Don't Take It Personally; It's Most Likely Not You

In my last few blog posts, I talked about people who are aggressive in defense of their beliefs. I’ve been speaking about that in a religious context, but it can happen with any person who feels their viewpoint is so infallible they can’t be bothered to listen. When that happens, it’s unlikely it has anything to do with you. That type of person is likely to trigger and become aggressive with anyone who makes them feel threatened -- even if the threat isn’t real. I’ve witnessed or encountered that several times recently, and I’ll be sharing those experiences in this blog post.

Some people may be blessed enough to never or rarely experience that type of aggression. However, some people are in environments where it’s more likely to happen, such as the religious environments I discussed in previous posts. That doesn’t mean it happens in all religious environments, but it can be common in radical ones.

I recently had another experience with a radical religious person. I shared some scriptures with a man who was spreading hate against groups that were different than what his denomination accepted. One of the scriptures I shared was 1 Corinthians 5:12. It tells Christians not to judge the world or they’d have to leave the world but only to judge sin in the church. As I said in a recent blog post, the Bible is for people who choose to become Christians. Hearing scriptures that were unpalatable to him, from the book he often described as infallible, sent him into a rage. During his outbursts, he threatened my safety. I, of course, chose to separate from him. Some religious people and environments think they have all of the answers and there is nothing else to learn. They can feel threatened if anyone tries to teach them something new. It's okay to walk away and not try to correct their misconceptions, especially if what they're teaching isn't hurting anyone.

It’s not only radical religious environments that foster people who easily become aggressive with other people. Environments that are dysfunctional enough to accept abuse can develop people who are expecting to be harmed again. This can cause them to be on the defensive. Recently, I witnessed a person trigger and become aggressive with another person. Attempts to mediate revealed that the person who had triggered was twisting the words of their victim, and they weren’t willing to untwist those words. Instead, they sought people who would tell them what they wanted to hear. Even more surprising, the person who triggered thought they were being nice and the person who received their attack was the mean one. My guess is the aggressor learned that type of behavior to survive their previous abusive environment and doesn’t feel safe enough to learn a new way yet. It's okay to recognize that you can't take responsibility for someone else's abuse recovery, which may mean setting stronger boundaries or walking away. I have a friend who has auto-immune illnesses that make her life very difficult. She often talks about those difficulties and asks for prayers on Facebook. I can't imagine why anyone would have a problem with that. When I read her posts, I'm filled with compassion for her suffering, respect for how hard she fights, and a desire to pray for her. I think most people feel that way. To my great surprise, I saw someone trigger and attack her in Facebook comments for sharing her struggles. That attack didn't make me think less of my friend for sharing her story. Instead, it revealed what the person who was attacking her was about. Sometimes all we can do is listen to what people's actions tell us about them, so we set boundaries that keep us from hurting the person they are attacking a second time by making excuses for bad behavior.

People I’m close to are concerned about a person we love who recently returned to an abusive environment he’s complained about for decades. As we discussed our concerns, I shared how two people from that environment came to me at different times saying almost the same words – that I was only person from that shared past who was open-minded, so they felt safe asking for my help. After exhaustive effort trying to help them, both people triggered, subjected me to aggressive behavior, and returned to the people they had referred to as being so close-minded they were dangerous. Although the answer should have been obvious to me, a young person who had witnessed this during their childhood gave me the answer. I was offering them something so unfamiliar that it terrified them, so they ran back to the safety of the familiar. People can be more likely to become aggressive if they’re afraid. You can't control another person, so sometimes all we can do is let people walk back into the fire.

Radical loyalty to a political party can also cause people to trigger and become aggressive. Maybe the recent election is why I’ve experienced enough aggressive behavior since my last blog post to fill this one.

Conversations with girlfriends revealed that people who vote on instinct rather than information can vote for men like the men from their formative years, and maybe men do the same thing with women politicians as well. Unfortunately, this can cause them to vote against the best interests of themselves and their country if those men were abusive or neglectful. Discussing how to vote based on information can cause an aggressive response as easily as talking to them about the abusive relationship they’re not ready to face can cause them to become aggressive. We can't control how people vote. All we can do is hope that enough people vote on information or instincts that came from healthy environments to keep our country safe.

Another person made their political choice the focus of a Facebook comment on a post that wasn’t discussing politics. They were so aggressive and hateful that the people involved in that conversation were mature enough to ignore them and not fuel the fire, which ended the public conversation. Shortly after that, the same person chastised me for using Facebook to share resources that gave various perspectives to increase understanding about my Appalachian culture. Many who saw both conversations talked to me privately. The consensus was that people can project their own weaknesses onto other people. For example, a person who gets aggressive when they share something that’s important to them assumes that other people do the same thing even when they’re not. It doesn't matter if people are projecting onto you. Someone who is projecting their negative behavior onto you is probably someone you don't want to get close enough to for it to matter.

One Facebook group I belong to frequently argues that Christians can never judge – to the point that they victimize victims of serious crimes a second time by putting the fault on them for recognizing that what happened to them was wrong. Those same people ranted judgment against a politician they didn’t like in the days before the election, making the argument that everyone in his party was like him. I can understand their frustration with that politician, but I didn’t think it was fair to judge an entire party based on the actions of a few. I shared information about people from that party who were organizing groups to stop the politician they were expressing frustration with. I became the target of aggression for trying to teach that we shouldn’t judge an entire group for one person’s actions to a group of people who had long preached we should never judge. I think sometimes people can’t understand that justice is necessary until something bad happens to them, or in this case, until they fear something bad will happen to them. Sometimes, all we can do is sit back and wait for someone to experience enough tragedy to understand -- even though those of us who have experienced tragedy would never wish that on anyone.

I believe social media can be a place where many people have a higher risk of facing aggression, including those who don’t normally reside in environments where aggression is common. There are a lot of wonderful people on Facebook who act with maturity. On the other hand, there are some people who seem to believe that hiding behind a keyboard gives them license to be even more aggressive. Even worse, there are the social media trolls who perpetuate ugly situations. Therefore, we may have come to a place in our technological cultures where none of us are safe from aggression.

I shared the examples I did in this post, because they happened in environments where I have and/or do reside that foster aggression. I will add some other environments where I’ve experienced aggression caused by triggering in the past, even though it hasn’t happened recently like the other examples I’ve shared in this post. Environments where addiction is common may foster aggressive behavior. It may be because a person who is struggling with addiction isn’t ready to face it. Maybe a person told lies to hide their addiction, and they become aggressive when those lies are revealed. If a person is under the influence and not thinking clearly, they may become aggressive. I recommend that any person who finds themselves in this situation seek help from Alanon or NarcAnon, which are two organizations who offer support to the family and friends of people struggling with addiction. I've been a family elder care caregiver for years. Through those experiences, I've met many other family caregivers. I learned in caregiver support groups that it's common for families to leave all caregiving responsibilities on one person. I experienced and repeatedly witnessed the truth of that teaching. I also experienced and repeatedly witnessed other family members feeling guilt that caused them to trigger and get aggressive with the main caregiver. It wasn't hard to figure out that guilt was behind their outbursts, because most of them confessed it if they were allowed to yell long enough. They also often confessed knowing more about what the sick person needed even if they hadn't seen them in a year and there were no complaints about the job the main caregiver was doing. A caregiver is under so much stress they don't need to deal with that. The strategies I used were to ignore it, because responding only caused more arguments. If it got so bad ignoring it ceased to be a safe option, I called the police or requested hospital security. Many people from many different environments have experienced someone triggering and becoming aggressive with them because of gossip. Some of the environments I came from that I discussed in this post were ripe for spreading and accepting gossip. I used to get so upset by people trashing my name that I would defend myself to the bitter end -- even writing letters to defend myself if no one was listening to words. I regret that now and wish I could retrieve all of those letters and burn them, because they are both embarrassing and full of a negative energy I should have never fueled. Now, I realize that someone talking badly about other people says more about them than it says about the person they are talking about. It also says more about the people who listen to, and even worse act upon, that gossip as well. Now, when I meet someone who is prone to spreading or listening to gossip, I realize that's not a person who is conducive to a peaceful environment, and I move on. Someone once told me that small minds talk about other people and great minds discuss ideas. I'd prefer to be challenged by great minds. This doesn't mean a person can't find a confidential sounding board if they really need to talk, but getting involved in wide spread gossip only adds fuel to the fire.

There may be other environments I’m not aware of where people trigger and become aggressive easily. No matter what environment is fostering the aggression, it may be difficult for their victims to avoid it. The main thing that has worked for me is training myself not to react and correcting it as soon as I recognize what I’m doing if I do react. Sometimes I choose to ignore, and sometimes I choose to walk away – unless, of course, I’m in danger. If you’re in danger, remove yourself to safety as quickly as possible and call the police.

Not reacting reduces drama and chaos, but it doesn’t solve the problem. Since I have many environments that fostered aggression in my past, I talk with a counselor to help me heal from the past as well as to get better about not repeating the familiar in my present. I recommend talking with a licensed counselor to help you determine how to best handle your situation if you have aggressive environments in your past or present. Dealing with aggressive behavior, especially if you’re currently in an aggressive environment, can be so complicated and personal that I really believe each person will benefit from determining their individual course with a counselor.

If for some reason you’re not able or ready to talk with a counselor, I recommend working on Boundaries, because that’s something that helped me a lot. There’s a great book called “Boundaries, When To Say Yes, How To Say No To Take Control of Your Life,” by Henry Cloud and John Townsend that is available on Amazon. In addition, Henry Cloud continues sharing information about boundaries on YouTube. I subscribed to his YouTube account, and his talks help me a lot.

If you’re in a situation(s) that isn’t safe, you should seek police protection. If you choose to separate from the aggressive person or environment, the book “The Christian's Guide to No Contact: How to End Your Relationships with Narcissistic, Psychopathic, and Abusive Family and Friends, and Still be a Good Christian” by Sister Renee Pittelli, that is also available on Amazon, helped me a lot.

Having been born into environments where people triggered and became aggressive easily taught me that was normal even though not everyone was like that. Since it seemed normal, I spent years accepting similar environments in my adult years. Even after I was far along the road of recovery, experiencing it again as a caregiver caused me to regress. I often felt hopeless. It took me a long time to realize that wasn't normal and to learn boundaries and strategies that allowed me to live more peacefully. I hope sharing my story in this post will help others to find peace as well.