Everybody was once insulted. They did not call names, did not beat in a fight - they insulted.
The feelings that arise at the same time - first anger, aggression, then depression and a feeling of something inexpressibly nasty, such that one cannot forget and correct, perhaps after many years or centuries …
It is no coincidence that 150 years ago it was believed that an insult can be washed off only with blood - either your own or the enemy's …
Deadly weapon
“No need to answer”, “you need to forgive”, “don't stoop to the level of the enemy”. A lot of "wise" advice, backed up by strange parables, teaches us the "correct" reaction to an insult. However, there are laws that punish insulting a person. But what is easier - to proudly leave and humbly forgive. Let them insult. Today they insulted, tomorrow they hit, the day after tomorrow they killed.
It is clear that there were and are holy people who do not care about insults. They only make them stronger and better. But in an ordinary person, adrenaline is first released, which increases pressure, affects the cardiovascular system, and then other chemical reactions are triggered.
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And exactly the same as if hit on the head with a stick. This has been convincingly proven by studies of psychophysiologists: a person has a second signaling system that reacts to speech, to emotional events.
When the newspapers began to persecute Pasternak, he first experienced a heart attack, and then fell ill with lung cancer. And he died in agony. Cancer developed precisely during the period when letters from Soviet citizens were published, filled with righteous anger and insults such as:
“I have not read Pasternak's poems. But once in the swamp I saw a toad, which made a vile croaking. The same croak is published by Pasternak, slandering our Motherland …"
I believe that the envious poets of the 18th century considerably shortened the century of the great Lomonosov. Try to imagine (although it's better not) what a person experiences while reading these verses:
“Even though you closed your drunken throat, your goiter sagged, won't you take a barrel of beer with you to the coffin? And do you think you will be just as happy in the future century as here with many you are in affection and care?"
Anger and outright envy sprinkle from Trediakovsky's pen, and one wants to insult him more painfully, to hit him … The poem, by the way, is so-so, but the insult is at the level of a communal kitchen, professional.
Swearing on the battlefield
Previously, carnage began with mutual insults. However, it is the same now. They are trying to humiliate, crush, infuriate, deprive the enemy of the ability to think soberly and react adequately, in order to then destroy it in battle. It is not for nothing that some words are called “abusive”: since ancient times they were used on the battlefield, along with fists, slingshots, clubs and firearms.
To suppress and destroy the personality, insults are also used, which sooner or later destroy the psychological defense, turn the personality into a trembling creature. Constant insults can kill a person, even if you do not apply physical pressure to him. The result will be the same as with daily beatings.
By the way, in America, the problem of insults began to be taken extremely seriously. Sometimes it comes to the comic: fat people cannot be called fat - you should say and write "a person developing horizontally." A loser is recommended to be called a “person with delayed success”. This is how the problem is solved at the state level …
Wedge wedge
How do you feel about insults? I believe that the organism itself answers this question: violent biochemical and psychophysiological reactions depend little on our conscious intervention. Therefore, wise parables and philosophical aphorisms somehow lose their relevance at the moment of serious insults. However, the offender himself is at great risk - who knows what reaction your brain will give out?
Freud was a great psychologist and cultured man. One day he was on a train; it was stuffy in the carriage, and the doctor opened the window.
A certain gentleman began to protest. Not only to protest, but at the same time to call Freud a "Jew's face" and other offensive epithets. The calculation was correct, at first glance: the Nazis are almost in power, the death camps are about to start working, and the gentleman in pince-nez and hat, what will he do?
To the amazement of those present, Freud broke out in such ferocious abuse that the rude fellow traveler retreated. Escaped.
And somehow I like the behavior of a psychologist. It seems most correct in this context.
In addition, as a psychiatrist, Freud knew very well: unrealized aggression turns into depression, that is, into aggression directed at oneself.
Psychosomatic diseases are a consequence of autoaggression: suppressed stress leads to arthritis, heart attacks, oncology … People are increasingly sick because they become hostages of double morality. We are taught to forgive the offenders. Do not react to insults in any way. And at the same time, they cite as an example the image of a bound hero who spits in the face of a fascist!
In the event of an insult, one should act appropriately, in accordance with the conditions and personality of the enemy. The first reaction is always due to the release of a huge amount of adrenaline, so take a break. You are still disoriented, and the right words will not be easy to find.
Provide oxygen to the brain, inhale more air, exhale. And only then decide whether to engage in battle or wait for a convenient moment. But in any case, it is necessary and possible to express your feelings right away - to convey it as a neutral message: “What you are saying insults me. You hurt me. I don't know how to react now, but I will think about it."
This, of course, applies to people they know, sometimes, unfortunately, close ones. With strangers, different rules apply: it all depends on whose side the power is on.
The best antidote
One patient told me an instructive story. As a teenager, she was abused by a friend. Once she said: “Why are you all wearing makeup and dressing? You won’t be more beautiful anyway!”
The friend knew that the girl was very worried about her appearance, because they were close. On the sore spot and struck.
It seems like nothing terrible, a joke in Trediakovsky's taste. And the girl experienced severe mental pain, all her life she remembered those words.
She grew up and even got a little old. By the age of 50, she had her own fashionable salon, a company for organizing parties and a family. And a good car, in which, out of pity, I drove a woman voting in the rain and cold.
An old woman, it would be more correct to say. And with amazement and fear I recognized her as a classmate friend. For a long time she listed her troubles and misfortunes, complained about life, exuding the smell of fumes. At the end of the way, she began to shove money, never recognizing her former friend. And when my patient refused the money, she threw bills in her face. She insulted, in short, out of habit. Only the lady did not feel any insult - it did not work!
I am firmly convinced that the best retaliation against an offender is your health and well-being. Even in early childhood, we knew magic protective formulas: "Whoever calls his names, he himself is called that", "We are in an airplane, and you are in a cesspool" … Everything comes back, and intentionally evil and deadly words - especially.
Now, if Pasternak did not just read the "letters of the working people" filled with anger and poison, but, having gone broke to buy envelopes, would send them back with short postscripts, you look, and would not get sick.
And if there is no return address, what prevents you from mentally writing a response, sealing it in an imaginary envelope, or typing a message on the keyboard and sending it to the enemy, even if to nowhere? Thus, we will react to the insult - this is what our body needs. So let's take action, even if on a mental level. By the way, it sometimes works better than the material level.
Anna KIRYANOVA