I had a genuinely awful day Monday. Just horrid. I received a nasty email from someone who I cannot (currently) eject from my life. It forced me into a scramble to address financial issues that were terribly stressful. That same day, when I asked for help from someone I loved, about this situation, I was verbally assaulted. I do not exaggerate.
This person I love demonstrated total lack of tact, kindness, compassion, and the ability to communicate.
With my spouse listening to the shrill attack on speaker-phone, we both stared at each other, in shock at the words and insults being hurled through the wireless signal. Why would they talk to me like that? Why would they blame me for the problems I was asking for help? Why wouldn’t they let me answer them? Why were they cutting me off so much? Did they care that they were saying deeply hurtful things? Did they understand they were going to permanently scar our relationship moving forward?
The collective answer was: No. This person I love demonstrated total lack of tact, kindness, compassion, and the ability to communicate. I was treated like a child, which is weird because I just turned 40. I was left half-way through stammering in shock, something that is very unlike me. When I finally woke from the stupor, I began asking: Do you realize what you’re saying? You are treading on a place where your words cannot be taken back. Is this really how you want to leave our relationship? I even demanded that they respond, explain their behavior, allow me to answer, and their response? “I don’t want to talk anymore. I have work to do. I’m going to let you go.” When I stated directly that was cowardice and that no one speaks to me like that and walks away. This is not how I roll. They stammered. Acknowledged that they effectively destroyed our relationship, lacked any ability to communicate emotions, and were unwilling to stop and evaluate their behavior. Then? They hung up.
Cue the Rage
I was so angry. Oh dear reader, I wish I could express to you how angry I was. I was so angry, I shook. I wept out of fury. I screamed and literally stomped my feet. But that does not even full encompass my rage. If anger was a measurement on the Richter scale, I would have caused an earthquake large enough to level Michigan. If anger was gun powder, I would have left a crater the size of Lake Erie. My face was hot with rage. My ears burned. My hands went numb. My brain began to dissociate. Has this ever happened to you?
What made it worse (what could possibly make this worse, Na’amah?) my partner just stared at me. I know he wanted to if I was alright, how he could help, what he could do. For him, it means staring in silence, waiting for a cue. That just pissed me off.
I managed to blurt out “Please talk to me!” and the words tumble from his lips. “It’s all going to be ok. Everything is going to work out fine and we’ll come out even better than before. I don’t know why they were screaming and acting like that but it’s not you. That was clearly them. They were having a bad day. Something had to be going on.”
There was truth in his words. It was cold comfort. I wanted real answers. I wanted an apology, a sincere one, to boot. But that was never going to happen. They were so stubborn and broken and wounded and emotionally stifled that I could never hope to hear a true apology. They don’t know how. Too much hubris.
The truth is, during that verbal assault, I was just terribly worried about them.
Bottom line, it took me 24 hours to calm down and recalibrate. The very next day, we got three different wonderful pieces of news that filled me with joy. Expansions and contractions. That’s how it works. The bigger the contraction, the bigger the expansion of positivity. I don’t claim to have handled it well. But I can tell you what I did not do: I did not call them back and scream. I did not leave angry voicemails or write vicious texts. I did not call their partner and disparage them. I did not back mouth them online. I did not call our mutual friends and demand they take my side. Why? Because none of that is useful. As satisfying as it might be in the moment, five seconds later, I am left feeling the same. I’m petty but I’m not that petty.
The truth is, during that verbal assault, I was just terribly worried about them. I worried if they were ok, if something terrible had happened to them to cause them to treat me this way. I was pitying them, showing compassion for them, and reaching to them while they hurt me. Talk about growth!
This is what I mean about becoming a better communicator. This is the hard shit. This is the work. Seeing past someone’s pissy behavior to their inner pain is hard. Using that insight to help them express themselves in a healthy way is harder. Knowing when to put up a boundary and not allow that person to hurt you again is the hardest.
We don’t always have good days. But we can definitely deal with things in smart ways. Point is: some days we take the elevator, some days we get the shaft.
How will you respond next time?
