Back in 1989, when I was a senior in high school (Class of 1990!), I took a psych course. Even back then, over ten years before the turn of the century, scientists were realizing the impact of verbal and emotional abuse on the developing brain. Yet now, decades later, both the medical profession and society at large still cling to the childhood jingle, “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.”
The truth is that words have power and weight. Like any weapon when wielded with the intent to cause harm they can do great damage. The strength of them reverberates through us. A podcaster I listen to is fond of saying that the right word at the right time can transform a life. The flip side is also true. The wrong words at the wrong time can destroy a life. Words can build us up. But they can also tear us dowdown.
The American Academy of Pediatrics definition of the psychological maltreatment of children is: “Psychological maltreatment of children occurs when a person conveys to a child that he or she is worthless, flawed, unloved, unwanted, endangered, or only of value in meeting another’s needs.” Neuroimaging in experiments conducted by scientists Naomi L. Eisenberger, Ethan Kross, and others, show that the same circuitry in the brain associated with physical pain is activated when we feel emotional pain.
I grew up in a stable and loving home environment. It was all quite enviable. But I also grew up with a relentless repetition of my flaws. A constant litany of the many things about me that would never be good enough. I was a B student in an A+ family and I was reminded of it often. I didn’t just fall short in academia, but in athletics, talent, looks, and temperament.
Shy and anxious where my siblings and cousins were outgoing and charismatic. Struggling with math while they were pulled into advanced courses. A perfect victim who easily became emotional. On the losing team while they won trophies and awards. I could go on. And on and on. Friendless, bullied, teased, and an overall disappointment.
The neurons in our brains connect by attaching to thoughts and memory. This forms the neural net from which we build our concept of the world and of ourselves. For those of us who grew up in homes in which we were devalued, criticized, or simply ignored our neural pathways may have developed to include deeply ingrained patterns of negative self-talk, self-doubt, and other negative internalization. Even if we are also loved.
The power of verbal antipathy is greater than the physical, verbal, and emotional expression of love. A group of researchers found that having a parent who was loving and verbally supportive did not offset the effects of a parent who was verbal aggressive. Additionally, having a parent that was both verbally aggressive and verbally affectionate didn’t lessen the effect of the verbal aggression. In fact, the uncertainty of not knowing whether to expect words of affection or abuse may worsen the situation.
In my case I was absolutely secure in my parents love. I just didn’t think they liked me very much. My parents, my family weren’t trying to hurt me. They loved me the best way they knew how, by passing down what they learned from their own parents. My mom’s relationship with her own mother, a woman who struggled with empathy, was complex. For those who don’t have that foundation of love the pain is that much harder to navigate. Particularly if the abuse was deliberate.
Deliberately inflicted emotional or physical pain hurts more. I’m not going to go into a pain comparison battle. Comparing pain, rating oppression, it tells us that we don’t have the right to feel the way we do because there are other people who have it worse. And, no matter what we have endured, there is always someone who has it worse. It’s a bullshit undermining tactic telling us our pain lacks validity.
The fact, however, is things done with intent carry more weight. If someone bumps into us by accident we brush it off. If they do so on purpose we feel hyper aware. Our understanding of a person’s motivation affects how much physical pain we feel in a very literal sense. On top of any physical discomfort are other negative emotions like confusion and rage. For those who grow up in environments of calculated abuse the journey to healing can be that much harder.
Regardless of intent emotional abuse in childhood can affect memory and the regulation of emotion. Medical imaging of the brain shows that the medial prefrontal cortex, important for the functioning of cognition and behaviour, is smaller in size in people who have endured emotional abuse. A member of the department of psychiatry at Harvard, Martin Teicher, in scanning the brains of two hundred subjects found that the volumes of three areas of the hippocampus were diminished by up to 6.5% in people who suffered abuse, including verbal abuse, in early childhood.
PhD student Anne-Laura van Harmelen of Leiden University measured brain activity in test subjects while they were shown photos of different facial expressions. The amygdala of emotionally abused ppeople was more active. The amygdala, part of the lizard brain, is our fear center. It controls the way we react to stimuli that we see as potentially threatening or dangerous. The results suggest that emotionally abused people react to all faces as a threat, even those with positive expressions.
As with physical forms of abuse when suffering verbal aggression the brain goes into survival mode, realigning itself and forming pathways to navigate a stressful and often painful environment. This is in no small part because the circuitry for physical and emotional pain appears to be the same. Yet, despite studies showing that verbal aggression literally changes the structure of our developing brains, as a culture we, Americans, Westerners, are fiercely unwilling to recognize the powerful effect of verbal animosity.
In addition there is the legal doctrine called the the eggshell skull rule – also called the thin skull rule – that essentially means you take your victim as you find them. A defendant cannot rely on a victim’s frailty to avoid liability. So, if I cause a car accident and the other person sustains more damage than they might otherwise have because they have weak knees, too bad. Sucks to be me.
Verbal aggression and abuse are internalized. It can influence the shape of our inner worlds. We end up torturing ourselves with an inner barrage of negativity. We think of ourselves as not good enough, unattractive, perceiving every mistake as a failure. We take ourselves for granted dismissing our successes. Instead we tell ourselves we are stupid, that we are worthless. Being an introvert with a powerful and engrossing inner world may make verbal abuse infinitely more damaging. On top of this I believe having words of affirmation as one of my love languages makes me more vulnerable to to the negative voices in my head. Sucks to be me.
On the plus side it also means that when my inner critic is adjusted to become more supportive I will benefit exponentially. As I’ve written about in Visualize this!, Twisted, and a half dozen other posts, the brain is elastic. Neuroplasticity means that we can alter our brains right up until the day we die. (Maybe after!) It’s just really fucking hard. So how do we speak to ourselves like we would someone we care about?
Be aware. This is harder than it seems. Most of us know the voices in our heads are there but we’ve actually spent years, perhaps decades, trying to shut them out. Our best reaction to them is to stick our fingers in our ears and chant, na na na na na! Certainly not to track and (shudder) listen!
But it is important to hear, to understand, visualize our inner critic. It’s easier to strike down something solid than some nebulous poltergeist fucking with our heads.
Once we are aware of our inner critic, once we have given it substance, if we decide it is malevolent it is time to begin the process of transforming it into something kinder. Something more caring.
Years ago I read an article or a study or a paper about schizophrenia. In the article it noted that people with schizophrenia in “the West” were more likely to hear negative, hostile voices than those outside of the West.
People outside of the West were better able to negotiate with and control the voices. Westerners thought of the voices as an internal evil to be vanquished. People outside of the West thought of the voices as external forces capable of being negotiated with.
If battling the inner critic works for us, it works. But it’s okay to treat that voice like an external part of ourselves. Something that can be negotiated with, transformed, or, if necessary, excised.
So, what do we want to transform that voice into? Who inspires us, builds us up? This can be someone actually in our lives, someone fictional, or a voice from history. Anyone from a mentor to Michele Obama to Spiderman as long as we can talk to them.
This will be hard. Re-wiring our brains to create new, more functional neural pathways for ourselves ourselves is change on a most intimate level. Change, significant change of any kind, involves a lot of complicated feelings, debate, disagreement, uncertainty, and old fashioned leaps of faith. Which is why our brains perceive change as bad. We crave control and security over the chaos of even positive change. It’s a struggle.
The goal is to find the balance between liking who we are right now and taking on the formidable task of progressing towards bettering ourselves. To change our self perceptions in order to create beneficial changes in our brains. To make our lives more functional and, ultimately, greater.
Speaking to ourselves with kindness and love harnesses the neuroplasticity of our brains and helps us to create change in our worlds. One thing that might make things easier is figuring out not just what we want to hear, but how we need to hear it. That’s where marriage counselor Gary Chapman’s five emotional love languages come into play. According to Dr. Chapman there are five ways that people speak and understand emotional love though within each language there are many dialects. The five languages are: words of affirmation, quality time, physical gifts, acts of service, physical touch.
One of the things that I will say on repeat is those of us with a toxic inner critic speak to ourselves in ways in which we would never speak to someone we love. In talking to ourselves utilizing a love language that we connect with more viscerally we can hopefully take self care to a higher level.
Words of affirmation are words that build up rather than tear down. Compliments or words of acknowledgement can convey a deep sense of appreciation. These are best spoken aloud so feel free to talk to yourself. Lord knows I do. Quality time means paying attention to yourself. A good way to fo this is through physical meditation. Take five minutes, twenty minutes, an hour, to just focus on ourselves, our bodies, how we feel inside and out. This could be yoga or tai chi, but it could also mean going for a run or a walk. Preferably outside and without headphones.
The third love language is the receiving of physical gifts. Gifts are symbols. If our love language is gifts we need to reward ourselves. The important part is not the gift itself but what it represents. This includes the act of actually getting the gift not just the giving of it. We need to choose what we give ourselves with the same compassion and insight with which we give gifts to others.
Acts of service is the fourth language of love. In our relationship with ourselves they are the things that require thought, planning, time, effort and energy. For example, I enjoy cooking for my husband. I like watching him eat and enjoy something I have prepared. P.K. (prekid) I would plan out months worth of menus during which I would rarely repeat a dish. For me, this is an expression of love. One I rarely extend to myself. When my husband is away I am more likely to eat a warmed up frozen dinner in front of my kindle app. I don’t give myself the care and attention I give the people I love. Obviously, this needs to change.
The last love language is touch. Touch is important to humans. The lack thereof can literally kill us. Even those of us who have an aversion to being touched by strangers crave the feel of those we love. One of the great frustrations for those with sensory issues is how to get that feeling of giving and getting touch without actually enduring being touched.
So, how do we touch ourselves? Well, there’s the obvious, which I heartily encourage. 😎😉 Masturbation is a way to get to know our self, our body, and to understand our desires and needs. When it comes to the self physical touch can also include the indulgence in physical sensations from the choice of a particularly rich lotion to a bath or steam to materials that feel good against our skin.
All of the different love language tests I took scored me high on physical touch and spoken/words of affirmation. On the official site I also scored high on the need for quality time. Receiving gifts came last for me. This does not mean that acts of service and receiving gifts are unimportant. I just need to focus less time and energy on those areas when engaging in self care.
A supportive innner voice activates neural reward pathways and may even improve problem-solving by enabling us to view events from a reasonable, considered, and rational viewpoint thereby reducing defensive responses to threatening information and events. A positive inner voice, rather than dripping poison reminds us of important aspects of the self, of self-integrity, making us better able to deal with negative interactions like prejudice, discrimination, and social impairment.
Converting that voice in our heads to be more positive is good for multiple reasons. Focusing on the positive over the negative makes us feel good. When we are feeling vulnerable positive self talk can protect us from the pain of criticism and failure by reminding us that we have value. Last it can help us regulate our emotions. Changing the way we speak to ourselves can lead to better health, greater happiness, hopefulness, and even a lower likelihood of cognitive impairment. Put simply, a healthier inner voice leads a healthier mind and a healthier body. A healthier life.
https://anniewrightpsychotherapy.com/neuroplasticity/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3103978/
https://www.avoicefortheinnocent.org/emotional-abuse-brain/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/tech-support/201602/5-things-everyone-must-understand-about-verbal-abuse
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/feb/13/childhood-abuse-growth-brain-emotions
https://www.iamexpat.nl/expat-info/dutch-expat-news/emotional-abuse-negatively-affects-our-brains
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/turning-straw-gold/201502/how-talk-yourself
http://brandonhawk.com/talk-kindly-to-yourself/
https://www.positivityblog.com/kindness/
https://www.mother.ly/child/how-a-parents-affection-shapes-a-childs-happiness-for-life