Yelling, Hitting, and Lying
glowing electrical plugs on a black background
I'm not going to sit here and say you should never yell, lie, or hit. I have done my share of each. The reason I can sleep at night and not be burdened by these things is because I did them right. It’s hard to know when these things are okay because upbringing and society have really strong ideas about their acceptability. Abusers and boundary breakers also have their own sets of rules complete with moving goalposts and self-victimization to try and shift the blame for their bad behavior to you when you get fed up and push back so it is best to be ready to defend your actions should you get pushed to these points.
If you’ve had trauma, it can be harder than normal to tell if someone is meaning to hurt you or if there’s a miscommunication. It’s harder to tell if this is a real threat or if you are triggered by past abuses. Your body may be having responses but that doesn’t always mean those responses match the reality and intentions of everyone else involved. Part of healing is learning to regulate those responses again, or maybe even for the first time ever if you had preverbal trauma. It takes a new perspective, purposeful training, compassionate reinforcement, and celebration of successes.
Yelling
a yelling monkey
Yelling implies multiple levels of escalation. When someone is pushing to hard you can choose more stern words, change your tone, raise your voice, and more before getting to the point where you feel a need to yell. Sometimes a transgression is obviosly so egregious or in need of immediate correction that yelling immediately is completely appropriate. Even screaming sometimes. This makes me weary of people who say it is never okay to yell and scream because that implies they think they should get to do whatever and you have to suppress your completely valid responses to their out-of-line behavior as if they can do no wrong. These people believe they should exist with impunity and do whatever they want, your dissatisfaction with their behavior is a “you” problem. That’s not how anything works though.
If someone breaks a boundary that makes you uncomfortable, clearly state that, and change your tone so they know it is serious. If it keeps happening, escalate. If someone is doing something that is causing you real tangible damage and needs to stop now, yell. Yelling helps you regulate the fight or flight response in your nervous system. It literally expels the chemicals their actions are dumping in your body. If you are relatively stable (not in active PSTD where chemicals are flowing uncontrolled and unrelated to them) then this is perfectly justifiable. It is an important tool handed down by evolution to help us control the body’s response to extreme stress. Under the right conditions, it is Good for you.
Not only can it be good for you when wielded properly, but it also serves the vital function of a visceral reminder when it is time for adjustments to your relationships. If you find yourself having to repeatedly yell to be taken seriously or heard, it may be time to reconsider what you are doing there. Sometimes it happens that someone misunderstands a boundary as a joke, especially if it was not known in the past to be a boundary. But if there are multiple transgressions, yelling can make it undoubtedly clear. Yelling can also get another person back into their body well enough to realize they aren’t actually understanding the words you say, but just hearing what they want. The added emphasis can cause reevaluation. But if someone plows through these attempts on your part or changes briefly just to continue on again later, then you may want to walk away before your body feels justified in escalating further.
Lying
pinochio doll with long nose
As an Autistic person, I have feelings about lying. We know from research that Autistic people lie less than the general population due partly to interpreting social expectations literally and not believing that deception is particularly productive to good communication. And in general, lying isn’t great for secure attachment or direct and effective communication. If you lie about being uncomfortable the air never gets cleared and your fears can make you miss out on a lot in life. Conversely, if you tell the truth about being uncomfortable, even if someone lies in their response, they may show their hand and give you valuable information to work with.
Personally, I find lying to be sacred. It can drastically impact my life and how I am viewed by others and myself. Therefore, I try really hard not to do it. It simply isn’t worth it to me… unless I or someone else is in danger. In case you have never been told this: if you are in danger, lie. Say whatever you need to find an end to the situation where you can leave unscathed. It helps to not have a reputation of being a liar in these moments, just something to consider for how you carry yourself as you move about the world.
Assuming you didn’t violate some major boundaries, no one has the right to put you in a position where you have to fear being hurt. I have lied to my abusers to get away and would again in a heartbeat. I feel no remorse for that. That grounding is also probably why if you ask if I like something you changed and I don’t I will just find something else I do like to compliment. Lying is too important to me.
Recently in my life, this manifested as a friend standing in my kitchen, talking about his recent trip to get married to a woman I know treats him poorly. I did not offer congratulations on his marriage because how can I imply “so exciting that you legally bound yourself to someone you say loses control and hits you”? I couldn’t, so instead we talked about every other detail of the trip and the honesty hung in the air. It can be hard not to get the reinforcement we want from the outside world on the stories we tell ourselves, but it matters and should be reflected upon. Whether it guides you to new social circles or change in whatever direction, there is important information there.
The lies we tell ourselves matter. Especially the ones we tell ourselves about our status as victims. It can be all too easy to start from a place of hurt, and spin stories and realities that reinforce our darkest fears. Whether it stems in named pathology, fear, or a moment of weakness, it can all lead us to very isolating places. People will begin to notice the patterns of your inconsistencies over time. If you constantly rewrite your reality to make it appear you had no agency, no other choices, no one who was there to help, the people who bear witness and are standing there to help will become jaded and focus their efforts elsewhere because they aren’t being respected. Words are energy and energy is an exchange. It is a lot to ask someone to have their efforts minimized and dismissed so you can serve your own fears that only exist in your head. It isn’t fair and will only lead you to dark places. Best to be truthful with yourself.
Hitting
a hanging punching bag
Plenty of people will tell you it’s never okay to hit but then will smack a child’s hand when they overstep or put themselves in danger, or they believe in punching nazis, or in the death penalty. If you want to act with integrity and principle in an effort not to go too far or get in legal trouble, then it means you need to find alignment in your beliefs.
I know that hitting is sometimes the only thing that will get someone’s attention. I do not want to do it but I will if it is necessary to protect myself or someone else who is being hurt. I believe in using only the necessary force to end the situation and keep myself safe. It is not my preference though. I actually mean this so much that I learned to restrain people really well when I was in a situation where I had no control over family members that lacked emotional control and hit frequently. I got really good at grabbing arms and pinning the offender to the ground, sitting on them, and breathing really loudly and slowly to walk them through calming themselves down. I would just stay on top of them until they were calm enough to tell me they were done.
It is something I never should have had to learn, I deserved to be safe, but looking back on it, I find the way my teenage self learned to deal with this genius and very funny. She was not going to stoop and found the best way she could to teach everyone else in the room that hitting her was going to just end up embarrassing them, because I did make fun of them too.
As time went on, as I reached adulthood, everyone who enabled that and participated was removed from my life at my earliest possible convenience. That part is important. When your life changes and you can be surrounded by better, move on. I am grateful for the lessons learned from the hardships. I am grateful that I found a part of me that I can celebrate. When pushed too far, I can still find ways that work for my values and healing through humor. It changed other people for the better in a roundabout way that it wouldn’t have if I played their maladaptive game. But should I have had to? No.
Assuming you haven’t created a situation where you hurt someone else and this is just coming back around to bite you, you do not have to tolerate the abuses of others. You do not owe them lowering yourself to the status of becoming their punching bag. You also do not have to tolerate people believing they can constantly push you to the brink, purposely dysregulating your nervous system, because that too is violence. This is obviously all complicated, but the point is that you have to be grounded and honest with yourself when you act or it will cost you. Causing permanent damage, charges, loss of autonomy, loss of relationships or opportunities, self-respect, and much much more can be the cost of losing control here. So if you can - try other ways first, but if you are in danger, do not hesitate to protect yourself in whatever ways you can.
I want to end on this - my dad was the only person in my immediate family who didn’t hit growing up. His parents raised him to not hit, to even be the bigger person, and to walk away when others act out. To never stoop to their level because plenty of people just want to see you fall. But, they did not teach him to accept being endangered because someone else chose to lose control. Like my grandparents taught my dad, and my dad taught me, if you hit, you just need to be prepared to end whatever is happening, so you don’t make it worse for yourself.
If you yell, be ready for the consequences. If you lie, be ready for the consequences. If you hit, be ready for the consequences. You are the only one who is responsible for your actions. Other people may push you, but you are the one who is going to have to be able to explain yourself. If you want to be able to sleep at night, it better make sense.
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This is not legal, medical, or life advice. It is things to consider based off of a complicated life experience and observation. Only you can make choices for yourself, especially when yelling, lying, and hitting. You will bear the consequences, so make sure the reasoning is your own.
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