The Listenary

Perhaps you've read this far and wonder if you might be one of those people who use verbal attack. Here's how you will know.

If you use "you should" or the other "red flag" words I listed, you may not be an attacker, but could use some purging of words from your vocabulary so as to make your communication less troubling to yourself and others. However, if you try not to use those words, and you succeed at being very respectful in many arenas of your life, but there's one or a few relationships in which you hear yourself using these words and can't seem to stop yourself though you love these people dearly, then you might need this article.

If you feel the other person has the same mind as you. If you believe you know what the other is thinking and that the other knows what you're thinking, before you tell each other. If you get a feeling of panic sometimes when the other asks an unexpected question or says an unexpected thought. If you find yourself often telling that other person what he or she should or does think, feel, believe, want, or will or won't do, etc. If you often say "you are," whether or not the completion is complimentary. If you do these verbal behaviors more frantically whenever you feel you might be losing closeness to the other person. Then you might need this article.

I'm not blaming you. Our culture condones and institutionalizes this hostile language. Families perpetuate it. Wars manifest and extend it. I am begging you to pay attention to these first insights. Verbal attackers can change. They can heal.

I did say "heal." Perhaps you feel so empty on your own that you have anchored your identity in him or her. Perhaps pretending you have someone made according to your every thought and desire is the only way you feel connected. Perhaps you get scared you'll disappear if that connection is threatened by the other person's hint of separateness from you. This does happen. There is healing.

First, get some books by Suzette Haden Elgin or Patricia Evans as listed in my bibliography, and read them to make yourself aware. Awareness is the first essential step.

Second, your awareness and logical agreement, that 1) you cannot define another person, 2) you cannot read another's mind, and 3) others cannot read your mind, will go a long way toward setting you free from the verbal attack mentality. This may seem so frightening to you that I would suggest you find support to help you carry through.

Third, renounce the need to be confirmed as "right" and the other person being wrong. Give up using the scenes and tools of football or war in communication. Paint in your mind some scenes of communication with the tools and cooperation of carpenters or orchestra players and go to these scenes in the act of communicating. Purge "you should" and all other "red flag" words from your vocabulary. Other books listed in my bibliography will be helpful. A consultant or coach might be helpful.

I believe verbal attackers can change.