When are emotions abusive?

Peacemaking ministry is all about seeing opportunity in conflict, and it just so happens that the Bible has a lot to say about conflict, the emotions and their proper engagement in terms of resolving conflict.

So often conflicts turn toxic.  So often emotions boil over and burn people.  But when truly are emotions abusive?  I must contend that this is a complex question which is almost impossible to answer categorically and conclusively — certainly in a little piece like this.  But I’ve never let that stand in my way in attempting such an absorbing wrestle.  Because many are searching for answers.

Let me start with this.  Let’s say when the emotions become explosive and they’re not owned by the person expressing them we’ve got a powder-keg.

Let me also put something out there from the get-go.  Most of the time I hold to this.  There is usually a big difference between the explosiveness of male and female emotions.  Men predominantly, when explosive, leave women feeling unsafe — in terms of their most basic security and mortality.  If a man feels unsafe it is likelier his security is rocked at a level of the ego and identity — which, whilst that’s central to who he is — is not on the same level as issues related to life and death.

I concede this is a bias, which I believe is justifiable for several layers of reason.  You may disagree with that, and that’s your right, but if we’re talking safe coupled relationships, we need to ensure Maslow’s Hierarchy holds — the more basic human needs trump the higher needs.  Everyone has the most fundamental right to survive their relationship.  Surviving comes before thriving.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s focus first on the central matter of owning the emotions.  I cannot put this any simpler than this: you and I MUST own our emotions.  They’re ours.

Just so this is kept fair and it doesn’t become something pointed at ‘others’, let me stay in the first and second person, and resist going to the third-person singular (him/her) or plural (they/them).

The moment we blame someone else for making us feel enraged or for our responding in a violating way is the moment several things begin to happen: 

Þ           a loss of control occurs, and safety risks are registered, and trauma triggers are activated — this occurs because the situation is completely unregulated; rules of fairness are chucked out the window

Þ           we cause the other person to lose hope that justice will ever occur

Þ           we redouble the initial abuse of being enraged or of violating them by excusing such behaviour and thereby giving ourselves reason and, indeed, future permission to behave this way

Þ           we are put in charge of a body, mind and being that isn’t ours, and we cannot possibly control those things — most of us have enough difficulty managing our own body, mind and being

Þ           we make it the other person’s responsibility to fix us — look up the ‘external locus of control’ — this is a state of disempowerment where the person blaming others throws away their own capacity to address their issues (only each person, themselves, can address them — we all MUST maintain an internal locus of control)

Þ           co-dependent partners, where applicable, will absorb the blame unfairly

Þ           and, perhaps saddest of all, reconciliation at that moment has no hope

This is list is non-exhaustive.  I’ve stopped at seven things I could think of quickly.

The enormous caveat to this is out-an-out abuse.  When a person attacks us to the point of our feeling scared for our life, we WILL feel emotional — actually, trauma is occurring.  Those who are abused cannot be blamed for capitulating in their emotions.

The greatest gauge of emotionality in terms of abuse is around violence.  Abusers operate in ways that are violent toward the other/s.  The abused respond in ways that are often violent toward themselves.  The abuser is also capable of self-harm, too.

Also, the one who apologises most/best is least likeliest to be the abuser.  Abusers, in not owning their feelings and behavior, also do not own their need to apologise — a huge part of which is to turn from the abusive behavior through a program of recovery.

One of the trickier areas in all this is when an abuser will point their finger at the victim of the abuse and accuse them of being violent.  But if an abuser ‘responds’ to this level of engagement by means of violence they have no defense.

Photo by Anh Nguyen on Unsplash