When Someone Treats You Badly, How Do You Treat Yourself?

When you get dismissed, belittled, demeaned, attacked, or treated unfairly, how do you treat yourself?

Whether you are self-doubting or confident, shaming is an assault. It demeans some feature of your body, behavior, or personality and equates that feature with your general value. When a part (or the body) draws an insult, other parts take on the job of hiding that vulnerability and preventing future shaming. You feel exposed, hurt, physically diminished, perhaps unable to move—even momentarily. This is true whether or not the criticism is in any way accurate. However, if the insult seems inaccurate to you, disconnected from reality, or laughably untrue, you shake it off quickly and recover.

But if the insult hits a vulnerability and you’re like most of us, you are distracted by one or possibly two other responses before you even register the hurt. The first is rage and plotting of revenge (You just made a big mistake! You’re going to pay for this.). The second is self-criticism that echoes the insult (You sounded like a fool. Why do you open your mouth? If only you would lose weight. Don’t you know how to dress properly? Look at everyone else! You’re just not smart enough… tall enough… young enough… old enough… educated enough… good enough…).

In the Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy approach to the mind, this swirl of inner reactions to a stressor signifies the beliefs, feelings, and actions of parts, or subpersonalities. An external insult exposes some vulnerable part of you primed by prior experience to feel unworthy or unlovable. Its despair threatens to overwhelm you emotionally.

In response, your proactive and/or reactive protectors swing into action. The reactive team counteracts imminent collapse with adrenaline, distracting from hopelessness with restorative fantasies of being big, powerful, and able to mete out retributive justice. Or, the proactive team prevents your awareness from flooding with shamefulness by admonishing “you” (the vulnerable part) to improve or stay out of sight. Or both happen at once.

Unsurprisingly, these strategies are effective—but only in the short run. Neither proactive nor reactive protectors can challenge the essential myth of the insult (something is wrong with you) because they believe it, too. So, the vulnerable part, who feels unworthy and alone, remains isolated, feeling unloved, and the injury festers—a setup for more pain and alarm at the next insult.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Your hurt part could feel safe, connected, and confident, and your protectors have better options than criticizing or tossing the hot potato. Think back to a time when someone treated you badly and notice your reaction. Shamefulness? Defeat? Outrage? Where’s the hurt? If it’s okay to do this, find the hurt part in or around your body and notice how you feel toward it. If you discover that you despise, shun, fear, or reject it, ask the parts who feel that way to try something new, even for just a moment. If they’re willing, they can make room for the bigger you who would naturally feel curious and kindly toward a vulnerable young part. That’s the you who can help. Your curiosity, kindness, and compassion are the golden keys to slowing the reaction time of protective parts and buying time to comfort the hurt part before you decide on a course of action. Is action even needed? If so, you’ll want choices because revenge and self-criticism are not the best options. Once you help the hurt part, you can strategize the way forward with protectors. They are not alone—and neither are you.