You feel how you feel.

Something about our feelings surely belongs to our soul. I have been thinking about this after reading a post on narcissistic abuse which spoke of how damaging it is to be told that if you are hurt by someone who is overly critical or nasty you need to be ‘the bigger person’ and just rise above it or put it behind you.

https://cynthiabaileyrug.wordpress.com/2019/04/02/the-truth-about-being-the-bigger-person/

In the end what we take on board from others may say more about how wounded or inadequate we feel inside. Usually if we have a humble grounded idea of who we are we can see what criticism levelled at us is rubbish and what may have a grain of truth, but that said do we really need to be around those long term who put us down and criticise our so called flaws which may not actually always be flaws anyway but just a a part of our character or really perfectly acceptable to someone else?

The truth is too that some people use subtle and not so subtle put downs to empower themselves and they may not always have empathy for us when we may be in a vulnerable place.

Yesterday I ended up having a huge conflict with someone over a few silly words that were spoken, I just gently pointed it out and the next thing the second person turned the entire thing into a major drama. It was the last thing I needed as I had a lot going on yesterday, my bathroom vanity was flooding the floor and I had other work going on at home and this all from someone asking my help at that time I was just pushed to my limit. The best thing in the circumstance was to walk away but its not always as easy to leave the bullshit behind or to stop the unkind words of others going around and around in our brain.

A grounded sense of personal boundaries means that we do know who we are and what we feel about things but one of the problems of being raised in invalidating or insensitive or narcissistic families involves being told not to feel the way you do, not to cause waves, not to act in such a way as you may ‘upset’ or offend someone, even if what you are doing is done with no intent to hurt but just to be yourself or be honest. There was a certain incident around this on a reality show here in Australia a week or so ago when someone stood up to someone else behaving in an abusive and dysfunctional way and was the cried down and criticised for it. The general reaction on social media came out in defence of the person calling a spade a spade, the other person was trying every way possible to deflect the valid criticism and calling out of their dysfunction in order to turn the heat off their bad behaviour and hide the truth.

If you are an outspoken person at times you may get into trouble. And there is a time to remain silent, most especially when saying something actually wont contribute anything useful to an already inflamed situation or may trigger an unwell person. But to my mind I have had to learn that it is perfectly okay to feel as I feel and react as I do to difficult circumstances. It is said of narcissists that if they step on your toe and you then scream ‘ouch’ you are accused of offending them or ‘making a scene’. It was a classic case of this on that television programme last week.

There is also a time to take firm stand against abuse and unfair criticism. We need to have a voice and feel that we have the power to speak and fight for what we feel for ourselves and to support our mental and emotional health rather than be told there is something wrong with us for feeling that way or that we need to be ‘the bigger person’. A time comes when we do become wise to the ways of hurtful or dysfunctional others and choose to limit our engagement with them. And we need to feel its okay to do this surely we don’t always have to just turn the other cheek in order to have it slapped again?