Each of us has experienced it before. We are not talking about swearing or fights, but about insults and humiliation.

The feelings that emerge are first anger, then aggression, then depression, followed by a feeling of unspeakable disgust, something that can not be forgotten or remedied, except after many years or centuries ...

The fact that before 150 years the insult was considered something that could only be washed away by blood, either its own or the enemy, it was not without justification.

Deadly gun

"You don't have to answer," "you have to forgive," "don't drop to enemy level." Lots of wise advice, backed by strange parables, explain to us how correctly respond to an insult. Yet there are laws that punish for libel. So, is not it easier to leave and surrender forgiveness? Let him calmly offend us. They are offended today, they will strike tomorrow and kill the day after tomorrow.

Yes, they have always been, and are noble, people who disregarded the indignation, and through them became stronger and better. But an ordinary person first feels an influx of adrenaline that increases pressure and affects blood circulation, and then starts another chemical reaction.

At the same time, it is as if they hit you with a baton in your head. This was convincingly proven by psychophysiologists' attempts. One has a second signaling system that reacts to verbal communication and emotional behavior.

When she started a newspaper rush on Boris Pasternak, he first had a heart attack and then contracted lung cancer, eventually dying in pain. The cancer had spread just as the letters of Soviet citizens, which were full, began to be published the righteous anger and offenses of this kind:

"I didn't read Pasternak's verses, but I saw a frog in the mud making a disgusting croak. The same croaking can be heard from Pasternak as he slanders our homeland… "

I think that envious poets in the XVIII. century also significantly shortened the life of the great Lomonosov. Try to imagine (perhaps rather not) what one feels when reading such verses:

"At least he closed his drunken maw, with the volette hanging; Don't you want to take a keg of beer with you to the world? Do you think that you will be as lucky in the future as you are now and that you will be in favor, care and safety for many? ”

Anger and undisguised envy erupted from Teryakovsky's pen, his need to be humiliated as painfully as possible. The verses will go away on their own, but the insult is at the level of a grocer, a professional.

Offenses on the battlefield

Earlier, the battle on the battlefields began with mutual insults. After all, today it is the same. It is an attempt to humiliate, crush, upset and provoke the opponent so much that he is not able to think soberly and react and thus increase his chances of destroying him in combat. It is no coincidence that expressions such as an offense of honor and the battlefield was also called honor field, where insults were used in ancient times together with fists, slingshots, halberds and firearms.

Insults and humiliation are also used to suppress and disrupt personality, which will sooner or later disrupt the psychic defenses and turn a person into a trembling wreck. Constant humiliation can kill without the need for physical contact. The result will be the same as with daily wound infections.

By the way, in America they began to take insults very seriously. Sometimes it leads to comic extreme; fat people must not be labeled as fat, but horizontally developed. And the one who fails (loser) is recommended to be called a person with delayed success. This problem is solved there at the government level…

Wedge wedge

So how do you deal with insults? I suppose that the question itself is answered by the organism itself, by tumultuous biochemical and psychophysical reactions, which depend to a very small extent on our conscious intervention. Therefore, wise sayings and philosophical aphorisms lose their effectiveness in a moment of appreciable humiliation. Those who insult also take enough risks cannot know what reaction your brain will elicit.

Sigmund Freud was a great psychologist and an educated person, one of his journeys by train, when he was in the wagon, the doctor opened the window.

One of the fellow travelers began to protest, and not only to protest, called Freud the Jewish muzzle and he gave it to other similarly offensive expressions. At first glance, it was well thought out, the Nazis were almost in power, the concentration camps were to be set up soon, and here is an older man with a vise and a hat, what could he do?

To the great surprise of all present, Freud exploded in such a way and embraced the rude with a furious barrage of words that he decided to save with an escape.

In a way, I like the behavior of a psychologist, in the given context it turns out to be the most correct and effective.

In addition, Freud, as a psychiatrist, knew very well that repressed aggression turned into depression, followed by aggression against oneself.

Psychosomatic illnesses arise as a result of autoaggression. Suppressed emotions cause arthritis, cause a heart attack and cause cancer problems… People are becoming more and more sick as they become prisoners morals of the double meter. On the one hand, we are taught that we should forgive and not react to insults, on the other hand, the image of a hero spitting in the face of a fascist is before us as a model!

If one is offended and humiliated, one should act appropriately, taking into account the conditions and personality of the opponent. The first reaction is always conditioned by a massive release of adrenaline, so it is necessary to pause for a while and withdraw from the situation. One is disoriented at first and it is difficult for him to find the right words.

Take care to supply oxygen to the brain, take a deep breath and exhale. Then decide whether to fight or wait for a more appropriate moment. In any case, it is possible and necessary to express your feelings immediately, but as a neutral message: "What you say offends me, you hurt me, I don't know how to react yet, but I think."

This, of course, concerns people we know. Sometimes, unfortunately, our loved ones. Regarding strangers, other rules apply, everything depends on where the power is.

The best antidote

One of the patients told me an instructive story. When she was a teenager, her friend insulted her: “Why do you still describe yourself and do you? You will not be any better! "

The girl knew very well that the girl had a complex of her appearance, because they confided each other and hit the painful place.

Basically, nothing so terrible happened, humor of the same kind as in Tredyakovsky… But the girl felt strong mental pain and remembered these words for the rest of her life.

She grew up and some time passed, in the 50's she had her own fashion salon, a company that organized celebrations and her family. And also a decent car with which she drove a hitchhiking woman in the rain and cold.

Better said, old woman. With great surprise and horror, she met her classmate and friend. She calculated for a long time all the calamities that had befallen her, complained about her life, and drew alcohol from her. When they arrived at the place without recognizing her, she began to force money on her. And when my patient didn't accept them, she threw the bills in her face and tried to insult her again. But this time the woman did not feel any humiliation, it just didn't work!

I am absolutely convinced that the best answer to those who want to hurt you in this way is your health and satisfaction with their lives. We remember proverbs from early childhood Whoever handles what is missing is also missing, jif it is called into the forest, it is called from the forest. Everything returns, and deliberately pronounced evil and deadly words in particular.

After all, if Paternak hadn't just read the workers' letters full of anger and poison, but had sacrificed some money on the envelopes and returned them with brief notes, he wouldn't have gotten sick.

And if we do not have a return address, which prevents us from writing the answer in the spirit, seal it in an imaginary envelope, or write on the keyboard and send it enemyeven if nowhere? Even in this way, we can react to humiliation, and that is exactly what our body needs. So come on, start acting, even if on a mental level, between us, sometimes it's easier and more effective with it than on a material level.