Dealing with insults

[Peeta]

So how do you guys deal with insults? Whether they are true, coming from some mean person who's just trying to hurt you or a bit of both. With me I can feel the insult burning in my chest. Even when I know the insult to be based on nothing or that the person is an idiot. Still I have a hard time letting go or even responding to an insult. Any tips on dealing/responding?

 

[Sully]

I just ignore it and walk away.

 

[Harrison]

Humour, it's the best defense, well, apart from a nightstick... with a clowns face on it.

EDIT
Just realised I'm probably not the best person to answer this.

 

[Kari Suttle]

So how do you guys deal with insults? Whether they are true, coming from some mean person who's just trying to hurt you or a bit of both. With me I can feel the insult burning in my chest. Even when I know the insult to be based on nothing or that the person is an idiot. Still I have a hard time letting go or even responding to an insult. Any tips on dealing/responding?

I used to be quite good at just ignoring them until they got bored and went away (or i left simply because i had somewhere to be), but that was back when i was a teenager. Nowadays it really gets to me. I can be having the best day ever until i'm at work and have a mean customer and suddenly my day is ruined until either i get a nice customer or my lunch break. Half the time i'll even shut down too. If its a customer at work, i can at least try to go back (in my head) afterwards and mentally prepare myself for such a situation in the future, scripting out what i probably should have said, and this helps me get past it. It also helps me be a little bit better at my job scripting the situations im the worst at dealing with. I simply can't handle angry customers it overloads me instantly. Honestly i dont have a social life outside of my jobs cashiering and babysitting a two year old full time, and no one but two people even acknowlege my existence at my cashier job so no one bothers me. My situation isn't all that applicable with random assholes. Random assholes, i would just ignore cause in my opinion they just make themselves look stupid insulting someone else like that. I've always thought that at least.

 

[Warmheart]

Hah! I got a real zinger launched at me this past week. Ouch!

Do I need the external validation of this person's approval? No.
This person's insult says more about him/her than it does about me. They are unkind because they suffer, and their suffering is spilling over. Hurt people, hurt people.

What do I do? I breathe through it. Focusing on my breathing gives me a chance to transform my emotions into peace.
But what if they are waiting for a reply? I may give them a soft "I see," or "Ahh." This does not indicate agreement, rather that they have been heard.

Their pain deserves my compassion. It is not easy to have composure. I am working on it. My compassion must include myself, or it would be incomplete. The best way to tenderly care for my hurt feelings, is to focus on my breathing until those feelings transform into peace. As mentioned, I am working on this, and always will be.

 

[Grumpy Cat]

I kick 'em in the a**. (Oops! That wasn't very ladylike.)

I don't get too many insults, but if I do it's usually from some caddy woman. Above all else, I try not to make a scene by getting mad, however, they usually get the picture in my facial expression that they better tone it down. The last one I recall was from a coworker (yes a caddy woman) who insulted me several times in one setting - I guess it made her feel better about herself. I calmly took her insults (she was looking for an argument and I wasn't going to let her), made a mental note, then turned her in to the supervisor. She's had several complaints against her I found out.

You'll find with people who make it a habit to insult others actually feel bad about themselves. They insult others to feel better about themselves, but it never works - other people just want to distance themselves from that person. The nurse I spoke of probably doesn't know that she doesn't have one person at work who respects her, but she does have several who talk about her behind her back and a couple others who absolutely refuse to work with her. I wouldn't want to be her.

 

[carry]

insults are no fun. I usually backfire when I can. Sometimes I cannot grasp the situation and when I later think back about it I might change my mind to be mad at someone or to be nice again. I have a real problem distinguishing between the two.

 

[gonz]

I have this problem where I take everything people say, even things that are clearly a matter of opinion, as fact. If, for instance, I enjoy a movie and later read a negative review of it, my first reaction will be to feel embarrassed for having liked it.

This extends to insults directed at me. Say some random person I'll never see again calls me an asshole; rather than ignoring it like some people would, or reacting with anger like I think most people would, I'll take it to heart. I'll assume that I must indeed be an asshole. I'll feel badly about myself for days. I'll reexamine every interaction with other people that I can remember. I'll assume the people close to me must secretly hate me.

It takes a long time and a lot of effort to get past it, to convince myself that the person insulting me doesn't know me, that their opinion of me doesn't matter, that they just might be the asshole.

It is infinitely worse when it's someone who actually does know me.

 

[AsheSkyler]

I'm not very cooperative. The more insulting they get, the harder I make it to do their job.

 

[tachyon]

Recent incident.
At a meeting of dragon-boat regatta organising committee (1 male & 4 females). I'm early 60's & females are 40-60.
Couple of females say - "let's do a movie sometime".
I say - "I don't socialise much".

One female says - "C'mon mate we're not trying to race-you-off". Was that an insult, a challenge or something else?
I say - "Nothing" & look down at the agenda for the meeting

 

[Aspergirl4hire]

Recent incident.
At a meeting of dragon-boat regatta organising committee (1 male & 4 females). I'm early 60's & females are 40-60.
Couple of females say - "let's do a movie sometime".
I say - "I don't socialise much".

One female says - "C'mon mate we're not trying to race-you-off". Was that an insult, a challenge or something else?
I say - "Nothing" & look down at the agenda for the meeting

Three questions popped into my head...

1. What does "race-you-off" mean? Is that the same as "run-you-off?" (Ie, we band together and chase away someone?)
2. What happened after the silence when you looked down?
3. Did this happen at the end of the meeting?

 

[Judge]

Dayim...I had to look up what a dragon-boat regatta was before considering what "race-you-off" actually meant.

But y'all posted the word "socialise"...so I'm assuming you're on the other side of the pond.

On another note, I don't process incoming sarcasm well at all. Get confused, then always default to a sense of having been insulted. As for being insulted without having to give it much thought, it really depends on the insult and the context before considering an overtly hostile response.

And I may think about it for a long time afterwards. Any real insult is apt to bother me.

 

[watersprite]

I have this problem where I take everything people say, even things that are clearly a matter of opinion, as fact. If, for instance, I enjoy a movie and later read a negative review of it, my first reaction will be to feel embarrassed for having liked it.

This extends to insults directed at me. Say some random person I'll never see again calls me an asshole; rather than ignoring it like some people would, or reacting with anger like I think most people would, I'll take it to heart. I'll assume that I must indeed be an asshole. I'll feel badly about myself for days. I'll reexamine every interaction with other people that I can remember. I'll assume the people close to me must secretly hate me.

It takes a long time and a lot of effort to get past it, to convince myself that the person insulting me doesn't know me, that their opinion of me doesn't matter, that they just might be the asshole.

It is infinitely worse when it's someone who actually does know me.

I've never read anyone else write this so clearly. It's how my mind works too. With one exception in that if an aggressive person is insulting, threatening or hurting someone besides me, then I instantly attempt to go to their defense. I'm not good at it, but I try. But I cannot put that into effect for myself in real life. It's taken me decades and being diagnosed to begin to process memories and re-categorize the truth of situations.

 

[gonz]

It's taken me decades and being diagnosed to begin to process memories and re-categorize the truth of situations.

I think I know what you mean. As I've learned the ways in which asperger's affects me, I've begun to see past experiences in a new light. I am better able to understand things that confused me, and have realized that certain assumptions I used to make are false.

I think most of us here understand what it's like to be singled out for ill-treatment. Like many do, I always assumed that it was my own fault, that there was something wrong with me, something about me that made otherwise decent ordinary people want to be cruel, or to use and manipulate me.

But I've gradually come to understand that that is not the case. Instead it is more accurate to say that there is something about me, the fact that I am "off" or different in ways that others can pick up on combined with my difficulty in recognizing their intentions, that makes me a tempting target for people who are already inclined to treat others poorly.

It's a minor distinction but, I think, a crucial one; it leaves me responsible only for my own behavior and not for the behavior of others.

There is still a lifetime's worth of self blame and self loathing to deal with, and understanding this doesn't make it easy to get past that. But it will, I hope, eventually make it possible.

 

[carry]

yes difficulty in recognizing intentions of others is a target of attack by others, maybe because it is like a mirror and they see their intentions within us and they might not like them and therefore they get nasty. Maybe it is more directed at themselves than at us?

 

[Judge]

It's taken me decades and being diagnosed to begin to process memories and re-categorize the truth of situations.

Yes. It is a weird process to go back and reanalyze something that took place decades ago only to figure out what actually happened so long ago. But to be able to figure out those little mysteries of our past....I find it a valuable asset to have. At least to understand sometimes what exactly went wrong. Not that we can fix them...but just having the understanding of what otherwise might perplex us indefinitely.

 

[tachyon]

Three questions popped into my head...

1. What does "race-you-off" mean? Is that the same as "run-you-off?" (Ie, we band together and chase away someone?)
2. What happened after the silence when you looked down?
3. Did this happen at the end of the meeting?

To race-somebody-off is an old (hardly used anymore) expression to get somebody into bed
Fortunately the chairperson moved onto the next agenda item & nobody brought it up again which was fortunate.

 

[Aspergirl4hire]

To race-somebody-off is an old (hardly used anymore) expression to get somebody into bed
Fortunately the chairperson moved onto the next agenda item & nobody brought it up again which was fortunate.

In context, could've just been a case of Involuntary Cougar Mouth?
Quickly covered by a transition.

 

[Progster]

For me a major problem is that not all insults are so direct, and I don't always recognize a remark as being an insult until I analyze it later, or until someone points it out to me, so I don't get a chance to react or defend myself. But perhaps it's just as well, as I've always found it hard to defend myself or think of a suitable retort. In order for the retort to be effective, it has to be immediate, but with me the penny doesn't drop until later.

Once, somebody made an unpleasant remark to me in an email. A couple of days later I got her on her own and confronted her with it, asking her what she had meant. I had time to think of a strategy to confront her and a think of a response, and at the time I was proud of myself for being able to handle it. She denied ever having sent the email. That was the last time I ever got any such emails, but I'd made an enemy and I'm sure she was instrumental in having me chucked out of my job.

 

[Shawn D]

For me a major problem is that not all insults are so direct, and I don't always recognize a remark as being an insult until I analyze it later, or until someone points it out to me, so I don't get a chance to react or defend myself. But perhaps it's just as well, as I've always found it hard to defend myself or think of a suitable retort. In order for the retort to be effective, it has to be immediate, but with me the penny doesn't drop until later.

This happens to me all the time! I'm sure it happens more often than I realize. I'll often be in the midst of a social setting and not realize until later that I should have taken offense to something said to me.
Sometimes, the insult is more obvious, but I still don't respond to it right away, because an appropriate response doesn't register in my brain at the moment. Later on, I start replaying the conversation in my head and think, "wait a minute...I should have said x".