Emotional Pollution (emotional abuse) --- school, home, work, community

[Leah]

Emotional Pollution in the Home: Walking on Eggshells

New studies are showing that there is a great deal more stress and anger in our lives. Much of it is spilling into the home, creating a tense atmosphere of walking on eggshells.

Most people want their relationships to go well; they want to prevent criticism, cold shoulders, angry outbursts, or the silent treatment - all common effects of emotional pollution. They go through psychological contortions, second-guessing themselves, editing what they say, worrying if they're doing things well enough, trying hard not to set him or her off. When you do this over a period of time, you lose a sense of who you are. You either internalize blame for your partner's resentment, anger, even abusive tendencies, or you take them on and become resentful, angry, or abusive yourself. In either case, you don't like the person you've become.

It's not breaking the eggs that does the lasting harm - people are resilient when it comes to healthy conflict.

Continually walking on the eggshells to avoid ugly conflict causes increasing stress. Emotional hurt has a way of lingering in the times between resentful or angry flare-ups. The empty, dull ache of unhappiness is most accurately measured in the accumulative effect of these small moments of disconnection, isolation, and dread.

There are many ways to walk on eggshells. Living with angry outbursts, name calling, and controlling, demeaning, and belittling behaviors are the obvious ways. More insidious are coping with disgusted looks, stonewalling, cold shoulders, emotional withdrawal, and couch-potato numbness, all of which imply that the family is not worth attention. The effects on children are devastating.

The way to clean up emotional pollution in the home is ultimately the same way to clean it up in the community.

Self-compassion - awareness of the harm that emotional pollution does to you with a strong motivation to improve - creates compassionate assertiveness, which will force change in your relationship, one way or another.

Compassionate assertiveness is sympathy with the hurt of your partner in profound understanding that he or she cannot heal without becoming more compassionate. It is definitely not compassionate to facilitate someone remaining self-obsessed. Only when people escape the prison of their self-obsessed moods can they see the effects of their behavior on others and become the kind of persons they deeply want to be.
 

By Steven Stosny

Wow!   Truly amazing find, grateful.  I consider this to be within any community setting - with all human interactions.

Leah x

[Leah]

Emotional Pollutants

You've got them (all of them) under your skin. Emotional pollution is transmitted covertly by body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice and more overtly by language and behavior. The negative effects of the more subtle forms of emotional pollution are nearly as great as the more dramatic forms.


Anger

An isolated expression of anger, like an isolated display of entitlement or resentment may not be polluting. However, it is rare to see an isolated expression of anger, simply because it is the most contagious of all emotions. Our unconscious brain constantly scans the environment for evidence of aggression and is primed to react to it before we become consciously aware of it. In other words, you'll be defensive and angry (or afraid) in response to an angry person before you even know it. That's why it's so hard not to become angry around an angry person, even if the anger is not directed at you. A prime example is the driver who leans on the horn in a busy intersection. He is angry at only one particular driver, but he upsets everyone who hears his self-righteous outburst.


Superiority

Superiority is the implication, at least through body language or tone of voice, that you are better than someone else. Emotional polluters tend to have hierarchical self-esteem, i.e., they need to feel better than someone else to feel okay about themselves. Not surprisingly, this form of distorted self-esteem lies at the heart of racism, sexism, and all other prejudicial points of view.

The most abusive form of hierarchical self-esteem is predatory self-esteem. To feel good about themselves, persons with predatory self-esteem need to make other people feel bad about themselves.

Family abusers usually have predatory self-esteem. Many will test high in self-esteem, while everyone else in their family tests low. When intervention increases the self-esteem of the emotionally beaten-down spouse and children who then no longer internalize the put-downs, the predator's self-esteem invariably declines. Predatory self-esteem rises on a wave of criticism used to put down loved ones. When the arousal wears off or when victims no longer internalize the criticism, the predator drops once again into depression.

Genuine self-esteem is a virtually unachievable goal for those who need to feel superior. No matter what criterion they use to determine their superiority, they will always find people with more of it. They will inevitably meet those who are smarter, wealthier, more powerful, better looking, more popular, have better socks, and so on; failure is the inevitable end of this precarious notion of self-worth.


Less toxic, though no less pleasant, examples of this form of emotional pollution are displays of arrogance and self-righteousness.

[Leah]

Operating almost entirely on an unconscious level, four mechanisms give force and power to emotional pollution. In fact, the four mechanisms - contagion, attunement, negative bias, and reactivity -- govern most human interactions.


Contagion

How do we know what they mean on the news when they say things like "the mood of the nation," or "the feel of the community?" These are metaphors that make no literal sense. Yet we understand perfectly what they mean, thanks to our intuitive awareness of emotional contagion. That's what makes you feel what the rest of the group feels. It's why experiments show that you are more likely to get impatient at a bus stop if other people are and wait more calmly if others seem resigned to the fact that the bus is late. And it's why the "electricity in the air" will get you excited at a sporting event, even if you were not particularly interested in the outcome of the game.

To understand the power of emotional contagion you only have to consider its survival advantage in early human history. Sharing group emotions gives us multiple eyes, ears, and noses with which to sense danger and opportunity. Hence it is common to all social animals - packs, herds, prides, and, in the case of early humans, tribes. When one member of the group becomes aggressive, frightened, or interested, the others do, too. Witnessing the fear or distress of another person in a group can easily invoke the same emotional state within us. Happy people at a party make us happy, caring people make us care, and the interested attract our interest. We avoid those who carry "chips on their shoulders" and those who "bring us down" or "make us anxious." And sporting events that lack at least a few excited spectators tend to bore us.

Like anything that affects emotional states, contagion greatly influences thinking. Opinion pollsters know that they get one set of responses to questions they ask of people in groups and another when they ask the same questions of individuals in private. It's not that these people are lying when in a group or that they change their minds when they're alone. It's more accurate to say that, at least on some issues, they have different public and private minds, due to the influence of emotional contagion.

The principle of contagion also accounts for "group think," which makes people act collectively against their own better judgment. The high-risk behavior of teen gangs occurs as emotional contagion spurs each kid to move far beyond his or her personal inhibitions. Similarly, corporate and governmental scandals reveal how otherwise good people can get swept up in a frenzy that overrides their personal morality. Emotional contagion produces solidarity parades, protest marches and, on the ugly side, "mob justice," lynching, riots, and looting. On a less dramatic level, it gives us constantly changing fashions, cultural fads, and political correctness.


Attunement

Attunement is a special kind of contagion that operates on a more intimate level. It automatically matches the intensity and tone of your emotions with those of someone else. In other words, you feel that person.

Social convention establishes norms for the range and intensity of emotional display. For example, you might feel like screaming on the subway when you read in the paper that your team blew the game on the last play, after you thought it was already won and went to bed. But you won't scream on the subway, just as you probably won't tell jokes at a funeral, even if you feel the dreary atmosphere could use some levity. As long as we stay within the boundaries of social convention, our bodies literally tune our emotions to one another. On those few occasions when you are consciously aware of it, it feels like your emotions are on the same "frequency" and "hit the same notes" as those of another person. They actually do synchronize. If you stop to think about it (and you usually don't) you know what the other person is feeling, because, in a very real way, you're feeling it, too.

Although our unconscious sensitivity to others is almost always active when we're not alone, it is not always accurate, i.e., we sometimes misconstrue what other people are feeling. However, we are far more accurate in sensing what others feel than in knowing what they think. This disproportionate accuracy between sensing another's feelings and judging their thinking leads to most of our misunderstandings of one another. Because we can pretty reliably tell when someone is, say, uncomfortable, we feel justified in guessing, albeit with far less accuracy, why they are uncomfortable or what their discomfort means. You might assume that your partner is aloof because he is irritated with you (or because you are irritated with him), when in reality he was still reacting to a harsh word his boss said to him before he left work. Attunement makes it pretty safe to assume what another is feeling but perilous to guess at what they are thinking or what their feelings mean to them.

Attunement begins with the first stirrings of life, as newborns naturally tune their emotions to those of their caregivers and vice versa - just try reading the paper when your baby is crying or calming her down when you're upset. When parents are anxious, infants are anxious, and when parents feel loving, their babies feel loving, too, as long as they're not experiencing physical discomfort. Throughout the lifespan, sensitivity to the internal experience of loved ones is the cornerstone of empathy, compassion, support, romance, and intimacy.

Unfortunately, the force of attunement is more powerful with negative emotions, such as resentment, annoyance, anxiety, or anger than with the positive emotions, which brings us to the third principle of emotional interactivity: negative bias.   

[Leah]

Negative Bias

To the great misfortune of human relationships, our emotions are negatively biased. Probably because negative emotions are more important for immediate survival - giving us the instant capability to avoid snakes in the grass and fend off saber tooth tigers - they gained priority processing in the primitive brain and continue to have great influence in modern times. So if you come home from work in a fairly good mood and find that your spouse is brooding or upset, attunement will bring him or her up a little and you down a lot. To keep from being "brought down" by the other's negative mood, many couples attempt to dull their sensitivity to the other's emotional world. This puts them squarely on the road to divorce, as it stenches the lifeblood of relationships -- compassion and appreciation -- both of which require openness to attunement.


Reactivity

You can think of emotional reactivity as a learned resistance to the unconscious pull of contagion and attunement. It can be obvious resistance, as in, "I'm not putting up with your attitude!" Or it can be passive resistance, as in trying to ignore you spouse's bad mood.

Of course, most of the time we don't want to resist contagion or attunement, because it helps us stay on the same page on a routine basis. Sporting events would be a lot less fun, if they existed at all, without the contagion of excitement. And while falling in love, the mere presence of your beloved fills you with fascination and joy. You thrill at the smile of your infant and revel in the excitement of a new friend. But as a function of attunement, reactivity also has a negative bias -- that which once thrilled you can eventually start to "push your buttons." Many of my clients who once loved it that their spouses greeted them at the door when they came home now resent them for "monitoring every time I walk in the door." She used to love his sense of humor, now she thinks he's sarcastic. He used to appreciate how she put him in touch with his feelings, now she's too emotional. These common relationship problems are reactivity confounding the natural process of attunement.

The aspect of reactivity that makes it difficult to see, let alone change, is its illusion of free will and ego independence, even "authenticity." You think that you are acting of your own volition and in your best interest, when you are merely reacting to someone else. We've all uttered (or at least thought) the most ironic of all statements, "You're not going to bring me down!" As long as you're in this reactive mode, you are down - reacting to negativity with negativity.

Trying to cope with emotional pollution on automatic pilot invariably increases reactivity and leads to the number one addiction of modern life: reactaholism. The reactaholic needs to react to others to know how he feels and what he thinks. You're probably a reactoholic if you feel that other people push your buttons. This unfortunate belief allows other people to live in your head and control your emotions. You become more reactive than proactive, more impulsive and less considered in your actions.

A quick test to see if you're a reactaholic is to notice how you approach a meeting. The reactaholic doesn't know what to do until someone gives him something to which he can react in a definite (usually ego-saving) way. Reactaholics need the low-grade arousal of reactivity to dispel self-doubt or to feel confident enough to form a decisive opinion.

Controlling people i.e., those who try to control others, are prime examples of reactaholics, although they don't seem to be. To lessen their anxiety about getting their buttons pushed, reactaholics try hard to control the behavior of others. My client, Shawna, like the vast majority of controlling people I have counseled, constantly told her beleaguered husband what to do. She had to; from her perspective it felt as if his behavior entirely controlled her emotions. If he would do something as trivial as absent-mindedly leaving his towel on the bathroom floor, she would feel overwhelmed with resentment and anger. "I get tense walking down the hall, because I know when I get to the bathroom, I'll see that he's left the toilet seat up again," she told me.

When Shawna considered making plans, she inevitably thought of how her husband might refuse to cooperate. To avoid such unpleasant thoughts, she stopped thinking about the future altogether, as reactaholics often do. This habitual avoidance of goal-setting is one reason that reactaholics never reach their full potential in life. Instead of planning how to achieve their goals, they simply avoid people and situations that push their buttons. Because so many people and situations have the power to do so, they never know how they will feel from one moment to the next. They can scarcely develop a consistent sense of self, for they will be different with each person who "makes" them react differently. If I'm one person with you and another with him and yet another with her, I won't know who the hell I am.

Reactaholism is the number one addiction because most of the others are vein attempts to numb the frustrating powerlessness of reactaholism.

[Leah]

Why We're Vulnerable to Emotional Pollution

All animals, including humans, use emotional displays to interact with one another. Aggression is the most dramatic example. Dogs growl, cats arch their backs, snakes hiss, horses stand up and wave their front legs menacingly, bulls kick sand, apes beat their chests, and humans puff up their muscles. (Early humans use to roar, which is why you talk in a more menacing voice when angry and want to scream in traffic.) There are just as obvious though less dramatic gestures of courtship, affiliation, playfulness, and interest in humans and other social animals.

More recent observations suggest that all social animals, including humans, put out much more subtle emotional signals as well -- most of which are outside conscious awareness -- and that these, too, affect how we interact with one another. Like all social animals, we can pretty much feel when someone is putting out positive or negative emotional energy, even if he or she makes no overt behavioral indication. Although we can't tell what they're thinking, we can read the emotional tone of most people -- whether they are quiet or whether they are shouting -- with a fair degree of accuracy. Of course, the accuracy declines as we move further from loved ones, friends, neighbors, and members of our own culture.

How many times have you asked someone you know, "Is anything wrong?"

"No, nothing's wrong," is the abrupt response. You don't buy it because you know there is something wrong.

Even when we consciously try to shut out our unconscious perceptions of one another, we retain our natural sensitivity to each other's emotions. That's why you feel different when you ignore your spouse, compared to the way you feel when he or she is not in the room with you. It's why you feel different when you're the only one walking down your side of the street, compared to how you feel when the sidewalk is crowded with other people, whom you try to ignore.

This innate sensitivity to one another's emotional states derives from the social nature of our central nervous systems. From the beginning of our time on this planet, humans lived in groups and tribes. We are very much social animals, hard-wired to interact emotionally, in subtle yet profound ways, with everyone we encounter. On a deep, visceral level, we continually draw energy from and contribute energy to a dynamic web of emotion that consists of everyone we interact with and everyone with whom they interact. Each person you pass on the street subtly reacts to you and vice versa. Each person you pass in turn subtly influences each person he or she passes. In the web of emotion, you never react to just one person but to everyone that person has recently encountered.

Whether we like it or not, we are emotionally connected to virtually everyone we encounter. Our only choice is to make the connection positive or negative, to put out compassion or download resentment, to clean up emotional pollution, or contribute to it.

[dandylife]

Leah,

Excellent and fascinating material! thanks so much. I will be re-reading it closely.

Dandylife

[Leah]

Additional Emotional Pollutants:

Pettiness

It's making a big deal out of nothing or focusing on one small, negative aspect of something with no attempt to see the bigger picture. It's making less important things more important than the most important things.

Pettiness is usually a function of resentment; for the resentful, nothing is too petty to resent.

Confronted with petty attitudes or behavior, you will feel reduced to some small mistake, as if nothing you have ever done right in your life matters. You will feel criticized, if not condemned, and diminished for the smallest of infractions, real or imagined.


Sarcasm

It comes in many forms.     Sometimes it's just poorly-timed humor - saying the wrong thing in the wrong context.  Sometimes it's innocently insensitive, with no intention to hurt or offend.

However, more often it is hostile and meant to devalue. The purpose is to undermine a perspective you don't agree with or to shake someone's confidence, for temporary ego gain or strategic advantage. The sarcastic person tends to be especially into impression management, always trying to sound smart or witty.

[Leah]

Emotional Abuse

Any type of harm, intimidation or distress caused by verbal or psychological torment characterises emotional abuse. If an individual is being emotionally abused it can be often be difficult for others to identify, as there is no physical evidence and people around the victim are unable to see the emotional scars. Due to this, the torment can continue for many years as unlike physical abuse, the scars go unrecognised. The abuser may repeat their actions in order to maintain control over an individual and frightens them into keeping quiet about the torture.

Emotional abuse can include constant yelling, screaming, threats, degrading insults, humiliation, manipulation, neglect, harassment, sarcasm, domination or control, withdrawal of any affection, being ignored for a period of time and isolating the victim from friends and family.

This type of abuse can seriously effect the development of an individual especially if it occurs during childhood. There are some common signs that are listed below but unless the sufferer confides in someone about their experiences, the abuse is likely to go unnoticed.

Signs of Emotional Abuse:

     Sudden noticeable changes in an individuals behaviour
     Depression or Anxiety
     Changes in appetite
     Loss of interest in activities and social gatherings
     Appearing scared, jumpy or agitated
     Sleep deprivation or insomnia
     Lower self-esteem and self-confidence
     Nervous in the company of a particular individual



Emotional abuse can severely damage a person's confidence and self-esteem even to the state that the sufferer feels worthless, finding it hard to generate relationships.

Effects can include:

     Anxiety or Depression
     Eating disorders
     Isolation and withdrawal from others
     Low self-esteem and confidence
     Children may run away from home
     Aggressive behaviour
     Drug or alcohol abuse
     Insomnia
     Apathy
     
     
Emotional Pollution - Walking on Eggshells

New studies are showing that there is a great deal more stress and anger in our lives. Much of it is spilling into the home, creating a tense atmosphere of walking on eggshells.

Most people want their relationships to go well; they want to prevent criticism, cold shoulders, angry outbursts, or the silent treatment - all common effects of emotional pollution. They go through psychological contortions, second-guessing themselves, editing what they say, worrying if they're doing things well enough, trying hard not to set him or her off. When you do this over a period of time, you lose a sense of who you are. You either internalize blame for your partner's resentment, anger, even abusive tendencies, or you take them on and become resentful, angry, or abusive yourself. In either case, you don't like the person you've become.

It's not breaking the eggs that does the lasting harm - people are resilient when it comes to healthy conflict.

Continually walking on the eggshells to avoid ugly conflict causes increasing stress. Emotional hurt has a way of lingering in the times between resentful or angry flare-ups. The empty, dull ache of unhappiness is most accurately measured in the accumulative effect of these small moments of disconnection, isolation, and dread.

There are many ways to walk on eggshells. Living with angry outbursts, name calling, and controlling, demeaning, and belittling behaviors are the obvious ways. More insidious are coping with disgusted looks, stonewalling, cold shoulders, emotional withdrawal etc.

[Leah]

What is Emotional Abuse?

Abuse is any behavior that is designed to control and subjugate another human being through the use of fear, humiliation, and verbal or physical assaults. Emotional abuse is any kind of abuse that is emotional rather than physical in nature. It can include anything from verbal abuse and constant criticism to more subtle tactics, such as intimidation, manipulation, and refusal to ever be pleased.

Emotional abuse is like brain washing in that it systematically wears away at the victim's self-confidence, sense of self-worth, trust in their own perceptions, and self-concept. Whether it is done by constant berating and belittling, by intimidation, or under the guise of "guidance," "teaching", or "advice," the results are similar. Eventually, the recipient of the abuse loses all sense of self and remnants of personal value.

Emotional abuse cuts to the very core of a person, creating scars that may be far deeper and more lasting that physical ones.


Types of Emotional Abuse

Emotional abuse can take many forms.  Three general patterns of abusive behavior include aggressing, denying, and minimizing.


Aggressing

Aggressive forms of abuse include name-calling, accusing, blaming, threatening, and ordering. Aggressing behaviors are generally direct and obvious. The one-up position the abuser assumes by attempting to judge or invalidate the recipient undermines the equality and autonomy that are essential to healthy adult relationships. This parent-child pattern of communication (which is common to all forms of verbal abuse) is most obvious when the abuser takes an aggressive stance.

Aggressive abuse can also take a more indirect form and may even be disguised and "helping." Criticizing, advising, offering solutions, analyzing, proving, and questioning another person may be a sincere attempt to help. In some instances however, these behaviors may be an attempt to belittle, control, or demean rather than help. The underlying judgmental "I know best" tone the abuser takes in these situations is inappropriate and creates unequal footing in peer relationships.


Denying

Invalidating seeks to distort or undermine the recipient's perceptions of their world. Invalidating occurs when the abuser refuses or fails to acknowledge reality. For example, if the recipient confronts the abuser about an incident of name calling, the abuser may insist, "I never said that," "I don't know what you're talking about," etc.

Withholding is another form of denying, Withholding includes refusing to listen, refusing to communicate, and emotionally withdrawing as punishment. This is sometimes called the "silent treatment."

Countering occurs when the abuser views the recipient as an extension of themselves and denies any viewpoints or feelings which differ from their own.


Minimizing

Minimizing is a less extreme form of denial. When minimizing, the abuser may not deny that a particular event occurred, but they question the recipient's emotional experience or reaction to an event. Statements such as "You're too sensitive," "You're exaggerating," or "You're blowing this out of proportion" all suggest that the recipient's emotions and perceptions are faulty and not be trusted.

Trivializing, which occurs when the abuser suggests that what you have done or communicated is inconsequential or unimportant, is a more subtle form of minimizing.

Denying and minimizing can be particularly damaging. In addition to lowering self-esteem and creating conflict, the invalidation of reality, feelings, and experiences can eventually lead you to question and mistrust your own perceptions and emotional experience.
Understanding Abusive Relationships

No one intends to be in an abusive relationship, but individuals who were verbally abused by a parent or other significant person often find themselves in similar situations as an adult. If a parent tended to define your experiences and emotions, and judge your behaviors, you may not have learned how to set your own standards, develop your own viewpoints and validate your own feeling and perceptions. Consequently, the controlling and defining stance taken by an emotional abuser may feel familiar or even conformable to you, although it is destructive.

Recipients of abuse often struggle with feelings of powerlessness, hurt, fear, and anger. Ironically abusers tend to struggle with these same feelings. Abuser are also likely to have been raised in emotionally abusive environments and they learn to be abusive as a way to cope with their own feelings of powerlessness, hurt , fear, and anger. Consequently, abusers may be attracted to people who see themselves as helpless or who have not learned to value their own feelings, perceptions, or viewpoints. This allows the abuser to feel more secure and in control, and avoid dealing with their own feelings, and self-perceptions.

Understanding the pattern of your relationships, specially those with family members and other significant people, is a fist step toward change. A lack of clarity about who you are in relationship to significant others may manifest itself in different ways. For example, you may act as an "abuser" in some instances and as a "recipient" in others. You may find that you tend to be abused in your romantic relationships, allowing your partners to define and control you. In friendships, however, you may play the role of abuser by withholding, manipulating, trying to "help" others, etc.

Knowing yourself and understanding your past can prevent abuse from being recreated in your life.


Are You Abusive to Yourself?

Often we allow people into our lives who treat us as we expect to be treated. If we feel contempt for ourselves or think very little of ourselves, we may pick partners or significant others who reflect this image back to us. If we are willing to tolerate negative treatment from others, or treat others in negative ways, it is possible that we also treat ourselves similarly. If you are an abuser or a recipient, you may want to consider how you treat yourself. What sorts of things do you say to yourself? Do thoughts such as "I'm stupid" or "I never do anything right" dominate your thinking? Learning to love and care for ourselves increases self-esteem and makes it more likely that we will have healthy, intimate relationships.


Basic Human Rights

If you have been involved in emotionally abusive relationships, you may not have a clear idea of what a healthy relationship is like. Evna (1992) suggests the following as basic human rights in all human interactions:

     The right to good will from the other.
     The right to emotional support.
     The right to be heard by the other and to be responded to with courtesy.
     The right to have your own view, even if your partner has a different view.
     The right to have your feelings and experience acknowledged as real.
     The right to receive a sincere apology for any jokes you may find offensive.
     The right to clear and informative answer to questions that concern what is legitimately your business.
     The right to live free from accusation and blame.
     The right to live free from criticism land judgment.
     The right to have your work and your interests spoken of with respect
     The right to encouragement.
     The right to live free form emotional and physical threat.
     The right to live free from angry outburst and rage.
     The right to be called by no name that devalues you.
     The right to be respectfully asked rather than ordered.



What Can You Do?

Educate yourself about emotionally abusive relationships: 

   Engle, Beverly   "The Emotionally Abused Woman : Overcoming Destructive Patterns and Reclaiming Yourself"           
   Evans, Patricia   "The Verbally Abusive Relationship : How to Recognize It and How to respond"               

[Leah]

Leah,

Excellent and fascinating material! thanks so much. I will be re-reading it closely.

Dandylife

Thank you, Dandylife

I have learned much from this amazing discovery.   Today, in particular, having heard the latest tumult - with regard to Emotional Pollution with Pettiness, here, in a certain community setting wherein a hobbyist group of retired persons are locked in an infernal combat -- over something so trivial - petty.  On the one hand it makes me laugh - but on the other hand it makes me feel sad to know - people in their autumn years choosing to remain 'locked into' a petty feud - neither side will back down.   Handbags at dawn!

Love, Leah