Have you ever known families who are verbally abusive to each other?

bobcat

bobcat

Well-known Member
Location
Northern Calif
Perhaps with some, it may be a cultural thing, and nobody really takes it seriously. I'm fairly sure that we have all known some rather "interesting" families in terms of the way they communicate with each other. For some, yelling, and insults are just part of everyday conversation. If one grew up in that atmosphere, it seems likely that it would spill over into the way they converse with others. To them, combative conversation is just conversation. They simply don't notice how it sounds to others who didn't grow up that way.

Even in marital disagreements, many people get louder instead of improving their arguments, as if the loudest voice in the room wins. Arguments increase in intensity rather than skillful verbal exchanges. I used to live next door to a family like that, and there were times I thought it may turn into physical fights, but miraculously, as far as I know, they somehow managed to not kill each other. I have often wondered though, what became of the relationships those children may have had later in life.

I suppose it could be argued that so many of us spend half of our lives attempting to undo the psychological damage our parents have inadvertently bestowed upon us. Most likely, they didn't have the ideal family growing up either, so the blame doesn't rest entirely with them. Behavior can be so ingrained into our psyche that it just becomes who we are, and we just don't understand how others aren't that way. Family dynamics can really shape our personalities.
 

bobcat said:
many people get louder instead of improving their arguments, as if the loudest voice in the room wins.
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Unfortunately, the loudest voice in the room does win, I'm sorry to say. I'm certainly no expert on families having grown up in a disfunctional family and only associating while growing up with kids who also grew up in disfunctional families. (The kids who grew up in what at least seemed to be happy families didn't seem to want to associate with us unhappy-family kids.)

But it seems that more and more whole societies are run by the loudest voice in the room rather than the smartest (or certainly kindest one, kindness being thought of as weakness) one. This quote sums it up:

"...the people in charge don’t have a great track record for solving problems. Most people are B and C students. There are a few brainiacs...but they’re generally not the ones in charge. Think high school. The jocks ran the show. Same thing now. Get a bunch of people together to solve a problem and it’s not the smartest guy who does the talking. It’s the loudest."
~~from This Plague of Days - Season One by Robert Chazz Chute
 

bobcat said:
. . . many of us spend half of our lives attempting to undo the psychological damage our parents have inadvertently bestowed upon us. Most likely, they didn't have the ideal family growing up either, so the blame doesn't rest entirely with them. Behavior can be so ingrained into our psyche that it just becomes who we are, and we just don't understand how others aren't that way. Family dynamics can really shape our personalities.
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YES
 
Most of the issues I have observed in my own family and others were often caused by jealousy or some feeling of competition. Being verbally abusive only works if they get a reaction..... i simply quit playing.

I walked away i am sure my siblings to the day are constant complainers and blame everyone else in world but themselves. Call others names and talk BS.... but with no audience must be pretty boring reliving some insane grievance.

While i can understand people who want to blame a bad family or difficult childhood ... many times we can overcome.
 
The Story of Joseph within Genesis chapters 37 to 50 provides a useful model of how such sibling competition occurs and wisdom as a lesson of how one ought deal with such.

The Wisdom and Favor of God: Joseph's Story - Scripture Comes to Life

  • We often cite Joseph as a biblical character who exemplified faithfulness, integrity, and honor despite the grave injustices inflicted upon him. He never lashed out or sought revenge against his many betrayers.
  • Joseph patiently endured great suffering and loss and, in the end, declared a shining, supernatural perspective on all that had transpired in his eventful life.
  • Joseph was the youngest and favorite son of Jacob before his brother Benjamin was born. They were a family of herdsmen. Though highly favored and prosperous as beneficiaries of Abraham’s covenant with God, they were not of a scholarly or religious caste.
  • Joseph was only seventeen when his father sent him to check on his brothers, and out of jealousy, they captured him and sold him to Midianite merchants. The sons of Jacob told their bereaved father that Joseph had been mauled by a wild animal.
  • There began Joseph’s long sojourn in Egypt, where he first managed the home of Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s captains...
 
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Average people in our society and cultures usually have only shallow awareness of human behavior at levels of a psychologist and that varies greatly due to natural empathy, education, and experience within groups. So how does one succeed among large variable groups of others in such community environments? Obviously, one's childhood molds much of what we become, and therein lies much fault of what modern people become in our current mix of diverse cultures. Many families are dysfunctional with parents, siblings, and peers readily spreading dysfunctional behavior like a societal cancer and generally not being very successful in life. Mathew 13 Parable of Weeds scripture reflects Jesus's attitude.

Other families are loving and cooperative, and produce adults that result in generally pleasant cooperative communities with friends, life enjoyment, and advancement of much of what is good for humans. I come from a loving Christian family with siblings of both genders. I am a physically small, peaceful Caucasian of Northern European decent brought up in middle to upper class California environments almost completely also so. Being small, a wise man learns not to be combative, peaceful. I learned to be cooperative in schools, in playing sports, in working with others on projects, was forced into war time US military where I experienced A to Z others for the first time within its rigid structure.

Later within cooperative work environments I learned how to work successfully within a wide range of other adults that was also sometimes like walking through minefields where many others crash and burn due to emotional and interpersonal communication issues with limited ability to work harmoniously within a team of others. My successful record of being able to do so in this Internet era is not mere BS like such may be with most anonymous others as I have a prominent lifetime adult public record of like connections of successful others viewable publicly on Linkedin, as well as a stack of positive paper career annual performance reviews, and being valued members of other Internet web communities since the earliest telecom era.
 
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My daughter’s in-laws are screamers. Not all the time but when they get going …..

Her husband too, when he’s wound up. Now my granddaughter.

When all the family are together, it runs at a dull roar. That’s when they’re happy.
 
In my family, it was just my dad who had a short fuse and was prone to 'barking'. He did manage to make the rest of us uncomfortable.

The rural place in a mountain valley that I've lived on for decades is half of a property DW and I bought with another couple. We felt we knew them well. The wife was reliably well-mannered and easy, but the guy had come from a yelling, abusive family. It was the wife who eventually confided his background to us. Well, before too long there was a parting of the ways and a legal division of the property, because the guy's boorish side proved too unpleasant to live around.

And then, after a few years, they sold their land and moved to urban Vancouver.
 
🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 ... :coffee: ... I was a Farm Kid, everything got cussed out !
We went to Church 2 ! My fondest memory was, "If I catch you, I'll kill ya."
I had caught my hand in the Wringer and broke it.
 

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