Advice needed

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Hey Gang,

So this afternoon a family member comes storming through the kitchen door cussing and yelling at me because he tried to call me three times and I didn't answer when in fact I never heard my phone ring. As he's going on with his ranting he starts to threaten me (which I know by now are 99.9% empty threats) and on top of that he's yelling & cussing up a storm while trying to belittle me and then he tries to ORDER me to help him out with bringing in the grocery's to which I just stand around because I don't like to be yelled at or have orders barked at me or I just take my time to fulfill his demands.

Now my whole demeanor was calm and flat not really showing any emotion I tried explaining to the family member that I didn't hear my phone ring how could I have known he was calling? to which he barked back what if it were an emergency to which I said I would assume that you would call my brother then he started to bark back he doesn't know what he's doing in life and that I am lazy (which in all truthfulness I am currently fighting an upper respiratory infection so yeah I'm tired).

Every time he gets upset he cusses/yells at me or tries to belittle me. I show little to no emotion I don't say anything to egg him on it would appear that I would be numb to his verbal attacks I guess If i were 'normal' I would be but in some sense they hurt. He normally apologizes after such incidents but normally I just ignore the apologies as they have no more meaning because he continues with the yelling/cussing whenever he gets upset.

So I guess my question is how do I not let his venom get to me? like how can I train my self not to take it as an personal attack or otherwise tune it out?

Thank You.

Well, abuse is unacceptable. It's hard to break these patterns though. It sounds like he is very frustrated. Is there any way the two of you can reach a peaceful truce?
Helping to bring the groceries in is probably something you should do without being asked, but missing calls happens. It's certainly not something to yell at someone about.

Looks like you both just need to sit down and talk to each other, settle whatever differences you may have.

Well, I did not know before hand that he was going food shopping thus I had no foreknowledge that he'd be coming home with groceries, if he'd just ask or simply tell me without an attitude he needed help then I would have been more forthcoming to lend assistance. As for the peaceful truce? it's more like do as I say or [hear] my wrath.

My feelings are if your going to yell cuss and belittle me why should I go out of my way to help that person out?




I've already been down that road with this person....it will either incite him to be more verbal with me (yell or cuss) or he'll take the advice and forget about it the next time he gets angry.

What issues have come up in these past discussions? Obviously his anger is problematic, but what do you think causes it?

I, too, react to such attacks with little or no emotion. I think it makes the attackers madder. When you both are calm maybe you can ask him why he's so belligerent, and work out a better way to communicate.

I don't like LET people curse me out----especially if it's for something petty like putting away groceries or whatever.

This person really sounds like he needs to calm down--get a life.

If somebody doesn't want to talk to me in a civilized manner, I just put the person on "ignore."

It's not like you stole his girlfriend or something!

Yeah people get weirdly belligerent when they can't get a rise out of you. My mother (an idiot) always said just prostrate yourself and turn the other cheek then they will leave you alone- that's BS not reacting gets people (who are intent on drawing blood) more riled up and they try harder. Being passive does nothing good but sets you up as the whipping post because they can get away with it without you reacting.
I mean my extremely problematic response to these sorts of things was to ignore all emotion and stop feeling things... deadens your emotional range across the board though- it's a blunt imprecise too to be sure. 2/5 Wouldn't recommend lol.

The only thing I would say would be: if you know you should always automatically (perhaps silently? your choice) put away the groceries without being told. then they can't hold it against you.

You have to make sure that people treat you like an adult. This guy's treating you like some lazy adolescent. I think he has problems in self-regulation (i.e., he has a temper problem).