How do I stop doing this?

I realized 1 of the reasons everyone hated me in school. Because I still do it today.

When someone says something to me that I perceive as an attack (usually everyone else disagrees with me that it is an attack and doesn't understand why it hurts me so much) I go into defense mode and say the worst possible thing I can think of to the person, then everyone hates me because of what I said.

This is a very old example, but the one I'm the most self aware of, and I assure you not much has changed about me in the past 13 years:

Once in 5th grade this girl made a comment about my clothes. I think it was something about why couldn't my mother afford better clothes for me. I went into automatic defense mode. This girl had recently lost her own mother and I responded with "at least my mother's still living".

I like the think that my mother abandoning me 5 years after was Karma for this. I felt bad about it of course, but I realized today that I still do this type of thing and don't even notice. Some people say you should just "walk away" when someone upsets you, but when you DO decide to say something back to defend yourself, how do you make sure it stays within the limits but is still effective?

My cousin says things a lot that hurt me but somehow my responses are always so much that I'm the one who ends up being labeled as "mean" because I went into defense mode. I never thought of this until today or understood why people always blamed me.

PS. I'm aware that my responses are wrong and hurtful and I don't WANT to hurt people. I want to find a better way of dealing with this.

Gotta learn to bite that tongue . . . HARD . . . Step away and count to 100 or something. Breathe deeply. Don't respond until you've taken time to give it thought and know your response will be assertive, not aggressive. May take a lot of practice, but it is about retraining yourself to be thoughtfully responsive instead of impulsively reactive.

I, too, find my defensive barriers come shooting up whenever I perceive the teeniest, tiniest threat. It's for good reason. I've not had smooth sailing all my life, and while I'll save you all the long and tedious story of it all, I'll just say I often find that the more defensive I am, the more defensive others are and it builds up and up and up til nothing remotely friendly is even an option anymore.

Maybe I'm partly to blame for my defensiveness, but it's more instinctual than anything. If there's a way to relearn how to be less defensive without feeling so scared and vulnerable, I'd like to hear it.

I actually did this today. I was reading another thread reply directed my way and while I'm sure the poster meant no ill will, I felt threatened all the same. So I got up and away from my laptop for about 15 minutes doing something else, and came back feeling much calmer and the whole defensive cycle didn't even start. I feel proud of myself for I made a tentative baby step in the right direction.

It's a lot easier for me to control myself when I'm in a safer environment like a moderated forum vs. real life or a less restrictive online community.

I have to stay away from the YouTube comment section.

First off it's not a better way of dealing with it because what you are doing by commenting as such is not dealing with anything it's attacking and if your analysis is right, it's attacking an undeserving victim.

So the next question I have is when you say "dealing with this.." what is it you're dealing with? have you asked that question of yourself? if not, you should. What is it that is the core of the problem?

I can give you my take on this. It's all about perception. This is not at all about only controlling your tongue as someone else said because at the root there is so much more. The cause of this is internal thinking and perception of yourself and how you feel others view you or what they expect of you. What do you see others' perceptions of you ? Because if you interpret many things as attacks on you most likely you have a skewed view of how people are talking to you and what they think of you. You expect the worst out of other people, thinking they are mean or think little of you so it warps your interpretation of what thy have said. Exaggerates the negative criticism to toxic levels where you now think it was an attack not merely a criticism.

I think controlling your tongue is a bandaid but for lasting change you have to analyze and change the way you view others.

How do I know what is really mean and what isn't?

In the example I gave, I thought insulting my clothes was mean....not as mean as what I said but that school made it clear they didn't like me.

Or I think so.

I agree with sandman. I also think you were probably raised like this? I know i was. Given more insults than compliments. Raised in an attack environment rather than a loving one. The apple doesnt fall far from the tree. Its taken many years of my t's gentle and kind attitude towards me to soften my tongue. Also practicing as much as possible being "supportive" on pc, not always successfully, i'll admit.

Artchic is correct. Just pause. It takes practice and conscious decision making on the fly, but you can learn it.

Also I've learned that it's not only about my perceptions of what other people think, it's a lot to do with my perceptions of myself. Because as I get older I've learned that there will always be hard critics of everything I am, and everything I do, but in the end what matters is what I THINK OF ME. if I'm doing or saying what I believe to be right and true, I accept that not all will agree or be on my side and some will even violently oppose me. accepting this has made me able to better control my reactions. I'm not perfect and still slip but a bit better than I was as a younger man.

Anna72914, how accurate is this as an assessment of your childhood? How much were you around people who typically attacked you and/or who would overreact and blow up on slight provocation?

100% accurate

such irritability may actually be a form of obsessive behavior - and I'm guilty of it. Unfortunately I began to obessess too over my doing this to the point that I was constantly rehearsing conversations. My therapy has significantly helped. I still have trouble holding back but it isn't as bad as it was. In addition I was on an anti-obsessive. I'm off it now. It was felt the therapy alone would now be enough. But yes, it was a big difference

In my opinion, this goes a long way towards explaining why you are so defensive and alert to potential attack. It sounds like in your family of origin, you had to be on the lookout constantly lest you suddenly be attacked. Comments that would be perfectly innocent in the mouths of others often meant imminent attack in your family of origin. Yes? It sounds like you needed highly sensitive antennae and you needed to be ready to defend yourself at any moment.

It sounds like, even now, you need such defensive alertness when it comes to dealing with your cousin. Yes?

My mother was very much like what we are speaking about. And so for many years, if someone were to ask me a reasonable question out of honest curiosity and interest, such as "Are you going to continue your volunteer work?", I automatically, viscerally, instinctively hear it as a criticism. In my mother's mouth, such words meant something like "What the **** is wrong with you, wasting your time on that! As usual, you disappoint me."

With therapy, I am getting better and nowadays I don't necessarily hear questions as criticism, especially if I remind myself that the person is just asking a simple, reasonable question out of interest in me. And if I do hear them as criticism, I can bring myself back to calmness/reality.

To me, what you said in fifth grade shows how hurt you already were.



How much did you also find (as a child) that people suddenly blew up at you for the most insignificant events?