Latest / Living Deeply with Markieta Carter / When Words Hurt: The Brain Science of Emotional Pain

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When Words Hurt: The Brain Science of Emotional Pain · Living Deeply with Markieta Carter

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  Hey, it's Markita. Welcome back to the Living Deeply podcast.
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  Today I want to talk about something that people who are emotionally sensitive
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  have probably heard at some point in their lives.
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  They're just words. You're too sensitive. Sticks and stones can't break my bones.
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  Why are you letting what someone said bother you that much? Just ignore them.
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  But what if your brain doesn't experience hurtful words as just words?
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  What if there is actually science behind why rejection, humiliation,
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  threats, criticism, and verbal abuse can hurt you so deeply?
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  Because there is science behind it. And I think understanding that science can
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  change the way we talk about emotional sensitivity.
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  Researchers found that social and emotional pain can engage some of the same
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  brain systems involved in processing the distressing aspects of physical pain.
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  I want to be careful about what that means. Hearing an insult is not neurologically
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  identical to breaking your arm.
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  The brain is so much more complicated than that, but research involving social
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  rejection and exclusion has
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  found activity in regions associated with distress and pain processing,
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  including areas such as the anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula.
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  There is an overlap, and that helps explain something many of us already understand through experience.
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  Words can hurt. Rejection can hurt. Humiliation can hurt.
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  Being screamed at can hurt, but repeatedly told that you are worthless,
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  crazy, stupid, difficult, unstable, or too sensitive can hurt.
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  The absence of a bruise doesn't mean that there's an absence of harm.
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  Your brain isn't only processing the dictionary definition of someone's words.
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  It's processing context, tone, volume, facial expressions, body language,
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  past experience, your relationship with that person, and whether what is happening
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  signals safety or danger.
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  Think about the difference between someone calmly saying, come here,
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  and someone aggressively screaming those same exact words.
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  The words may technically be the same. The message to your nervous system isn't.
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  When communication becomes threatening, unpredictable, degrading,
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  or aggressive, your brain can begin treating those interactions as actual signals of danger.
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  Your heart might raise. Your muscles might tighten.
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  You might shake. You might feel nauseated. You might cry. You might feel frozen.
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  You might become hyper alert. You might struggle to think clearly and hours
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  later, you might still be replaying that conversation.
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  And that's not necessarily you being dramatic. Your nervous system may be responding
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  to something it has interpreted as threatening or emotionally significant.
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  Every relationship has conflict. People occasionally communicate badly. People get frustrated.
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  People misunderstand each other.
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  One harmful statement doesn't automatically establish a pattern of verbal abuse.
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  Verbal abuse involves pattern of communication that degrade,
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  intimidate, threaten, humiliate, control, or repeatedly belittle another person.
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  And when that happens repeatedly, particularly with an important relationship,
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  your brain can learn something.
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  This person isn't emotionally safe for me. Maybe their tone changes and your
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  body immediately tightens.
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  Maybe you hear footsteps and start wondering what mood they're in.
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  Maybe you begin carefully choosing your words because you're trying to prevent another argument.
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  Maybe a particular phrase instantly brings back memories of previous interactions.
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  The brain learns associations. And your nervous system can remember patterns
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  even when you desperately want to forget or move past them.
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  But what happens when you finally remove yourself? This is something I don't
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  think we talk about enough. Sometimes you don't realize just how much an environment
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  is affecting you until you leave it.
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  You remove yourself from the yelling. You remove yourself from the insults.
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  You remove yourself from constantly having to defend yourself.
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  You remove yourself from the unpredictability and eventually something starts
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  happening your body begins learning i'm safe here,
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  maybe you sleep differently maybe your anxiety decreases maybe you're not constantly
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  scanning someone's facial expressions
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  maybe you no longer are rehearsing conversations before you have them,
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  maybe you're not wondering what version of this person you're going to get today.
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  You start experiencing what life feels like without constantly anticipating emotional conflict.
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  And that can be incredibly revealing.
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  Because sometimes you thought the problem was simply that you were too sensitive.
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  Then you enter into a safer environment and realize, wait, I'm not reacting like that anymore.
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  My body isn't constantly on edge.
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  I'm functioning differently.
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  And that information matters. It doesn't automatically prove what caused every
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  symptom you experienced.
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  But the changes that occur when the environment changes can tell you something
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  very important about what your nervous system has been responding to. Thank you.
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  Then you suddenly experience it again. And this part can be confusing.
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  You leave, you start feeling safer, you start regulating, you start rebuilding
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  your peace. And then suddenly you're exposed to that type of communication again.
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  Maybe someone starts yelling. Maybe some, you hear the same insults.
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  Maybe you experience the same contempt.
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  Maybe you're accused of the same things. Maybe someone speaks to you in a tone
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  that your nervous system strongly associates with previous emotional harm and
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  your reaction can feel immediate.
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  Sometimes it can feel stronger than you expected.
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  You might think, why am I reacting like this? I thought I was doing better.
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  I know what this person is saying is not true.
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  I thought I healed. I thought I was past this.
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  But healing doesn't mean your brain erases everything it learned.
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  The brain learns associations between experiences and danger.
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  When somebody resembles a previous threatening or painful experience,
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  those learned associations can contribute to a rapid emotional and psychological response.
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  Before you've had time to intellectually even analyze what's happening to you,
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  your body may already be reacting.
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  Your heart starts racing. Your stomach drops. Your muscles tighten.
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  You start shaking. You feel the urge to leave or hang up the phone and you become
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  overwhelmed. You cry. You freeze or you become intensely defensive and then
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  you might judge yourself after.
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  But a strong reaction after being re-exposed doesn't automatically mean that you're going backward.
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  Sometimes safety changes what you're willing to tolerate.
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  When you've lived around unhealthy communication for a long time,
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  you can become accustomed to functioning inside of it, not because it wasn't
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  hurting you, but because you had to keep functioning.
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  You still had responsibilities. You still had children. You still had work.
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  You still had bills. And you still had a life. So you learned how to survive
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  inside the environment you were in. Then you leave.
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  Your baseline starts changing. You experience peace. You learn what calm feels like.
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  You learn what respectful disagreement feels like.
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  You realize conversations don't have to include screaming, humiliation,
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  intimidation, or personal attacks.
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  And suddenly, behavior you once endured feels almost unbearable.
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  And that doesn't necessarily mean you've become more sensitive.
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  It may mean that you've become less accustomed to being treated that way.
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  And there is a difference.
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  Your tolerance for mistreatment doesn't have to increase for you to call yourself healed.
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  Sometimes healing actually decreases your willingness to tolerate it.
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  When something in the present reminds your brain of something emotionally significant
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  from the past, old feelings can return quickly like a Big Mac truck.
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  Boom. The current situation may be happening today, but your nervous system has history.
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  That's why certain words can hit differently depending on who says them.
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  That's why a particular tone can affect you differently.
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  That's why being yelled at by a stranger might feel completely different from
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  hearing a familiar person use the same tone associated with years of painful experiences.
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  Your brain isn't processing the present interaction in isolation.
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  Memory provides context, and that doesn't mean every emotional reaction is automatically
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  an accurate assessment of danger, but it does mean that our histories influence
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  how we interpret and respond to what happens.
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  Emotional sensitivity can intensify your experiences.
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  When we add emotional sensitivity into the equation.
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  If you're someone who naturally processes emotional and social information deeply,
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  you may notice things that other people don't.
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  A subtle shift in somebody's tone, their facial expression, the tension in the
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  room, the pause before they answer, the difference between their words and their
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  body language, and did you previously experienced verbal abuse?
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  Some of those symbols can carry even more meaning.
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  That's why telling an emotionally sensitive person to just ignore it can be
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  completely missed what's happening.
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  Their brain and nervous system may already be processing layers of information
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  that aren't consciously being put into words.
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  Sensitivity can amplify pain, but it also amplifies beauty.
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  And I never want to talk about sensitivity as though it only creates suffering.
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  The person who's deeply affected by cruelty may also be deeply affected by kindness.
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  Music might move you deeply. Nature might regulate you.
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  Animals might bring you peace. You might notice beauty that someone else walks right past.
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  You might experience empathy, love, creativity, connection, and joy intensely.
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  That's why I don't want my healing to require me to become emotionally numb.
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  I still want the feel.
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  I don't want to stop feeling deeply. I want to become better at determining
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  who gets access to me feeling deeply.
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  Your sensitivity is not permission to mistreat you.
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  Emotionally sensitive people and being emotionally sensitive doesn't give another
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  person permission to verbally abuse you and then blame your sensitivity for your response.
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  There is a huge difference between you're sensitive, so I want to communicate
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  with you respectfully and you're sensitive so I can say whatever I want and
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  anything you feel afterwards is your problem.
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  Those are not the same thing.
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  Your sensitivity may influence how intensely you experience a reaction,
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  but another person's behavior is still their behavior.
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  Both things can be true all at the same time.
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  Sensitivity is not proof of mental instability.
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  Crying doesn't automatically mean you're unstable. Being emotionally hurt doesn't
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  automatically mean you're unstable.
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  Feeling overwhelmed during a conflict does not automatically mean you're unstable.
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  Seeking therapy does not automatically mean you're unstable.
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  Having a strong psychological response after being exposed again to behavior
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  that previously hurt you does not automatically mean you're unstable.
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  And having strong emotions doesn't automatically mean you're incapable of rational thoughts.
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  Emotional intensity and decision-making capacity are not the same thing.
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  You can feel deeply and still think critically.
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  You can cry and still make sound decisions.
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  You can need time to regulate and still be competent.
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  You can experience emotional pain and still be a functioning adult,
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  parent, professional, leader, and caregiver.
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  We have to stop treating visual, emotional expression as automatic evidence
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  that someone has lost their ability to reason.
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  What I want to remember when this happens again,
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  is if I remove myself from an unhealthy situation and suddenly find myself experiencing
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  that behavior again, I don't have to prove how healed I am by standing there and absorb it.
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  I can leave. I can hang up the phone.
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  I can end that conversation. I can press the block button.
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  I can say, I'm not continuing this conversation while I'm being spoken to this way.
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  I can create distance. I can regulate myself before deciding whether I want
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  to revisit the conversation because healing doesn't mean learning how to tolerate
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  verbal abuse without reacting.
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  Healing means recognizing it sooner, leaving sooner, setting the boundary sooner,
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  recovering differently and refusing to normalize what I once had to survive.
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  The goal is never and was never to become less human.
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  I just don't believe healing means becoming so emotionally numb that no one can ever hurt you again.
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  I don't want to stop feeling deeply. I want boundaries strong enough to protect
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  my sensitivity without destroying them, destroying it.
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  Because that part of me that can experience pain deeply is also the part of me that loves deeply,
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  creates deeply, connects deeply, experiences music deeply, experiences nature
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  deeply, and experiences life so very deeply.
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  So no words aren't always just words for me.
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  The brain processes language within an entire network of meaning,
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  memory, relationships, emotional, emotion, threat, and safety.
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  And science gives us good reason to take emotional pain seriously.
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  Not because emotional pain and physical injury are exactly the same,
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  because obviously they're not, But
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  because human beings are deeply social creatures and our brains care about rejection,
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  belonging, humiliation, threat, connection, and safety.
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  And if you finally found peace after removing yourself from verbal abuse and
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  then had a powerful reaction when you experienced that behavior again.
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  Don't automatically interpret that as a failure.
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  Ask yourself what changed. Ask yourself what your body recognized.
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  Ask yourself whether you've actually become more sensitive or whether you've
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  simply learned what it feels like not to live that way anymore.
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  You don't have to become numb to prove you're healed. You don't have to tolerate
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  something again just because you survived it before.
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  Sometimes healing looks like your nervous system recognizing an old pattern.
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  And finally having the freedom to say, I don't live there anymore and I'm not going back.
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  If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone else who may have
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  been told that they're too sensitive, too emotional, or they should simply get
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  over things that hurt them.
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  And if you're navigating a season of change, rebuilding your boundaries,
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  learning to choose yourself, or trying to figure out what living deeply looks
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  like for you, you can learn about me and my work at itsmarkita.com.
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  You can find more episodes of the Living Deeply podcast
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  at livingdeeplypodcast.com And if you're looking for community and connection
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  with other humans who are figuring out life, healing, focused on identity, relationships, and,
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  what it simply means to be human You can join our community at ThrivenHumans.org,
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  You do not have to become less sensitive to live a powerful life You can learn
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  to understand your sensitivity Protect it and build a life where you don't have
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  to constantly recover from people around you,
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  This is marquita and you've been listening to the living deeply podcast Until
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  next time keep choosing yourself Protecting your peace and living deeply.