The Listenary

So, you've worked through the easier possibilities and learned some things. You've concluded, it's not simple diversity you're dealing with. Nor is it merely conversational ignorance. It's not open conflict, nor is it systemic anxiety. You think you may be facing verbal attack.

The question to ask will require some deep consideration and perhaps the help of a friend or therapist: Are there confusing or hidden presuppositions?

The first step, as usual here, is to Stop. Talk much less. Keep your voice even with no spikes in pitch or volume. And get distance.

In verbal attack, it often happens that the emotions rise so quickly and powerfully that they hi-jack the conversation before you even know it. That's how we're made. When under attack, our bodies take over. Heart and lungs increase their cycles, stomach and analytic brain shut down, automatic brain and muscles get ready to fight.

The aim in getting a bit of distance is to let your thinking brain take over again. You can make the sign for "time out." You can claim need for a drink of water or the restroom. You can make he traffic sign for "stop." You can make a quick call to hear the human voice of a supporter. You can go to a place in your mind which you have previously prepared for just such a time, where you have posted on the walls of your mind all the encouragement you need to re-convince yourself that your are not shameful or stupid or hopeless. 

The verbal attacker wants your attention, your full and exclusive attention, your prolonged attention. He or she lives in a different world, under a different metaphor, and doesn't know that you would give your full and prolonged attention much more satisfyingly without without his or her fighting for it. Because of this other metaphor, the rules of this other reality, the verbal attacker also wants to achieve and prove your attention by means of combat and control in order to feel power over another. He or she uses common combat tools and cycles, well-known to English language users and therefore likely to engage the other for a lengthy period of time in the game or illusion he or she has chosen.

Suzette Haden Elgin, in her book, How to Disagree Without Being Disagreeable: Getting Your Point Across with the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense (New York: Wiley & Sons, 1997), discusses the metaphor of "combat" in our English language of disagreement. Like her, I believe we could do with a better metaphor to build cooperation rather than competition into our language.

Patircia Evans, in her book,The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to Recognize It and How to Respond (Holbrook, MA: Adams Media Corporation, 1996), describes two different realities, the verbal abuser living in a very different reality from that of those who have no need to abuse others with their language.

In the next few articles here, we will discover how to stay out of combat and come through the verbal attack encounter with self-possession and self-confidence intact.