is evidence in your favor and against your attacker.
Verbal violence is a very different matter. Except in rare case—for example, when someone lies about you publicly before witnesses and can be charged with slander—there is no agency that you can call for help. The pain of verbal abuse goes deep into the self and festers there, but because nothing shows on the surface, it will not win you even sympathy, much less actual assistance.
Worst of all, verbal violence all too often goes unrecognized, except at a level that you cannot even understand yourself. You know you are suffering, and you vaguely know where the pain is coming from; but because the aggression is so well hidden, you are likely to blame yourself instead of the aggressor ”¦ “there must be something the matter with me.”
There probably is something the matter with you, yes. Your problem is that you are the victim of verbal violence and you don’t have the least idea how to defend yourself against it.
Ms. Elgin goes on to list four principles for verbal self defense:
- Know that you are under attack.
- Know what kind of attack you are facing.
- Know how to make your defense fit the attack.
- Know how to follow through.
She also describes the five different types of verbal stances, based on the work of therapist Virginia Satir, which were expanded by therapists John Grinder and Richard Bandler as:
- The Placater
- The Blamer
- The Computer
- The Distracter
- The Leveler
Ms. Elgin explains very clearly the underlying meanings of our language, both spoken and unspoken, by describing the “presuppositions” in our words.
She gives the example of the statement “Even Bill could get an A in that class.” She explains that the unsaid presupposition of that statement, though totally unsaid, is that “Bill is no great shakes as a student and the class is not difficult in any way.”
Her insights into the hidden verbal abuse that is frequently hurled in our direction by others, whether psychopathic or not, is very enabling.
The author also published book called The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense at Work, though I have not read a copy of that, I noticed it on www.Amazon.com.
Kathleen Hawk
Thanks. Really appreciate your words. You say:
Again, understanding this doesn’t protect us from a long con with a really self-disciplined predator, but it does keep us from doing the kind of stupid thing that just make us want to bang our heads against the wall later. (I speak from personal experience). If they’re coming on too fast, trying too hard, trying to talk you out of caring about things like them paying their own way, blaming everyone else in the world for their problems, wanting you to fix them in any way, they don’t deserve your trust or your investments.
Yes yes yes. How I wish I had known that before I met that low life loser with a talent for lying and promising everything far too soon….It’s just I have also lost my respect for “men” in the dating arena and cut em dead at 3 paces! I’d rather be alone that go through that again.
ErinBrock,
You brought up an interesting thought….And initially it makes sense that maybe an individual that did not hear could read an S/P? better than those of us that listen to words…Especially since a deaf person would have “other” hightened senses…
However I think in the long run what a toxic individual has that is so HARD for us “normals” to really understand is their uncanny ABILITY to initially “read” us like an open book. It is not just those things we inevidably share with them when we meet them, it is more than that. It is almost as if they can SEE within our very souls and our inner minds. And so everyone of us (being human) has some place where we might be vulnerable. Some of us more than others, granted…But almost EVERYONE of us posesses that “need” to be loved/liked. And just that one slight “neediness” that most of us have is enough for most S/P/Ns to exploit that need, until they have all of our vulnerabilitys right there on the “surface”. RIGHT where they want them.
I think many of us are also conditioned. And much of what we are conditioned for is UNREALISTIC. What woman doesn’t love a good romance movie….? Or any story with a happy ending? Happy endings usually equal ALOT of hard work. They don’t just “happen”.
We need to condition ourselves to see that if it looks to good to be true…If it SOUNDS to good to be true. It IS too good to be TRUE! Its not REAL.
I think that “harsh” is how it feels when we gradually make the transition from being more concerned with our own needs than we are with other people’s. We’ve been taught that being “caring” is being self-sacrificial.
And while it might be at times, if we decide there is a good enough reason for it, it’s important to remember always that self-sacrifice is voluntarily giving away resources that may be the foundation of our wellbeing. (The research on the premature aging of caregivers is really startling.) It’s playing Russian roulette on a large or small scale. And with sociopaths, whose hunger for our resources is not moderated by caring about our wellbeing, that can be Russian roulette on a scary scale.
I know in my own life, I have repeatedly gotten really well, physically and emotionally, and then gotten involved with someone or several people who are depressed or needy in other ways. Some part of me thought I could afford it. And these situations always ended with me being a lot less well than I was when they started.
My friends used to joke about them as my charity cases, but the reality was more like that vampire movie (I can’t remember the name of it), where a vampire kept people barely alive while taking blood through transfusion tubes in their arms. Creepy, huh? Well, no more creepy than volunteering to “fix” someone who was looking for someone who would fill in for what they weren’t fixing in themselves.
One of the insights of recovery from codependency is that that you can’t give what you don’t have. Or if you do, you will decline. Just like the advice on the oxygen masks in airplanes, you have to take care of yourself first, so that you’re healthy enough to help save other people.
About 20 years ago, I had a hysterectomy, my only encounter with major surgery, thank heavens. When I was coming up out of the anesthesia, the nurse showed me how to manage the self-administered painkiller in my IV. She said, “This is no time for heroism. When it starts to hurt, give yourself a dose. If that isn’t enough, call us and we’ll give you a shot. If you let it go until you’re really hurting, it can take three times as much to get it under control again.”
I went home from that hospital stay, thinking about that. Not even live with a little pain? Such a thing had never occurred to me. If I took that on into the rest of my life, would that make me a selfish monster?
I think I didn’t figure out the answer to that question until my experience with the sociopath. Until then, I was still thinking that I needed to accept a certain amount of pain in order to make other people comfortable. He made me realize that belief was essentially his doorway into my life. in fact, one of his favorite things to say, when I complained about how bad his behavior made me feel, was “It’s not really that bad, Kathleen.” As though I were a whining child, when I was dealing with his callous insults, infidelities, lies and financial exploitation.
I am still a caring person. I make a lot of effort to understand other people’s feelings and circumstances. I enjoy being generous, when I can afford it. I contribute to charities that mean something to me. With people in trouble, I look for opportunities to help that seem appropriate to me. But I am also super-conscious of what is safe for me. I don’t volunteer more than I can comfortably give. And as I mentioned in an earlier post, if someone tries to talk me out of more than I would naturally give, I may consider it, but with awareness that they don’t really care about my comfort zone now and probably will care less later. And if it’s a business issue where I’m being pressed to invest more than I originally intended, I look very carefully at whether the potential reward is worth the “opportunity risk” in tying up resources that I might place in more attractive deals.
Making this transition into primary self-interest primary is hard, because it’s really learning a new discipline of living. At the beginning, it confliects directly with the old way of making other people’s self-interest primary. There’s a lot of internal resistance, these ideas that we can’t do this and be a caring person. Or that we’re being cold or harsh if we don’t immediately give in to someone else’s request or demand or the implications that they need us. It takes a while to get a grip on the idea that we’re making ourselves needy, if we don’t take care of ourselves first. And if we’re needy, we can’t really be authentically caring, we can only make deals to swap getting our outsized needs met with other needy people.
We want to trust. But we also want to trust people who are worthy of our trust. People who are dependable, because they are self-disciplined in exactly this way. They don’t over-promise, they don’t give what they can’t afford (and then become dependent or blaming), they don’t lie about who they are and what they have, and they don’t project a lot of phony charisma because they want attention. We want real, emotionally healthy people to trust. People whose “yes” means something, because they know how to say “no.”
Someone once told me that I have to become what I want to attract into my life. For me, this has been the real work of recovery. It’s easy to give in. Hard to say no when someone is doing a really convincing dance. About how I have to pay attention to his feelings. About how he is exactly what I’ve been looking. About how this will work out better than I ever imagined, because he’s more experienced, smarter, stronger. Or how his problems are all about whether I am a good and caring person. Saying no can involve a tremendous amount of courage in trusting ourselves. There’s always a part of me that assumes that everyone else probably knows something I don’t, and maybe I should just go along.
My Buddhist friend, who is also a friend of my ex-S, once said to me about him, “When he shows up in my life with one of his can’t-loss plans, I always know it’s going to be very interesting and very expensive. And I always have to figure out if I can afford the ride.”
Very sensible guy, my Buddhist friend.
kathleen,
‘It takes a while to get a grip on the idea that we’re making ourselves needy, if we don’t take care of ourselves first. And if we’re needy, we can’t really be authentically caring, we can only make deals to swap getting our outsized needs met with other needy people.’
MAKING MYSELF NEEDY, WOW WOW WOW! I knew the second part, but i was missing the pathway. THANKS!
one step
Kathleen,
I really feel like you have been talking about me. Not that I’m saying you literally meant me. However, when I read and feel like you could be, it’s the “if the shoe fits” thing and I know I have a problem. I am way to needy (among other things) to be much to anyone here, or anywhere. That really bothers me. Yet, I’ve secretly known that I am too needy and wanting some attention. At one time I was the one everyone turned to to get advise, direction, whatever (this always amazed me, since I knew I wasn’t smart)…Now, I am the needy, blood sucking, bottomless pit. God help me to be more of the solution and less of the problem. W
one step, wow wow wow! I love that you get it.
Stayingsane, alone is good. This is big and you’re taking your time to think it through. The learning here can’t be grasped fast, even if you had the best teacher or therapist to walk you through it. Your internal learning center is very carefully and tenderly reprogramming you to incorporate one of the most amazing lessons of your life. Right now, you’re in the “don’t mess with me” phase. That’s great progress, but it’s a point in the getting-better path. Enjoy being fierce and be proud of yourself for getting so far.
Later, you’ll cool down and become smoothed out. You’re going to come of this so smart, so much better able to understand and navigate life, and so all-around wonderful, lovable and able to love that you’ll probably look back at that lowlife with a kind of distant (very distant) fondness for the great changes he brought to your life.
banana, I’m glad you’re doing so well. But you keep saying “sadly.” You know, the devil shows up not just to tempt us, but to help us understand our own boundaries. I’m not big on the concept of evil, but in this context, evil shows up to teach us what we are not. And in learning that, we learn what we are and were meant to be. I’m glad you’re taking care of yourself; I hope that also means you are learning to appreciate and love yourself. You are a wonderful person, and this is your story, not his. You were challenged deeply, and you’re finding the resources to meet that challenge and learn from it. Hooray for you.
Hi, Rosa, I love what you wrote about not taking any of it seriously, including the flattery. I had the hardest time getting over some of the nasty things he said to me, until I realized that I was giving him the power to judge me. It was one of those ka-pow insights. I am the judge of me. That may sound arrogant, especially to religious people. But I think that I can find God’s voice inside of me, and I mostly know when I’m off the path. (Not always, some things are so confusing and I just have to take a chance and hope I’m right.) But certainly that incompetent little twit, with his warped and shallow values, is not my judge. So I think it’s not just not taking them seriously, but recognizing that we’re dealing with limited people who lie and steal because they can’t function normally. Once we get better, we realize that we gave them the power our lives, and we can take it back. But you already know that.
slimone and ErinBrock forgive me but you are just so cute when you worry about become cold and uncaring. As JaneSmith points out so well, this is a good thing. You need to be Ice Queen occasionally, when there are trolls to be managed or chased off. Otherwise, you’re your caring and lovable self.
Oxy, apologies for hijacking the thread. Your post was so interesting, and then I had so much to say. I should come back more often. Hugs to you too. Now I have to go back to work.
One more post for heavenbound. Sweetie, you’re in a state. All this self-criticism. It’s okay if you’re working stuff through. But if you’re looking in the mirror and seeing a bottomless pit, that’s just not true.
Needy is about something. It’s not an insult. It’s a condition that we get into when our own needs aren’t met. A kind of hunger. If your need for appreciation and understanding isn’t being met, or if your need for comfort and kindness isn’t being met, you’re going to go looking for sources. If you really have some big hungers associated with unmet needs, it’s something like physical hunger. It can dominate your mind until you get those needs met.
I think you need to just let yourself be healing, and understand that you’re wounded and getting better. I talk the way I talk because I got better, and it took me a long time to do it. But in a way I was lucky, because I suspected right from the very beginning that something really good was going to come out of this. So even though some parts of it were uncomfortable and scary — and believe me, I went through my own periods of hating myself and thinking I was terminally messed up — something in me believed that I was fixing something important in myself. A big problem that wasn’t just about the sociopath, but something that had kept me down my entire life.
And that turned out to be true, as it will be for you. I haven’t been here lately, so I don’t know exactly where you are in the path. But I suspect you haven’t gotten to the angry stage yet. You’re still trying to figure out what you could have done differently, and calling yourself a boob for not seeing it or not managing better or not just snapping out of it.
I’m not sure if I can help you along, but think about this. Yes, you may have done some dopey things, as we all did, but who was the deciding factor in how bad it all came out? Did you choose this? Did you say to yourself, “Oh I’m going out today to find the worst person I can find, because I think it’s time to have a really big disaster in my life?”
Hmm. Did you do all that by yourself? What do you think? And if you really don’t feel mad about how you were treated, what about resentful? Are you resentful about any little thing?
If you’re holding off anger because you’re afraid of it don’t be. You need to get clear about whose fault this really was, and to react like a normal human being to being disrespected.
And in the meantime, maybe you should treat yourself like the recuperating person you are. Do nice things for yourself, take a bath, make some tea, do some light reading, and go easy on yourself. It will get better, I promise.
Kathy
Kathy,
It does seem bottomless at times, like it just can’t be filled. Not that it’s been tried lately, but it seems that way. Anyway, I think I’m just working things out is all.
I have bounced around from spells of the purest anger, fear, and even calm. It’s a roller coaster ride to say the least.
Thank you for pointing out the needs needing to be met is all it is. But I don’t know where or how I’m going to get them met. There doesn’t seem to be a local store selling that right now! I am just a little desperate for it most of the time these days.
I am also in this awful state of fear…I thought I had gotten past that and now it’s back.
Then, I’m also aware that there are things from my child hood that has helped me to be cluster B bait. And I really could give them a run for their money from all the training I’ve had, but only for a short time because my heart gets the best of me and then I get eaten alive. So, giving them a run for their money is not something I want to do anymore.
I guess I’m holding off anger…I don’t know. I spent the last year , two , or three, maybe longer so very angry. People had thought I had gone mad. I thought I had gone mad. My oldest child thought I was a saint though for not killing the devil! Bless his heart. The P took so much and gave nothing…He cost my children. We never wanted anything but to just enjoy our days…we didn’t want things that cost that much if any…but he wouldn’t let us live in peace…he was always talking to us like we were the trash of the trash. I can’t go there because it has proven to be so unproductive.
But then, I do think, ‘look what I’ve done, just look how much time I’ve lost, my children have grown so quickly and they don’t know the real me.’ I had so many dreams with them and I’m having a really hard time letting go of that part of life.
I don’t know what to do, I have these people around me, but I am so alone. I need someone to help me I can’t do this alone… I know these are normal thoughts to be having along with the knowledge that I’m the only one that can do this for me, but it sure isn’t helpful right now and doesn’t make it any easier.
I didn’t do this all by myself, thank God. I don’t think I could carry the entire blame, although I feel like a lot of times I have from me and others along the way.
I don’t want to put anymore time into this and yet it is consuming me.
Thank you Kathy…thank you for taking the time to post to me…thank you for not blaming, but encouraging…and thank you for your insight and leading me in the right direction on this path of healing, I get lost a lot and can’t figure out which direction to head in (it seems). I’m like you, I believe that I can hear God’s voice in me and so I know when I’m off path, but it’s not always easy to know which way is the right way to get back on, I get confused.
Thanks to all who posted with encouragement and wisdom, it is MUCH appreciated and heeded. I am just beyond the ‘practicing’ phase of tending to myself, first; it sometimes feels awkward and SO self-absorbed. Not to mention the N mother’s voice in my head with all her projections of how selfish, needy, and unconcerned with everyone else I am. She doesn’t say this any more, but did, alot; and it is a rather sticky voice in my psyche.
I guess whenever we go against these conditioned patterns of belief and behavior, we can feel like we are being ‘bad’, or otherwise not cooperating with our internal critics. That said, I also sometimes feel simply ‘high’ with my developing skills. I can feel my own potential coming to the surface, and it does feel good and safe and dependable. Things I have never been for myself.
“Another thing we learn from the NSPs is how they view the entire world through the lens of whether it does or doesn’t give them what they want. Their desires tend to be totally selfish and alienated from society or intimate relations. As feeling people, ours are more complex. Our lens enables us to see more, not just how things affect us but also other people.”
I will remember that my desires are much more complex; and that I take others into consideration, even when my own must be placed first.
In love, Slim
Dearest Kathleen,
I have a theory and it could be totally incorrect but I believe that many of us, or all of us folks on LF are terrified, disgusted at being perceived as the “bad guy” in situations.
By standing up for ourselves when we become aware that we are being mistreated, abused by others and then the ridiculous projection, deflection, guilt manifesting actions and words unjustly thrown at us in retaliation.
I admit it. I once longed for constant peace without uncomfortable conflict. I was a peace keeper not a peace maker. I hated looking like the “bad guy”.
But from a reality oriented perspective, one in which I am living now daily, I wasn’t in any way, shape or form the “bad guy” by stating my concerns about being unfairly hurt and belittled.
I was right in defending myself. I was right in defending my own solid values and beliefs. I was right in being furious when I was trampled upon and/or treated like nothing more than an object to used and abused for the pleasure of my former partners.
And I am right in staunchly defending myself, now, today any time I am accosted by mean, hurtful, spiteful, children in adults bodies.
Of course, I am now able to put aside the polite and considerate woman I truly am and let my fury be known to all bullies, predators, little people who fruitlessly try to demean me. I will no longer allow such despicable behavior directed towards me. No way!
I always remember the quote by the Venerable, beautiful Eleanor Roosevelt…”No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Truer words are not spoken.
If you believe in yourself to be a valuable, wonderful human not one person on this planet can give you cause to feel inferior.
As I said before, I only have one authority in this universe and it’s not an Earthling like myself. So, I do what I want, when I want and with whomever I want without giving a flying fig for the unsolicited advice, comments of others. They’re not living my life; I am living my life.
As long as I strive to live a righteous life, adhering to the Gospels, always with the Holy Spirit joyfully encompassing my heart, my mind and my soul…I think I’m doing a damn fine job!…haha.
Peace, Joy and Love to all.
🙂