Healing Space | Saying things you don’t mean to

Note to readers: Healing Space is a weekly series that helps you dive into your mental health and take charge of your wellbeing through practical DIY self-care methods.

We’re constantly saying too much, using harsh words, or being meaner than we intend to be. The best example of this is in an argument with a spouse or partner or parent. We seek out someone’s vulnerabilities and their fears and push the buttons that will give us the most satisfying reaction. There are a number of reasons for this. Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud famously said there are no ‘slips of the tongue’ or parapraxis. Every word we say instead of another reveals an underlying emotion, it need not be an insult, this is true even when you call one child by another child’s name. It can indicate preference, hierarchy, proximity, and this is why sensitive children can get offended by what feels like an ‘honest mistake’ to you.

In an argument the limbic system, which is designed to protect us, adopts a posture of defence. It sets the body on high alert and prepares to take down what’s coming at us, the perceived threat. In an argument, this is typically the opponent’s words. The limbic system’s goal is to keep you safe, so it will retrieve from your arsenal whatever is most likely to disarm the opponent. That’s often the harshest thing you can say in the heat of the moment, what will certainly inflict pain. Ouch.

The defensiveness you use as a mode of attack often comes from an underlying fear, a need for self-protection. The limbic system is designed not to reveal your flaws. If you were being attacked, you wouldn’t want your enemy to know you were afraid. That would make you seem weak. Hence, you hide your flaws, uncertainties, weaknesses in that position. Your heart races and pulse pounds, muscles in your forehead, jawline, shoulders, and arms clench, maybe even your fingers and fists. Your posture is pumped to fight and you feel ‘confident’ but really ‘aggressive’. While this may protect you, it doesn’t allow you to find an end to the argument. Your brain is not looking for a solution, it is only looking for an escape route. Such arguments rarely end productively. They escalate with increasing barbs and insults thrown at each other until either side stands down defeated. This is what is meant by ‘ win the argument, lose a friend’. The cost is always the relationship because the wounds caused are too great.