Negative comments from people we love: how to manage them?

Who hasn’t ever received a deeply hurtful comment from a loved one? These types of dynamics affect us more than we think; In fact, the brain feels as much pain with them as it can feel when we get a physical injury.

Words are molecular elements of our language. Depending on many variables, they can leave an emotional imprint similar to the mark left by the expert tattoo artist’s needles on our skin. But why can human communication be so harmful?

Negative comments can leave scars that plague us as part of our internal dialogue for years.. The cruel words that a father may have towards his son are difficult to forget. An insult from our partner is a psychological aggression and a mockery from a friend can be experienced as a humiliation that we keep as a lacerating mark in our memory. But why does someone who claims to love us hurt us?

This question is difficult to answer. Sometimes those who speak badly to us do so because they reaffirm themselves and gain power over us, other times because violent communication is part of their behavioral record. In other cases, this lack of emotional responsibility is hidden from those who do not understand that to love is to respect.

The way they speak to us conditions us, and it does so to the point of causing authentic traumas.. Speaking well to each other means taking care of what is said, selecting the words well in order to build solid and happy bonds. Something so basic, yet simple, is a practice that not everyone understands.

Often, those who suffer from illness and physical pain experience greater suffering when they receive negative and critical comments from their environment.

Negative comments from people we appreciate hurt more than those from a stranger.

Be careful with negative comments from those who say they love you

We have all, at some point, dealt with negative comments. School, work and even the street itself are scenarios in which, suddenly, a bad word, a criticism, an insult or a cruel mockery can reach us. Indeed, these dynamics hurt and even anger. However, Malicious expressions do greater damage when they come from someone we appreciate.

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People build expectations about how we expect to be treated.. In this way, if there is something we expect from our parents, it is love, validation and affection. What we take for granted that a partner will offer us is love, care and tenderness. However, when we receive just the opposite, a painful dissonance occurs.

In one study, Dr. Martin Teicher, associate professor of psychiatry at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts, showed something illuminating. Children who suffer verbal abuse from their parents experience alterations in their brain development, which makes them more vulnerable to anxiety and depression.

As we can guess, Human beings are not prepared to receive negative comments from their closest and most significant environment.. Those sharp words damage us, change us and leave a deep mark on our brain architecture. They are hurtful interactions that can appear in various ways.

Although it is true that at some point we may speak badly to someone we love due to a poorly regulated emotion, we always try to repair that damage by asking for forgiveness. However, there are those who are not aware of the harmful impact of their words.

Sarcasm and irony, the pain disguised as affection

A study by Dr. Raymond Gibbs and published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology points out that in our everyday language it is common to use linguistic resources such as sarcasm. Now, sarcasm and irony can become verbal aggression when they are personalized and used to ridicule someone close to them.

This dynamic is very common in couple relationships. There are those who delight in being that “intellectual bully” who, with their communicative ingenuity, belittles the loved one, clothing them with apparent affection.

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Criticisms that seek to be useful and sink us

“Don’t take this the wrong way, I say this for your own good, but you (…)”, “I tell you this with all the love in the world so that it is useful to you, but you are (…)”. Who doesn’t hear this type of negative comments camouflaged as well-intentioned advice? Indeed, The people we love the most sometimes give us criticism thinking that they are doing us a favor with it.

They are very common situations to which we do not always know how to react. Because there are criticisms that, although they claim to be constructive and even affectionate, act as real direct missiles to our self-esteem.

When they love us, but they underestimate us

“You have to see how clumsy you are. Don’t force yourself to try, what you have in mind is not for you. Look at you, it’s clear that you won’t achieve anything.” When a stranger doubts our worth it doesn’t hurt as much as when someone close does. Negative comments also come in the form of undervaluation and lack of confidence in our potential.

These situations in which our parents, partners or friends make fun of our abilities are harmful and humiliating realities. It is an experience capable of limiting us or arousing latent anger and anger that we often choose to silence.

Sarcasm, mockery or comparison are often harmful dynamics that can appear in communication processes between people who have a close bond.

Communication is taken care of every day, striving to respect others.

Comparisons, when you are less than anyone

If we look back and leave it at some point in our childhood, it is possible that we will encounter these types of situations. It is common for moms and dads to compare their children to others. “Juan is not as smart as his brother, Claudia is less savvy than Marcos and Pedro is slower in everything than Andrés.”

These types of negative comments can also be part of a couple’s argument. They are those moments in which a member compares the loved one with other figures to blame her for what she does not do, what she says or what she does not seem to be.

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What to do when someone who loves us speaks badly to us?

Those who love us should not make use of negative comments, contempt, ridicule, harmful criticism and sarcastic phrases. Affection requires physical, emotional and communicative respect. Without these pillars no relationship will be satisfactory or happy. However, if we do an objective analysis, it is very likely that in our close circle there is someone who speaks badly to us on more than one occasion.

Behind those who use violent communication and do not see the effect of their own words, there is a problematic personality.. What we must do in all cases is react and demand respect. Just because we are our father, brother, friend or partner, we should not tolerate language based on ridicule and undervaluation.

We have the right to demand that they address us in a respectful manner, to demand that they speak to us as we speak to them. If we let it go, if we choose not to say anything, the negative comments will escalate and our discomfort will be greater.

Communication is the bridge that unites or distances people. Let us expect from others the same thing that we offer them: care in actions and words, trust and empathetic and emotionally nourishing communication. If we do not receive it, that relationship will not be viable.