We’ve all met them at least once in our lives: People who can do everything better, people who always know more and praise themselves to the skies, while at the same time belittling and belittling others.
Ultra-super-mega-poisonous people who affect our self-confidence make us feel less valuable and incompetent.
In their opinion, each of our achievements is less valuable, each success is nothing compared to theirs and we do nothing right.
Parents, friends, acquaintances, co-workers or bosses at work- such people exist in every walk of life.
It is very easy to get angry and frustrated by people who behave this way.
It is easy to take their words to heart, to allow them to hurt and ‘paralyze’ us, to stop striving to achieve our dreams and desires.
Their words evoke in us not only anger but also self-doubt. So you have to ask yourself if this is real, if they are right, if you are really unfit.
What lies hidden in these people? Where does this need to hurt others to feel better come from??
Sometimes they do it unconsciously because humiliating and belittling others is essentially a desire to cover up personal shortcomings and mistakes. Such people feel superior when they humiliate others.
They strive to make their lives look better, more successful, unattainable and different, but in fact, deep down and in the depths of their hearts and souls, they are just hurt little children, insecure and dissatisfied with themselves and their lives.
So we need to dig a little deeper and find out what is behind their arrogant behavior when they hurt others to feel better about themselves.
So I’m going to try to bring you closer to what’s really going on in their heads and how unhappy they really are, so you can understand why they’re like that.
But first, we will think a little about the ways in which such people hurt others in order to feel better about themselves.
Condescending behavior doesn’t always have to be direct
First, we’ll look at how people put you through the ringer. There are the subtle ways and the obvious ways that they do it.
The obvious ways would be to criticize you negatively, to humiliate you in front of others, to insult and ridicule you.
It’s the subtle ways people talk down to you that are more interesting and attention worthy.
Because this subtle way can go on for a long time, even months of years without you noticing until you just start to lose your confidence and self-love.
What are these subtle ways?
1. They are not happy about your success
When we achieve something we have wanted for a long time, we are overwhelmed by a massive happiness that we cannot wait to share with others.
However, when we notice that others don’t share our happiness, it’s like they’ve given us a cold shower.
To be able to truly rejoice in the happiness of another person means that you have nothing to reproach yourself for.
That you yourself are happy and content with your life and that someone else’s happiness and success is not a thorn in your side, but something to look forward to.
2. The positive sentence always contains a ‘but
• “You’re a very intelligent person, but…"
But, but, but.. Even if you are praised for what you accomplished, they will always add the other side. Either that it could have been better or that it wasn’t exactly that great.
They package their personal opinions as well-intentioned advice, and in fact behind it is a mountain of negative feelings directed at you.
3. Interrupting in the middle of a sentence
Respect, as an integral part of any healthy interpersonal relationship, consists of listening to what a person has to say and respecting his or her opinion, even if we don’t agree with it.
It is logical and natural that there will be disagreements. If it didn’t exist, there would be no discussions and it wouldn’t be interesting.
The subtle way people hurt others to feel better about themselves is by not respecting other people’s opinions at all.
For example, if you talk about a new business idea you discovered or your promotion, the person who wants to put you down won’t let you finish your story.
She will start a completely different topic and interrupt you mid-sentence because she doesn’t want to hear about your successes.
Both direct and indirect ways of hurting other people’s feelings and belittling them are a sign of disrespect and something no one should tolerate, no matter who it is.
Before I tell you the best way to deal with this, let’s try to understand together why people feel the need to make other people feel like slugs.
10 reasons why people hurt others to feel better about themselves
The reasons for such behavior may be buried in early childhood. In childhood we are shaped the most. We absorb everything around us like sponges and even then our personality is already forming.
Naturally affect during adolescence, school age, etc. different positive and negative experiences shape our personality and what kind of adults we will become.
At this stage it is very important to stimulate the development of the child’s self-esteem.
If the child does not get enough attention and love, he becomes an insecure person suffering from lack of self-confidence, trying to compensate for this, which leads us to reason number 1:
1. Lack of self-esteem
Although at first glance they seem like people who are full of self-confidence and self-love, they are actually empty deep down and dissatisfied with themselves.
A person who is at peace with himself will neither look for faults in others nor emphasize them, because he himself is aware that he also has faults.
He has a healthy self-image and accepts himself as he is and thus others.
On the other hand, people with low self-esteem try to cover it up by making others small and themselves big make.
Then they feel superior and great for at least a few moments, which gives them a short-lived sense of satisfaction, but the inner emptiness still remains.
2. Envy and jealousy
Because of their low self-esteem, it hurts them when someone else lets the sun shine on their fur.
Instead of being motivated to work harder and strive for success, they reach for these mechanisms of belittlement to feel better about themselves because they are jealous and envious.
So their goal is to bring the other person down to their level by belittling their successes or happiness.
Yes, it’s vicious, but it’s the only way they can get close to people who have what they want. Their motto is "If I can’t feel good about myself, neither can you".”
So when someone tries to put you down, remember that they may want to be just like you. So you might rather take it as a compliment.
3. The desire to be loved by other people
If someone insults or belittles you in the presence of others, it may be because they are seeking attention and validation and want to be liked by others.
They want to attract attention by making fun of others.
Behavior that is childish beyond measure, which we can see in teen movies. Every adult, mature person knows, That this is neither fun nor interesting, but highly undesirable and repulsive.
4. Revenge
Not necessarily to get back at you when a person humiliates you, but generally to people who may have hurt them in this way once in their life.
Maybe she didn’t have a chance to give counterattack at that time and now she is compensating some things from the past by this behavior.
5. The desire for control
belittling other people and talking down their success gives some people a sense of superiority and control. In this way, they feel as if they dominate over that person and their feelings.
Some people have grown up with very little control over their lives, often due to childhood difficulties or trauma.
For example, many bullies were or are bullied themselves and in order to regain that sense of control "hit" they lash out at someone they perceive as weaker.
6. Protective mechanism
This can only build on the previous one, as many people do not know how to deal with emotions properly due to bad experiences from childhood and life.
Like how boys in kindergarten most often pick on girls they like.
In this way, they don’t want to show their true feelings, but actually build a protective wall around themselves that consists of just this kind of hurt.
7. Lack of empathy
Empathy means being happy when another is happy, grieving when another is grieving, and generally having an understanding of other people’s feelings. Some people simply suffer from a lack of empathy.
They cannot put themselves in another’s shoes, so they appear to be cold.
They believe that their ideas are the best, that their knowledge is the most accurate, and that their beliefs are correct, and they condemn those who oppose their views.
Such people tend to hurt people by talking about or doing something that offends them without even realizing it.
Although they appear arrogant, rude and selfish, unfortunately such people have grown up in an environment where they have not learned what it means to empathize.
8. Manipulation
Offending and destroying another person’s self-esteem is most often associated with narcissism because narcissists actually suffer from lack of self-love.
Narcissists are able to level another’s self-confidence to the ground in order to more easily manipulate that person and make them dependent on themselves.
The manipulation of feelings is therefore typically ‘narcissistic. Narcissists usually use all other tactics besides direct insults to hurt a person in order to feel better about themselves.
Therefore, they often take the role of a victim to provoke a guilty conscience in a person and all this is just a skillful manipulation to get what they want.
9. Pessimism
Has it ever happened to you that you are talking about plans for the future and someone tells you that it is going to fail anyway?
Maybe this person doesn’t necessarily think you’re a failure, but simply has a negative view of life and the world.
Some people are naturally pessimistic and don’t believe in good events.
Your words can be hurtful to the person, especially to someone who is enthusiastic and optimistic and has a lot invested in themselves, their career, or anything else.
But pessimists just can’t help themselves because they are obsessed with negative thinking and that’s why you can always hear lousy words from them.
10. Lack of social intelligence
As much as it is possible to suffer from a lack of empathy, it is also possible that some people suffer from a lack of social intelligence.
Believe me, there are people who just don’t know that some words are offensive and exaggerated.
It is possible that such people grew up in an environment where no attention was paid to how you speak or how you feel.
Insults and humiliation are therefore considered commonplace and "no big deal", while actually being very insulting to those around her.
Whatever the reason for such behavior, it’s not always easy to find an excuse and allow someone to fool us and play with our feelings.
Even if you are not a person of excessive offendedness, situations can arise that are just too hard for our ego to bear.
The first advice would always be to avoid such people and cut them out of your life, but unfortunately it doesn’t always work that easily.
So here are some tips on how you can best handle it:
1. Don’t react violently right away
The first emotions we feel when someone offends us are anger and rage. We would prefer, at this point, to measure ourselves with the same measure To get even worse, if not worse.
But with such a reaction we only provoke their behavior even more and make the situation worse. My advice is to stay calm. Take a deep breath and try to relax.
This way you will calm down and the stress you feel at the moment will decrease. You also have more time to think about how to behave and respond to slights.
2. Don’t stoop to their level
By humiliating and insulting that person, you are actually becoming like them and only making the whole situation worse.
Therefore, it is best to avoid such things and stay calm. So don’t lower yourself to their level and stay in tune with yourself.
3. Do not take it personally
In most cases the insult has nothing to do with you. As unbelievable as it sounds, but that’s how it is.
I’ve already listed the reasons that may be behind this and most of them are issues that are actually in the mind of the person who is hurting others to feel better about themselves.
Don’t let their words reach your heart and especially your thoughts, and as a result you start to develop a negative self-image.
4. Think about why you feel hurt
Why do we feel hurt is also a very good question. Is it because these words come from someone whose opinion we respect?
Or do we actually feel insecure about something ourselves, so painful words only come to us as confirmation of our self-doubt?
ÜConsider why it hurts you when someone criticizes you or makes a negative comment. If it’s something that makes you feel insecure, work on it. Develop and strengthen your self-love and build your self-confidence.
If you have that, no bad words will be able to hurt you.
5. Counter with humor
One way to overcome an insult in the moment is to laugh it off. That means if someone tries to put you down, just laugh it off.
You may still feel hurt inside, but laughing deflects the situation from being offensive and makes you feel at least a little better. That means it’s harder to get upset when you’re laughing.
For example, if someone says: “That’s a really ugly dress", you could say: "Yes, just like all my clothes!”
6. Ignore it
If it’s a person who isn’t important to you at all in life and whom you only meet because you have to, for example a colleague at work, then just ignore it.
It is not worth it at all to feel bad about the opinion of a person who is not important to you.
Offensive people enjoy seeing someone feel bad about them, which gives them room to move on.
By ignoring it, you block it out in advance and hopefully after some time this behavior will stop.
7. Talk to this person
On the other hand, it would be good to talk to her if you still consider this person important in any way.
Preferably in private, because that’s when they’re most vulnerable and not trying to attract attention from other people.
Say it bothers you and that you feel hurt. Calmly, normally, without anger and accusations. Perhaps this person is not aware that you have certain boundaries that he has crossed.
So try to be open with her about it. If the behavior continues after that, it is best to remove yourself from her and at least keep contact to a minimum.
8. Hang out with positive people
Spending time with people with a positive attitude is a great way to deal with stress and boost your confidence.
Positive people bring positive energy into our lives and make us forget the bad around us. Therefore you should surround yourself with people in whose presence you feel comfortable.
With people who are your ego boosters and will show you how valuable you really are.
Conclusion: People who hurt others to feel better often have problems of their own that they need to solve. Most of the time it has nothing to do with you, it has to do with their own insecurities.
So don’t always take it too seriously, but also don’t allow yourself to be someone’s outlet where they release all their negative energy.
In any case, strengthen your self-confidence and thus build a wall through which no insult or humiliation can reach you.