I have found myself feeling so angry recently. Not only angry but tense, agitated, sad and at times, feeling despair and feeling powerless.
It is every time I am hit by a reminder of what is going on in the world at the moment. The rampant sexism, casual dismissal of and violence towards women. The racism, the homophobia. Not only this but the very fact it is being actively condoned and put forward by people in power.
Then there is the hopelessness of it. We are talking about completely unreasonable people whose views and ideas are awful, but not only that, they are people who cannot be argued with or reasoned with, because they are not interested in having a reasonable discussion. They deflect, they obfuscate, or sometimes they just say things that are just bizarre and which have no founding.
This is how bullies work. I see it all the time in my work as a therapist (and my time as a human being). Whether it is a boss, a family member or a partner, I see my clients being faced with completely unreasonable and hurtful behaviour, and feeling lost or powerless in the face of it.
When you are a reasonable person, typically you want to respond to things by understanding, by talking things through. You might have a tendency to want to believe that there is good in people and that there must be some reasoning to be had. Typically, reasonable people are also much less comfortable with conflict, with shouting, shutting other people down or being outright rude.
With a reasonable person, you can have a reasonable conversation when you disagree on something. When you are faced with an unreasonable person, reasonable approaches simply don’t work. They seem to want something from you and you do it, and it still isn’t good enough or they claim to have asked for something else. You try to talk to them about what is going on and they blame you, start off on a tangent about something completely unrelated or just start yelling over you. It is like fighting a cloud. You can swing but you can’t seem to land any blows and the cloud keeps on being a cloud.
A barrier to doing something or saying something is not wanting to be like them. Not wanting to be angry or aggressive, so you just sit there and you take it and you swallow all your rage.
When this happens, I will often talk about the fact that to break out of this feeling of powerlessness and confusion starts with letting go of the need to be reasonable. That doesn’t mean suddenly becoming someone you don’t like or being aggressive or violent. Instead it means being solid, and not getting dragged in to the endless strange game they want to play. For me, that means rather than trying to understand their position or to reason it out or debate it, instead, just acknowledge that you see things differently and stating what your position is.
“I know you think this is a small thing and I shouldn’t be upset, but I am telling you that I don’t think it is OK to speak to someone this way.”
“I know you think this is acceptable, but I am telling you that it is not.”
“You can hold those beliefs all you like, but I do not agree with you and never will.”
“I appreciate you might think this is a small thing, but to me it is not.”
“You might think you have good reason, but that doesn’t change the fact that this behaviour is not acceptable.”
The mistake we make with unreasonable people is when we keep trying to convince them with reasoned conversation, but that is what makes us feel powerless and frustrated, so it just leaves us feeling like we can’t say anything.
Stop thinking about it in terms of trying to convince, educate or reason. Just think about stating solidly and firmly what is OK and what is not. They are likely to remain just as unreasonable so this isn’t about getting them to hear you. It is about not getting sucked into their endless game, not letting them steal your voice, and standing solid in your own position, so you don’t get dragged around.
Thanks for reading. Until next week,
Ted
P.S. I do have positive influences too, and a good deal of that comes from you lot. To have consistent reminders that there are decent, caring people in the world is a big deal. So thank you for that.
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