relationships

How to Best Help People Solve Their Issues

This post is a response to a question posed in its complete format: “How do you listen to people open up about their issues without trying to solve them? How do you just comfort people?”

One of the first things a first referral counsellor learns is that you cannot solve other people’s problems for them. Even more so, you don’t want to solve their problems because what you might see as a solution for yourself is likely not a solution for them.

What you end up doing is creating a dependency relationship with someone who now has a scapegoat to blame when your solutions backfire on them.

You end up giving them permission to take the easy route of blaming you for their problems instead of learning how to solve their problems for themselves.

You don’t want that kind of monkey on your back because it could haunt you for life.

Most people want to be heard without judgment. The act of actively listening to them while validating their emotions and the struggles they are experiencing is often the only thing they want or need.

Being able to openly express oneself without fear of being misjudged for their struggles or how they deal with them is all the healing most people need most of the time. That opportunity often gives them enough space to hear themselves through your perspective and devise solutions for themselves by being able to speak freely about their problems.

If you sincerely want to help people solve their problems, you must understand that the best way to accomplish both your goal and theirs is to listen and acknowledge their struggles while validating their feelings and who they are as people.

You almost cannot help someone more thoroughly than by letting them know they matter. Most people only want to know that someone hears them and sees them as a living, breathing, independent human being with a core of reality all their own, just like how you think of yourself. People often only need assurance that they can achieve their goals if they apply themselves.

At most, you can offer ideas for where assistance is available, identify resources they may not be aware of, or repeat their statements to them in your own words. Often, simply saying something they said in different words is enough for them to see their problem with different eyes and in ways they can more easily identify solutions.

It may feel especially tough if you can spot what appears like a simple solution to you, that you would rather hand it to them so that you can continue with other matters, but it’s more important to realize how this is a learning process for both of you. Both of you can learn more about yourselves by allowing the process to evolve naturally and without trying to push it to a conclusion you see as the most optimal outcome.

A solution may appear simple to you, but you can’t know all the underlying variables, and many of which they often don’t recognize themselves. No matter how simple the solution may appear, they must find it themselves before it can succeed.

The challenge this creates for you, which you use to your benefit, is that it takes the focus off your desire to fix their problem for them quickly and puts you in a position of thinking about a strategy for helping them to see their problem from different perspectives, including how you imagine is a solution. As long as they can feel that they have identified their solution on their own and without being given instructions to follow by rote, they will be more able to apply their creativity when implementing their solution without holding you accountable for their failures.

I hope this helps you in helping others.

Cheerz

Can empathy be overdone and detrimental?

This post is a response to a question posed in its complete format: “Can a person be highly empathetic and think empathy can be overdone and in many cases detrimental to better outcomes? Can being conscious of empathy and in control of your emotions be called for to create more realistic circumstances?”

No. You’re conflating empathy with other unrelated characteristics such as sympathy or pity.

Empathy is a complex phenomenon, more adequately described as an additional sense, not entirely unlike intuition or your other five senses. It’s a blend of cognitive parsing, information gathering, and processing, adding a layer of intellectual stimulation to our understanding.

There are three types of empathy: “affective empathy” (or “emotional” — feeling what someone else feels), “compassionate empathy” (recalling one’s feelings from similar situations and re-experiencing the emotion), and “cognitive empathy,” (intellectually identifying the emotions and connecting them to stimuli to comprehend the context in which the feelings are expressed).

The people most prone to being overwhelmed by an empathetic response to stimuli, often referred to as “hyper-sensitive,” struggle to discern between original feelings generated within and feelings they pick up from external stimuli. Their empathetic natures are primarily derived from the emotional form of empathy, akin to a radio tuned into a station while the volume is set to maximum. It can be overwhelming to find oneself tuned into powerful signals.

It can take a lifetime to cope with one’s sensitivity, primarily because of a lack of social support for such sensitivity. More often than not, highly sensitive types tend to be targeted by bullies because they are perceived as easy victims who are also usually shunned by their peers. This lack of support can lead to feelings of isolation and exacerbate the challenges that sensitive individuals face in society.

These have been socially acceptable attitudes toward highly sensitive people, while many still doubt that empathy is genuine and is not a personality dysfunction. The first of these two questions is an example of misunderstanding empathy on that disparagement vector.

The second question, however, points toward a somewhat effective solution or means of coping with one’s sensitivity. Learning to discern between one’s natural feeling and those one receives from others on a subliminal level is crucial to maintaining one’s composure, if not sanity.

On the upside, once one learns to master the all-too-rare skill of self-awareness, they discover they possess a “superpower” and become “human lie detectors.” It can be frightening to learn that they are talking to a stranger who almost instantly knows their deepest secrets and more about them than they know about themselves.

Empaths who have mastered their emotional regulation and awareness skills also learn to conceal their awareness of others, as they generally don’t want to create enemies who are intimidated by them. Making matters more complicated is that one’s empathetic sensitivities are not infallible and can often be mistaken about other people. Much of this judgment error is due to unresolved personal growth issues. In essence, what I referred to as a “superpower” is more about “power over oneself” rather than over others.

Highly empathetic people tend to be the most honest because they must learn to be honest with themselves to maintain their internal equanimity. Living with the lies one tells oneself is much harder to do when one’s cognitive dissonance escalates rapidly, much more so than for those with diminished sensitivities to empathy.

The two other forms of empathy, “cognitive” and “compassionate,” generally complement affective empathy, but there may be cases where they don’t. I don’t know of such cases, nor see how that’s possible. Still, I’m not a professional who has spent a lifetime studying the manifestations of empathy in thousands of patients and volunteers.

Emotional regulation is otherwise a skill that anyone can benefit from, regardless of their sensitivities or empathetic capabilities.

Is Empathy a fundamental weakness of Western civilization?

This post is a “twofer.” It’s a response to a question posed in its complete format: “What do you think about Elon Musk saying “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy”? https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/elon-musk-empathy-quote/“ — In this case, I’m setting up my answer with an answer to another question: “What role does empathy play in understanding and connecting with the thoughts of others?”

Empathy is a conduit to understanding and connecting with others.

Empathy is like an additional sense or language allowing more profound insights into people than a typical means of sharing information about oneself with others.

“How you say something is as important as what you say.”

I assume you’ve encountered this above phrase or similar ones to understand how meaning is conveyed in ways beyond the definitions of the words one uses.

Empathy is similar in that one identifies more closely with the emotions of others, which makes it easier to connect with people on much deeper levels much more quickly than most people are used to.

Empathy is otherwise the glue that keeps human civilization together.

“Evil is a lack of empathy.”

This sentence above is the simple answer that most have already presented, so I had intended to ignore this question. Tomaz Vargazon’s answer, however, has motivated me to provide my input by the inclusion of the full quote he provided from Musk’s interview with Joe Rogan:

Musk: Yeah, he’s [Gat Saad] awesome, and he talks about, you know, basically suicidal empathy. Like, there’s so much empathy that you actually suicide yourself. So, we’ve got civilizational suicidal empathy going on. And it’s like, I believe in empathy, like, I think you should care about other people, but you need to have empathy for, for civilization as a whole, and not commit to a civilizational suicide.

Rogan: Also don’t let someone use your empathy against you so they can completely control your state and then do an insanely bad job of managing it and never get removed.

Musk: The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy. The empathy exploit. They’re exploiting a bug in Western civilization, which is the empathy response. So, I think, you know, empathy is good, but you need to think it through and not just be programmed like a robot.

  1. “Suicidal empathy”
  2. “Don’t let someone use your empathy against you.”
  3. The “empathy exploit.”

These three statements indicate that these sociopathic morons don’t understand empathy because they are conflating “ compassion” with “empathy.”

These are not the same thing. Not by a long shot.

Empathy operates like a sensory receiver, while compassion is a cognitive process of identifying with another life.

Empathy cannot be “used against someone” any more than one’s eyes can be used against them.

The ability to experience another’s emotions is not a weakness but a strength.

Another issue is how we process our understanding of the emotions we detect.

The only vulnerability to exploit is the trust connection between individuals, and that exploit exists regardless of either party’s empathetic capabilities.

Their arguments are the equivalent of claiming one can be susceptible to being robbed because they know more about the criminal attempting to rob them.

It’s a bloody ludicrous argument forwarded only by sociopaths who have no clue what empathy is.

The harsh reality in today’s world is that empathetic people are victimized precisely because they’re walking, talking, living, and breathing lie detectors.

Anyone with advanced empathetic sensitivities understands precisely what I’ve just said. Every sociopath on the planet would otherwise vehemently deny this is the case while using this statement to vilify anyone who reveals this truth to the public.

Only sociopaths would ever dare to consider empathy a weakness because they recognize empathy as a superpower wielded by people who always default to showing compassion toward others, especially toward those like them, who comprise the most broken humans among us.

The lesson of today’s age and of this garbage pronouncement by the most destructive sociopaths we have seen emerge in society has pushed the tolerances and compassions that empathetic people experience toward humanity past the brink of decency and forces us to realize how our species is in a severe struggle for survival.

If we allow these sociopathic monsters to continue defining humanity for us, civilized society as we know it will crumble.

Now is the time for empathy to assert itself as humanity’s superpower and end the scourge of sociopathy before it’s too late.

Now is the time for the meek to inherit the Earth because these monsters have no respect for life beyond their fleeting whims.

These are expressions from people who have no reverence for anything outside their navels.

The more we allow them to assert dominion over humanity’s character, the more they teach us they will relent only when we break and repeat history.

Does Elon Musk think we have a problem with empathy?

This post is a response to a question posed in its complete format: “Elon Musk apparently didn’t dismiss empathy entirely, but thought that we have a problem with empathy for the wrong people. How do you judge?”

I partly disbelieve this moronic assertion but won’t deny it’s possible he would say something so stupid.

I wouldn’t put it past him because he disowned a daughter that he paid to ensure she was born physically as a male.

He got pissed that he didn’t get what he paid for and punished his child for daring to assert her identity.

Suppose he lacks empathy, which he seems to demonstrate while bemoaning his inability to experience empathy proudly. In that case, he’s a walking-talking case for how badly screwed up some kids can be when their sociopathic parents severely screw them over.

It still amazes me when I look at photos of him as a kid because he appears as a somewhat sensitive type of nerd who tried being himself but was abused for it.

That’s the only explanation I can devise that makes sense of his severe state of dysphoria (minus the drug addiction of both the chemical kind and the egotistical drug of power through his wealth).

He appears as a youth to be a typical “sensitive” who would likely have been highly empathetic. Still, it’s been beaten out of him through likely mostly verbal abuse (because he doesn’t appear to show typical traits of physical abuse — such as scars or even an emotional coldness in his demeanour). (Unlike DonOld Trump, whose physical abuse is written all over his demeanour. You can almost read the number of times his father physically beat him like counting rings on a tree trunk.)

Statements like the one attributed to him show the child attempting to speak through the cracks of a semi-polished exterior.

Empathy is like any other characteristic, which presents itself in varying degrees throughout the population. Empathy is like muscle mass; it has a developmental potential but must be cultivated to show itself in its most developed form.

In his case, his capacity for empathy was stripped from him and has been starved to (near?) non-existence.

I suspect some vestiges of empathy remain alive within him but that he’s trapped in a world where he cannot trust, allowing himself to experience it because the fear of permitting himself to experience it openly has been beaten out of him by his parents.

It’s not that the “wrong people have empathy” but that people have had their empathy wrongly denied their right to experience it without adverse repercussions.

Is it a good bet that no Republican will ever win the presidency again?

This post is a response to a question posed in its complete format: “With the stock market plummeting, market prices soaring, and unemployment on the rise, is it a good bet that no Republican will ever win the presidency again?”

One would think so. One would hope so.

However, history dispels that delusion.

If people remembered who was responsible for what, there would be few Republican members of Congress today.

DonOld Trump is considered “below water” in his numbers at an historical level, but that only means less than half of 350 million people support his performance.

Here are the daily results on Real Clear Politics, which aggregates results from multiple pollsters:

President Donald Trump Job Approval Ratings and Polls | RealClearPolling

47.8% Approve of his performance and 48.5% disapprove of his performance.

From a polling and historical perspective, these numbers are considered disastrous for this president. Still, the reality is that almost half of the nation, by extrapolation, supports this wrecking crew of an administration.

There are over 150 million people who should be paralyzed with fear over the prospects of their future who are cheering on the destruction engine as it wreaks havoc over every aspect of their lives that they count on to survive.

These people are more focused on politics as a team sport in which they view themselves winning even though they may be losing everything. As long as their team remains in power to hurt those they hate, they care for nothing more beyond that because they expect the lives they’ve grown accustomed to living to stay as they’ve expected. None can conceive of the great steamroller bearing down on them because they believe it’s meant to destroy only the neighbours they hate.

They won’t realize the horror of the situation they are creating for themselves until being directly confronted by it. Even then, they won’t admit to being responsible for making their fates and will deflect responsibility onto their ideological enemies.

The greatest lesson we are learning about modern humans that we have been able to overlook throughout history, primarily, is the impact of mental health on the stability of our societies.

We have been living with generational PTSD for thousands of generations and have accepted many toxic attitudes and behaviours as “normal,” while in today’s world, we’ve begun asserting a need to address these toxicities. The consequence has been an escalation of toxicity because those most afflicted cannot and will not seek help for their dysphoric conditions. They will escalate their rejection of responsibility for their destructive behaviours and attack those who seek to address those behaviours to help cure our species of their horrifyingly destructive impacts.

Anyone who has dealt with abusive behaviours understands how the abuser becomes most dangerous when they feel that their grip on power is loosening. They despise it when their victims become more capable of defending themselves against them. Their response is rarely an act of introspective self-awareness, leading to acknowledging how they are being asked to transcend their hatred. Their responses are almost always an escalation and a vicious attack against those who shine a light into their darkness to force them to confront its ugliness.

DonOld Trump will never acknowledge his responsibility for escalating international conflict because he sincerely believes himself to be victimized by his victims for not simply rolling over and capitulating to his demands.

Almost 150 million Americans think like he does to varying degrees and that means Americans will be plagued by Republican betrayals of basic human decency until, like addicts, they hit rock bottom and realize they won’t survive without acknowledging how much they depend upon the support of the international community in which they belong to and begin begging for assistance.

That won’t happen until at least after they trigger a deep depression.

That also won’t happen mainly because their opposition is also in denial over the severity of their problems. They still mistakenly believe that they can reason their way back to sanity.

The DNC is still primarily in denial that they and their nation are in a war that will destroy them unless they can stir up the passion of love of country to match the passion of destruction driving their opposition. They’re still trying to play by the rules of decorum while denying how those rules are irrelevant to a monster who ignores them at best and who weaponizes them against the DNC.

This approach turns off a large contingency of potential voters because it is construed as cowardice, and to a large degree, it is. They can’t help but continually lose against an aggressive enemy when they perpetually move toward compromise.

At some point, compromise is more toxically destructive than full-on aggression, and the DNC hasn’t yet realized that it has long passed that threshold. They lost the ability to compromise when they didn’t hold the Bush administration accountable for their war crimes and now the chickens have come home to roost.

This does not bode well for America’s future and spells hardship, at best, for the rest of the world.

This is a period in human history and global politics with at least as significant an impact on our international culture as WW2 has had. How much more severe the impacts will become is impossible to guess because we haven’t even come close to the horizon that will allow us to perceive, let alone acknowledge how massive the engine of destruction is that bears down upon us all.

Why does the right wing complain more than the left?

This post is a response to a question posed in its complete format: “Why does the right wing complain about the left wing far more on the internet than the left complains about the right on internet podcasts, etc.?”

I haven’t performed any surveys, nor am I aware of any statistics on the matter. I have, however, noticed a distinct difference between the nature and characteristics of the criticisms levelled.

The “left” generally identifies toxic characteristics from the right that erode or betray the social contract through blatant forms of bigotry, hypocrisy, projections, generic hatred, and unfocused rage.

The “criticisms” from the “right” are generally simplistic accusations one would expect from grade-school children. Very little thought is put into their concerns while choosing to wield broad brushes of hatred that are often confessions disguised as accusations.

I’ve used a broad brush to describe these general differences but am hard-pressed to think of criticisms from the right that are not embarrassments to the concept of critical thinking. It’s not that they don’t exist. They’re so rare that one has to focus on dredging up examples through a mountainous garbage heap of blatantly childish spite that they appear almost entirely non-existent.

Another salient difference between the two polarities is the concern for the victims of horrifically bad policy expressed by the left and a maddening sociopathic disdain and even Machiavellian pleasure taken in the notion of victims of bad policy justified through a lens of righteous indignity.

At almost every step and instance, whenever conservatives talk about the victims of bad policy, they seem to gloat their pleasure over the thought of people suffering needlessly.

Another characteristic that distinguishes political polarities is how willing and eager the right is when defending the 1% responsible for trillions in theft and the destruction of the middle-class quality of life. The right seems entirely oblivious to the causes of their anger and prefers to victimize further the victims of those responsible for their misery. One can only conclude that another characteristic common to conservatives is intellectual cowardice.

They would rather crap on the weakened and easy victims than hold the people responsible for their misery accountable. It’s like watching someone beat up on the victim of a mugging rather than go after the mugger because they’re too afraid of the mugger and would rather cozy up to them while hoping to have a few pennies thrown their way for how well they lubricate their anuses.

The reason why that would be the case is quite simple and referred to as “overcompensating behaviour.” It’s a widespread psychological phenomenon when someone subliminally recognizes the implications of their behaviour and instinctively reacts to mitigate the consequences of their actions.

Overcompensation and the Inferiority Complex: Delving into Adler’s Theory

The Psychology of Compensation

Why is the MAGA cult proud of being ignorant?

This post is a response to a question posed in its complete format: “Why is the MAGA cult proud of being ignorant? Is it a lack of self-awareness and/or emotions dictating their every thought over any logic?”

That’s a mischaracterization. They’re not “proud of being ignorant” because no one is ever “proud of being ignorant.”

They are proud of feeling they were right because they got their way and got the guy they wanted. They are pleased to beat those they view as their enemies.

They are proud of what they perceive as winning.

They are proud of what they perceive as defeating their enemies.

They are driven by emotion because reasoning at high levels is confusing, frustrating, and tiresome. They tend to despise reason when it is used in ways that make them feel inferior.

They tend to mistrust people capable of using reason in ways that confuse them and contradict their intuition. They will often misinterpret what is being conveyed through reason by simply adopting a polar extreme to what they experience.

Their reaction is no different than a familiar dynamic between an emotional child and an adult.

Here’s an example I discovered as I have been poring through texts I’ve written (many to myself as a way of coping with reality), which typifies the mentality in question:

Loren,

Let’s walk back through our last conversation.

(paraphrasing)

You: “Should I peel the apples and put them in water?”

Me: “No. Just sprinkle a little lemon juice on them.”

Later, when I came downstairs:

Me: “You didn’t need to put them in water.”

You: “Sorry. They’re not perfect because you didn’t do them.”

Now I’m wondering how I can have respect for someone who responds to me with the emotional development of a teenager. The sad thing is that this is VERY typical of what I often experience with you.

In retrospect, I should have given this note to this person, but I wrote it to myself, as I stated, to record my frustrations so that I could learn to manage my emotions better.

This dynamic is precisely the nature of dealing with a MAGA mentality that refuses to see past their insecurities to focus on a rational apprehension of the reality they are dealing with.

There aren’t many options to dealing with this mentality if they’re not a literal child who can be given a dose of negative reinforcement to ponder the consequences of failing to think through their position on any given matter.

The dynamic of parent and child is the most straightforward form of addressing such negative behaviour because there are many options to how one approaches the emotionality of their response. One can be supportive in how they deal with it, such as by using the Socratic method and turning their thoughts inward to question their motivations while guiding them through reasoning. This is impractical in most cases because it requires significant time, concentration, and strategic evaluation of the direction in which their mind goes.

With an adult, there is no wiggle room for conveying the implications of such thinking because they will have already perfected their entrenchment while having no obligation to respond to a parental dynamic in their conversation. Just like the example above. Any attempt I would have made to have that person understand how utterly toxic her thinking was would have escalated a conflict between us.

If you ever try to have a MAGAt understand how the notion of “small government” is an entirely irrational statement, you will quickly realize how fruitless such a conversation is. The problem lies in their adherence to principle and an inability (mainly a lack of desire, not capacity) to process reasoning. Any criticism of the soundbite they’ve planted as a territorial flag in their mind is interpreted as an assault against their principles, not a critique of the concept they haven’t bothered to flesh out in detail.

Every issue they champion is practically the same approach to standing fast on principle and counter-attacking any criticism like they were defending a great fortress from barbarians at their gate.

Their self-worth is derived from the strength of an adherence to their principles and loyalty to whomever they pledge allegiance to. They are proud of standing fast on their principles.

This mentality has long been a template for any cult leader to exploit.

Anyone who can communicate with them in the same atavistic language of emotion, appealing to their egos and baser instincts with soporifics that soothe their defences and confirm their biases, will be able to convert that person into a willing puppet on a string who will kill one’s enemies on their behalf. That’s why January 6th occurred without them questioning the irrationality behind storming the nation’s capital. None of them considered what would have happened had they succeeded in taking control of the building and its grounds. Fortunately for them, they didn’t succeed.

How do you deal with people who belittle you?

This post is a response to a question posed in its complete format: “How do you deal with people who belittle you and try to sound like they’re smarter than Einstein?”

I think it’s important to separate how one feels about the language a person uses to communicate with others and their expressions of intent.

If one is being condescending, it’s generally quite clear in their word choices and the subject they focus on when conveying their thoughts.

In other words, instead of focusing on the subject, they focus on the person, which, in this case, would mean you.

In a communication dynamic, a person’s estimation of a relative degree of intelligence between oneself and the other results in a subjective interpretation of the other’s intent. In other words, when people feel insecure and conversing with someone whose language choices are intimidating, they can often misinterpret the other’s intent.

They may feel that person is choosing “big words” to puff themselves up when that’s not their intent. It would be a misinterpretation of another’s actions due to one’s insecurity. It is important to separate one’s feelings from the interaction to ensure one’s reading of the dynamic isn’t coloured by one’s biases.

They may not be condescendingly treating them and merely use language they are most comfortable with when attempting to communicate with someone else. (As someone who has been accused of using pretentious language myself, I appreciate the opportunity to explain how my language choices are primarily intuitive and from an attempt at being as accurate in my communications as possible. I cannot speak differently any more than I can change my vanishing hair. It’s just who I am. Every one of us has a natural style of communication that works for each of us, and it doesn’t mean you have to “read between the lines” to ascertain what I “really mean.” — This brings to mind a favourite song of mine by The Animals, “Don’t let me be misunderstood.” –

)

Often, a person isn’t “trying to sound like they’re smarter than Einstein” but instead chooses words they believe are the most accurate representations of their thoughts.

As mentioned above, their focus is the key to spotting the difference. If they focus their responses on you as a person while choosing obtuse language to try to confuse you, then you know they are being condescending.

It might help to know that when someone is condescending, they also convey their intimidation through the discussion. They may feel that the effort spent in communication is not worth their time, or their goal is to make themselves feel better at your expense. In such a case, you will know that whatever information they have to convey could be more credible.

A naturally intelligent and well-informed person is usually happy to share their insights with others in an agnostic manner — as long as the other party is respectful in their attitude.

You can see that everywhere here on Quora. Some brilliant people here patiently explain simple concepts in great detail because they want to share what they have learned. Sharing is caring in this context.

When a person behaves condescendingly, they’re not interested in sharing or caring about others and let that be known in many different ways, while condescension is just one.

Another example of disparagement is providing hints of insights and then turning the tables on the person they’re speaking to, informing them that they should know the rest, and filling in the conceptual gaps on their own. If they can’t, they imply something is wrong with their victim’s character.

If you are uncertain whether someone is condescending, the most effective strategy is playing dumb.

Seriously.

It may sound counter-intuitive, but it works as a strategy.

Straight up, ask them what they mean with a confused expression to make it clear you’re not following their words and piecing them together in a way that makes sense to you. Be sincere in wanting clarification, and that will allow them to reflect on their attitude.

By playing dumb, you can defuse their defence mechanisms. You can encourage them to re-evaluate their communications in ways where their internal defences are not on alert to bring out condescension as a dialectical weapon to (pre-emptively) defend themselves.

This means that condescension and abusive attitudes are generally all born of insecurity on their own, and they often occur through subconscious responses to the person they are interacting with.

That person may not realize they’ve been condescending or abusive, and playing dumb is like knocking the wind out of their defence sails.

If they can be assured you’re not a threat, they are forced to re-evaluate their communications and make an effort to focus on the subject at hand.

Ultimately, by playing dumb, you may gain their trust and develop a valuable pipeline to an insightful source of information.

If playing dumb doesn’t work, then you know their information isn’t worth the effort to parse. They’re too caught up in their egotism to share their insights and are best left alone.

I hope this helps.

Cheerz

What can you do if your husband’s sister is a bully?

This post is a response to a question initially posed on Quora, and can also be accessed via “https://murkywatersnarcissist.quora.com/What-can-you-do-if-your-husbands-sister-is-a-bully-4“

Thank you for the a2a, Jozefina.
I have to say, however, that I’m a little confused, not because Jenn wrote an excellent answer complete with all the steps to take in a strategic, deliberate, and rational process, but when I dug a little deeper beyond that, I found your answer to the question on the parent level.

“Cut all ties with her. Silence is the best revenge. Distance is the answer to disrespect.”

I have to say that’s a strategy that has worked but not worked for me. Creating distance between myself and those who cause me unnecessary or unwarranted stress has been my primary strategy in dealing with them.

I suspect the results of that strategy have been why you sought more answers from more people — to find some balance between the extreme of cutting contact and the often frustrating process endorsed by professionals who frequently fail to account for real-world dynamics.

Jenn’s answer is excellent from a strategic perspective. However, it’s a textbook approach that doesn’t adequately account for the extremes in behaviours that bullies can indulge in.

One of my complaints and why my strategy has echoed yours is due to my experience; not once has a bully made any effort to consider the impact of their toxic behaviours.

I have never asked anyone for anything beyond being treated fairly. I have used the following words verbatim, “Please just try to be a decent human being.” — “I’m just asking for fair treatment.” — “I just want the same thing everyone else gets and is entitled to.”

Whenever I appealed to a bully for fair treatment, it was interpreted as a challenge, followed by escalation. Not a single bully in my life has ever behaved in the manner that a counsellor anticipates in the scenarios they recommend.

I suspect you may have discovered something similar in your experience, and that’s why you answered this question the way you did. After reading some of the other responses and thinking about your experience, you may wonder if a different perspective can shed some light on this issue.

I don’t know if I can give you one that addresses your specific situation because I know nothing about it, but there certainly is a wide range of approaches that people can take. Some may work for them but not others because their dynamic is different. Their personalities are different. Their bullies are different.

There is no universal solution to addressing the issue of bullies, and I suspect that’s why it remains unresolved in society.

There are some common traits that bullies display, and it may be helpful to view one’s issue from the perspective of understanding bullies rather than from the perspective of a generic approach one should take.

For example, all bullies are cowards at heart. If one can strike fear into them, they will back off. Self-preservation is, ironically, one of the reasons they are bullies in the first place. They’re cowards because they’re afraid of everything. Finding someone they can intimidate helps them cope with their natural fears of everything.

The challenge, however, is to instil a genuine fear of repercussions they shudder to contemplate. It can’t be a temporary fear they experience that may or may not manifest but a guaranteed consequence that instills an intense fear that gives them chills.

That’s not always possible for some to accomplish and will never be feasible for many because they’re not built in a way or possess the character or leverage to do that. In many cases, the only real solution is distance. Use the grey rock method if one can’t avoid their bully. — (Essentially, this means avoiding conversations with them and giving them one-word answers while concocting an excuse for why you have to leave. Display no emotion whatsoever because bullies like to trigger emotions in their victims. Be utterly disinterested in what they have to say. If they’re upset by that, apologize for being distracted. You’ve got a lot on your mind. If they ask what it is, answer them that it’s private. Shut down any attempt at a conversation and try to display being bored rather than anxious.)

Distance is the best solution in many cases — emotional distance if you can’t succeed at maintaining physical distance.

That may not work in some situations, especially if it’s a work situation and the bully is the boss. The grey rock method, in that case, will work.

You may now see a pattern in that negotiation is only possible with some leverage in your favour.

If your situation is precisely like the question, then it is incumbent upon your husband to “run interference” with his sister. He needs to keep her away from you, put his foot down, and inform her that he doesn’t appreciate having his wife intimidated. Doing that is an implied marital obligation. He married you, and if his sister makes it a choice between you or her, then he had better choose you, or you know what your choices are then because he’s not much of a partner if he won’t defend you to his sister and shut her down.

She must treat you with respect if she has any respect for her brother, your husband.

This dynamic may not work if your husband is desperate to keep the peace in a dysfunctional family or is the family scapegoat. You may find yourself having to draw firm boundaries with your husband and put him in a position to choose between you, his sister, and his entire family.

It won’t feel fair to him if he’s pushed into doing that, and giving him an ultimatum could very well backfire, making you look like the bully in the dynamic.

The challenging part of this situation is that you will find it increasingly difficult to maintain respect for your husband, and your relationship will fracture over time.

Perhaps you’ve discovered this and are seeking more input on this issue.

It will be vital for him to understand that you will feel undervalued if he doesn’t intervene in addressing his sister’s behaviour. That may or may not be sufficient to motivate him, but it might open his mind to the possibility that you two can work together to devise a solution that works for both of you.

The most crucial goal within such a dynamic is to have a partner you can work with and rely on for supportive advice and assistance without being dismissive or critical of you or your feelings. Your relationship with your husband matters, and by working together against “a common enemy,” you may strengthen your relationship. You will undoubtedly have a better chance of dealing with his toxic sister.

It may be necessary to work through your issues with the assistance of a counsellor, and it will be essential for him to understand if you offer to go to one as a suggestion, that it’s not to be critical of him but to find a way to work together to resolve the issues his sister creates.

I hope this helps.

Good luck with your challenge.

Bullies suck.

Big time.

Should we care about others’ feelings when being honest?

To be completely honest within this context, one must also be honest with one’s motivations for “being honest” in the first place.

“Being honest” does not necessitate conveying any messages to anyone else. There is always a motivation for the information one shares. To “be honest,” one must be aware of why they are compelled to share that information and what they seek to accomplish by sharing that information.

For example, to “be honest” about telling someone they’re fat and ugly isn’t actually “being honest” beyond informing the other person of what one’s personal biases are. Delivering information in a callously insensitive manner implies that the honesty of their intent is emotional manipulation.

To be completely and transparently honest within such a context, one should qualify their opinion by being honest about their biases. “I’m very biased toward a person’s aesthetics and react viscerally to the condition someone of being overweight due to unresolved personal issues, and because I’ve been conditioned to define beauty within a shallow, commercialized, sanitized, and two-dimensional context, therefore I interpret your physicality as fat and ugly.”

No one ever goes to such lengths to explain their biases. Most people who indulge in the “honest” expressions of their biases just cut to the conclusion, and that’s much more hurtful to the feelings of others. The consequence of “failing to care” about the emotions of others in such a context demonstrates one does care about the other person’s feelings, not in a productive or supportive way but rather in a destructive way. They intend to create harm deliberately, which implies “caring” about other’s feelings.

They are not sharing their honest opinion in such a context but conveying information to hurt the feelings of others. Within such a context, “being honest” necessitates being forthcoming about the nature of their opinion and why they share it. In either case, one does not escape “caring” about other’s feelings while implying they care more about escaping the consequences of their impact on that person’s feelings.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone declare, “I’ve got personal issues to resolve; therefore, I’m going to use you as my vessel for working them out to make myself feel better by making you feel worse about yourself.”

That would be an example of a bully “being honest” (for a change).

Cases outside the context of an abuser/victim dynamic can have a significant impact on the feelings of others, such as informing someone of the passing of a loved one. No matter how one delivers that information, the other person’s feelings will be impacted.

One’s intentions are just as crucial to sharing information within this context as in the previous example.

To be honest with one’s intentions, in this case, means understanding how one’s information is delivered impacts the receiver’s ability to parse that information fully and accurately. Ensuring the other party successfully understands the message conveyed within its complete context, some level of awareness and sensitivity to their emotions is crucial to the success of their information delivery efforts.

Failing to consider the emotional impact of the information conveyed implies that one’s intentions are less focused on knowledge transfer than on impacting the recipient’s emotional state.

In both cases, these are examples in which one does not escape the consequences of their regard toward the feelings of others in the information-sharing process.

Emotion is a component within an information-sharing context, even in benign situations such as small talk. “It’s a beautiful day today.” This may superficially seem like an unemotional example of innocuous small talk, but the reactions it can engender carry an emotional component within it. The emotions are not as pronounced as in the previous examples, but they exist. One feels better by being reminded of a pleasant experience, just as they would feel something if the day were not beautiful (which, in and of itself, is an emotionally charged word due to its subjective nature).

Further stripping emotion from the dynamic of information-sharing by limiting interaction to a functional level, such as a transaction, still contains an emotional element because humans are emotional beings. For example, “Your McSappy Meal is $5.99” can engender an emotion in the recipient who feels overcharged.

“One plus one equals two.” — “Can you prove that?” or “Do you think I’m too stupid to know that?” or “I’m not a friggin’ child in elementary school. Can’t you provide a better analogy?”

Being honest means being honest about the nature of the care demonstrated toward the feelings of the person with whom they share their information. To care about the feelings of others often implies enough sensitivity toward their emotional state to minimize a potential disturbance, but that’s not the complete spectrum of caring about the feelings of others. Far too many people “care” so much about how others feel that they devote significant energy toward ensuring others feel worse than they do.

Some people “care” so much about other’s feelings that they make a point of being utterly dishonest with themselves while sharing information intended to create harm or incite conflict while escaping the consequences of doing so through a mask of innocence they can declare as “being honest.”

All information shared between people implies an emotional dynamic within its conveyance, either strictly by the content or when augmented by the messenger’s intentions. There is no escape from feelings in communication, while “being honest” includes acknowledging the emotional component of their messages and the impact on the receiver.