In this article, I explore the essential mental tools for effectively dealing with snarky or hurtful individuals. These tools aim to disarm those who seek to emotionally manipulate you, leaving them puzzled when you don’t react as they expect.
Inspired by an email from a listener, I’ll share my own ‘communications toolbox,’ a set of strategies designed to facilitate empowering and non-confrontational conversations with negative people.
The goal of my communications toolbox is to help you neutralize a manipulative or toxic person’s undue influence over you, keeping them from taking your power. When someone takes your power or causes you to deplete your own, they keep their power over you. I might even say they are in control of you.
You deserve the ability to talk about anything on your mind without feeling bad. I think that’s a fair thing to ask for! You should expect kindness and respect from others, especially when you give it to them. But when you don’t get it back and feel mistreated, disrespected, and even powerless, you need a plan. You never want to lose your power with anyone.
Some individuals, like narcissists, are particularly adept at stripping you of your power. However, with the right tools, you can safeguard your emotional well-being. With certain people, no matter what tool you use, you will still lose. Not everything is 100% effective with everyone because some people have taken their ability to mistreat others to a whole new level.
I thought about talking about this subject on my Love and Abuse podcast for difficult relationships, but it applies more broadly than that, which is why I am sharing it here.
These tools are not just about dealing with abusive people. Some people are just snarky and offensive, wanting to poke at you and make you feel bad. This happens in both abusive and “normal” relationships and also with everyday people.
How Rude!
Maybe you hear someone muttering about you while they’re standing behind you in line. What do you do then? Do you say something? Should you?
I have some go-to responses that may be helpful when you’re dealing with certain people. Sometimes, you can’t avoid dealing with them. Some people expect you to react, and when you do, they pounce.
Most people’s go-to when they feel offended is to be defensive or lash out. That’s often unproductive. A defensive response shifts the focus to justifying yourself, which is exactly where they want you: distracted from their own inappropriate behavior.
Some people want you defensive so they don’t have to explain themselves. They like to keep the spotlight on you. To avoid being defensive, try not to say things like:
I didn’t mean to.
I’m sorry.
I thought you wanted it this way.
I’ll try harder.
Why are these considered defensive? Because they all involve you explaining yourself. That’s not to say “I’m sorry” is necessarily inappropriate. Sometimes, it’s a good way to neutralize a situation so you don’t get into a pointless conversation at all.
Then there’s lashing out:
How dare you blame me.
You’re the one that does this, not me!
These are attacking back statements. The problem with attacking back is that you still have to explain how they are the problem, not you. Any time you need to explain to a person how they are a problem still keeps the spotlight off of them and on you. The reason is that you are still in “explaining” mode.
When you are in explaining mode, the spotlight is still on you. They don’t have to talk because you’re doing all the talking. When you do that, they don’t have to do anything. They can watch you lose energy while they stay in control.
Some people prefer defensive responses, some offensive. But either way, you’re focused on explaining yourself instead of being focused on them.
There are defensive and offensive responses. There are also lashing-out responses. Lashing out is a mix of both – yelling, hitting, screaming. It’s like the offensive response, but with a quick knee-jerk reaction where you don’t have time to think – it just comes out.
While this approach may sometimes be effective, it often results in you losing your composure and depleting your energy. They have their power because you seem irrational, especially if others witness you “losing it.” The other person looks sane, while you look insane and out of control.
When the instigator appears rational and composed, using minimal effort to say a few words that trigger you, people tend to judge the emotional person as the irrational one.
The instigator knows what words will push buttons. They want you to deplete your energy so you can’t stay focused or logical. And if they succeed in making you appear irrational, they’ve successfully gaslighted you.
When you are gaslighted, you begin to doubt your own sanity. You’ll feel confused and wonder what reality is. And while you’re trying to determine what just happened, you’ll wonder if you said the right things or perhaps even if you really are the bad guy.
Either way, when you lash out, you’ll usually wish you handled it better. I always regret losing it on someone. I think, ‘I should have been calmer or shown them evidence of their impropriety instead of yelling. But I reacted without thinking.”
With some people, you need to be proactive. You need to carry your communications toolbox. And even when you’re carrying it and know exactly how to respond, sometimes you will react strongly and your tools will fall out so you lose access to them.
To be as prepared as you can be, try to keep a set of pre-planned, calm responses for anticipated provocations. Not emotional responses, but calm, controlled ones. That will allow you to stay in control, respond stoically, and show emotional regulation – something snarky people hate. In fact, they’ll be confused when don’t react with a high level of emotion because snarky, abusive, and otherwise mean people need to read your emotions so they can use them against you.
While some people can read your emotions without words, many others focus on the tone of your voice and your body language to gauge your feelings. So be aware of your own body language (which, admittedly, can be difficult to do), but also focus on your words. It’s okay to feel angry, but your words don’t need to match your feelings. In fact, this mismatch can confuse them because they expect a completely different response from you.
You can look angry but speak calmly. Here’s an example of being angry but speaking calmly:
“I heard what you said about me, and it was rude. I’m not here to argue whether you said it or not. I’m here to let you know that I know what you did.”
I realize you can’t hear that when you read it, but imagine saying that in a calm tone. You can be angry inside, but what comes out can be spoken with such calm clarity and surety that it will make other people wonder just what’s going on inside you. That’s a good thing.
What is your typical response to someone’s hurtful words or gestures? If you angrily lash out, and other people know that about you, then realize they know what to expect from you. That’s why it’s important to be proactive about your responses instead of just reacting. If a manipulative or hurtful person knows how you’ll react, they’ll know how to manipulate or upset you further. That’s why reacting in a way they don’t expect throws them off.
Create new reaction patterns, and you are more likely to control the communication. This new approach will be disorienting for those who try to take your power away. The tables will turn as their old tactics lose their effectiveness. It will throw them off balance because they rely on your reactions.
Think of the people who upset you intentionally and who are just waiting for you to react as you always do… Don’t give them that pleasure! Don’t give them your playbook. Throw them off with your new patterns.
If you react the way you always do, you play their game, and they stay in control.
This is all about taking your power back in hurtful interactions. I am not trying to teach you to hurt them back. Hurting certain people back actually works against you sometimes because they know how to utilize your reaction to come back even harder.
I often compare difficult conversations to the principles of Tai Chi. When someone tries to verbally ‘punch’ you, you sidestep their attack and let their words pass by you. You can even guide their past you, watching them move by you and lose their energy.
When someone’s words have nothing to land on, it depletes them, not you.
And when you offer no resistance to what they’re saying to you, you get to keep your energy. Resistance is allowing their words to land. Resistance takes energy. And when their words land, they gain power and you lose it.
Resistance depletes energy. But when you learn to sidestep verbal punches, they won’t want to fight you anymore. It will be exhausting for them. Their old manipulations and hurtful behaviors will fail.
Any resistance in communication is draining. That’s why you want to carefully execute your response to certain people so you don’t end up draining yourself by resisting. What does resistance look like? Just as I said earlier, when you feel the need to explain yourself to someone or explain to them how they are being awful. Also, getting stuck in disbelief as if you are shocked they would say or do such a thing. That takes a lot of energy!
To put it simply: By letting their negative energy pass right by you, you conserve your own energy while they deplete theirs.
Resistance in any form is exhausting. So be mindful of your own resistance and the energy it consumes. You can feel drained depending on what you’re resisting. When they realize their verbal punches don’t land, they’ll either change their approach (which you must watch for) or become confused.
Confusion tires and disorganizes hurtful people. They lose sight of their original plan and must figure out how next to hurt you or maybe, just maybe, decide to talk to you like a normal human being.
You make it difficult for hurtful people by not reacting as expected. But the reality is, they make it difficult on themselves because if they were actually kind to you, there would be no reason for you to sidestep their verbal punches in the first place. And because their words or behaviors aren’t allowed to land when they are trying to hurt you, they’re essentially hurting themselves! It’s the epitome of self-sabotage.
Stop showing resistance by explaining or defending yourself. That’s how you let someone’s negative energy pass right by you, like a verbal Tai Chi master.
When you stop explaining or defending yourself to someone trying to throw you off your balance, they will lose their own balance.
Hurtful people lose what they’re trying to hold on to because the more control they exert, the more what they’re trying to control wants to get away from them.
When you are defensive, offensive, or reactive, you are more likely to be controlled.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t protect yourself. Sometimes, you have to take action so that you stop someone else from hurting you. But I’m talking about most situations that aren’t necessarily dangerous, just annoying, frustrating, disrespectful, belittling, invalidating, etc.
Communication Tools Designed to Help You Keep Your Power
Would you like some tools for those verbal confrontations you might get into (but don’t want to get into)? These are ones I’ve either created or modified over the years to help you keep your power. They’ll help you stop showing resistance, change the outcome, and make the conversation more manageable and less tiring.
For example, someone once said my podcasts greatly helped them heal after a breakup. This person has had minimal contact with her ex, but even though she’d healed in many ways, she still had to deal with her ex-partner’s snide remarks about her appearance.
One communication tool she could use is learning to handle objections before they come. Like a car salesperson mentioning that an expensive car is expensive before the customer says it:
“We’ve got a lot of expensive cars on this lot, I know. I see cars I want and think, ‘Wow, I wonder if I can afford that.’ Then I think about pulling in my driveway and seeing my neighbor staring at it while I proudly park it. That’s a good feeling!”
The salesperson in this example is building trust by putting forth the objection before the potential customer states the common resistance to the price of a new car. Salespeople are trained to handle objections before they happen, so it’s a good strategy to make the customer feel like the salesperson has nothing to hide. It builds trust by meeting the customer in their reality.
The salesperson in this story is creating a no-resistance situation where they set up the scene so they don’t have to explain or defend themselves or the dealership when the customer likely comments about car prices being high. They might still have a conversation about price, but the salesperson bringing it up first will foster more trust.
So, how would you use this type of technique with snide people you have to deal with?
One way is to step into their perception and go along with it. For example, if they make a mean comment about your hair, laugh, then say, “Right?” Then tell them you’re definitely having a bad hair day.
I’ll make this example about my “stupid” looking hair:
Jerk: “Your hair looks stupid again. I thought you were going to get it cut?”
Me: “Right? Total bad hair day today. I’d hate to be the person who has to walk next to me today!”
Before you say, “Wow if someone said that to me, I’d tell them to get out of my face and let them know how awful they were being!” which you would have a total right to say, remember I’m talking about those who expect you to react in a certain way so that they can use it against you.
Think about a manipulative person who wanted to use your reaction against you, and you were getting so tired of dealing with them. But you react the same way all the time, so they utilize your reaction and turn it around on you like this:
Jerk: “Your hair looks stupid again. I thought you were going to get it cut?”
Me: “Why are you being such a jerk? That’s so rude. Get out of my face!”
Jerk: “Why should I? I pay the bills, and I expect you to look a certain way. You have it so easy around here.”
Me: “What? I do a lot of work! I can’t believe you’d say that. It’s hard to look good when I feel like I’m being punished simply for existing.”
Jerk: “You should feel punished. You deserve to be punished for what you put me through…”
And on and on and on…
If that’s where your conversations end up. That’s why I recommend using these communication tools. They’re designed to be “snark-stoppers” in a way. You shouldn’t have to get into that rabbit hole of a conversation/argument every time.
Sure, most people would say, “You need to get away from that person,” but what about when you aren’t ready to leave or can’t leave because of resources? It’s helpful to have tools available until you’re ready to take bigger steps for yourself.
Here’s the breakdown of that first example:
First, I choose to agree: “Right?”
Then I aligned with the other person’s point of view: “Total bad hair day today.”
Then I redirected the negative energy to flow right past me: “I’d hate to be the person who has to walk next to me today!”
This stopped the natural resistance we might have to such a statement. I didn’t judge, defend, or explain myself. I just helped their energy pass by me.
To explain the redirect part, I realize it sounds self-deprecating. And in some ways, yes, it is. But notice how I shined the spotlight on them and not me. I went along with their ridiculous comment and turned it into something they have to suffer with, not me.
Your redirect can be about something that takes the subject matter in a new direction. I could have easily replied like this, too: “Right? Total bad hair day. I’d probably be better off bald.”
The redirect does take some creativity, but the goal is to take the focus off the hurtful comment and turn it into something they might need to think about. After all, do they really want you to go bald? Does that scare them? Will making more comments about your hair actually make you shave it bald?
It’s like planting a seed of fear in their brain so they think twice about making fun of your hair again.
The person who reached out to me said their ex makes mean comments about their appearance. How could you reply to what they said without resistance?
Let’s say they were putting your outfit down. If this were me, I’d first agree: “Yup, it’s this outfit again. I know how much it makes you cringe,”
I won’t defend or explain it to them, but I did plant a seed in their brain. Maybe not a seed of fear, but I turned it around on them to show them I was aware they didn’t like the outfit, yet here I was wearing it anyway. It should catch them off guard and disarm their attempt to disempower me.
Again, it might feel self-deprecating to agree with their perception of your appearance, but the point is to disarm them. When you say the unexpected, it’s a first step to stopping them from taking your power.
A second communication tool to deal with snide people is to own it.
Using the appearance example again. If you were put down for what you were wearing, you could say, “I’ve had this shirt forever; it’s special to me.”
That’s owning it. It’s telling someone, “I’m okay with it.”
That is avoiding being defensive. It’s not explaining, but it does have a short reason why you’re wearing it. And they may choose to continue insulting you or not. But either way, it’s good for you to know if they’re going to stop or not after making such a comment.
If someone still puts you down after you tell them, “It’s special to me,” that shows a deeper, darker part of them that doesn’t seem to care about you at some level.
Like I said, that’s good for you to know. It’s helpful to know who you’re dealing with. And it tells you how some people may not be worth your time.
Owning it means there is no wiggle room. It’s like telling someone you’ve thought about this already and aren’t looking for their opinion. You’re okay with it, and, really, it’s too bad if they aren’t. That’s the feeling, at least. Owning it means being comfortable with what you like and who you are. It’s telling the world, ‘You can hate what I love or who I am, but that will never change what I love or who I am.’
Owning it tells the other person, “Feel free to try to insult or belittle me. It really doesn’t phase me at all.” Of course, it might hurt. You might be holding back upset or sadness. But don’t give them that pleasure.
The hope here is that by telling them unapologetically what you value, they’ll ease off, realizing they can’t really hurt you with their words about this subject. That’s the hope…
But if you’re reading this now, you probably aren’t dealing with someone who is emotionally intelligent enough to respond like that. So, let’s say they don’t back off and choose to insult you more. That’s when we talk about being dispassionate with the Gray Rock Technique.
The Gray Rock Technique is when you react like a dull, emotionless rock. You know one of those boring, lifeless gray rocks you find on the ground?
Hurtful people need your emotions to know how to continue hurting you.
When you offer no emotional response, a hurtful person does not know how to control or manipulate you. They are so used to you acting emotionally that they don’t even have to think about what to do next. Abusing your emotions comes naturally to them.
So giving them very little response like, “If you say so,” might drive them crazy. They want a reaction from you. They crave it!
But no matter what they say, when you respond non-emotionally, you take away the fuel for their fire.
“You look like you puked all over yourself in that blouse!” (I actually heard a man say that to his wife right before a special event. I was floored!) A response to that might be, “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
Where’s the resistance in that reply?
I know some of the comments I’m writing out here are just mean and hurtful. And in the moment, you probably can’t imagine someone being so awful to you. I get that. It can be shocking to hear someone who is supposed to care about you or at least treat you with some respect say something so mean.
But if you’ve been dealing with this kind of behavior in a relationship in your life, I want you to have some tools to get through those moments until those moments either go away or you need to separate yourself from the person being hurtful to you.
This doesn’t mean you can’t say, “If you ever say that to me again, you’ll be sorry!” But it really depends on what you want to happen next when you say something like that. Would you be ready to make them accountable and feel “sorry” for what they said?
If so, have at it! I’m all about honoring yourself, standing up for what’s right, and knowing your worth. But again, these tools can help you through so many moments where you may not be able to do that for one or many reasons. The goal, of course, is to keep your power so that you’ll have enough of it to make the bigger decisions you need to make for yourself later – whatever that means to you.
Coming back to “You’re probably right.” That can stop a bully. Bullies feed on your reactions. You aren’t defending or explaining because we already know they’ll exploit that. “You’re probably right,” disarms them. After all, why would a hurtful person expect the person they’re hurting to agree with their hurtful comments? When it happens, it can be quite a pattern interruption for them.
Improving the Most Important Tool in Your Toolbox
Prioritizing self-improvement is crucial. The woman who wrote to me said that she has wonderful kids and has a great relationship with them. She also has a patient man who is waiting for her to be ready for a new relationship.
Bring your best functional self into a relationship, not your dysfunctions.
Dysfunction happens when you expose yourself to harm, sometimes without even realizing it. For example, I was a people pleaser for most of my life. And almost every time I accommodated someone else, I felt like a little bit of me was being repressed.
My people-pleasing behaviors caused me to become resentful toward those who didn’t reciprocate. And I got burnt out at both jobs and in relationships. The burnout happened because I never told people what I really wanted. I never stood up for myself. I was always afraid of the consequences of my actions. I never wanted to find out what happened if I said what was on my mind.
Do you want to know how I came up with some of these communication tools? Years of adapting to people and learning how they think. I became a master of preventing conflict because I learned to watch people and how they reacted to my words and behaviors.
People-pleasers do this! It’s a dysfunction that makes them hyper-aware of the attitudes and personalities of everyone in their life. They learn to adapt to almost every situation, making them a chameleon that hides in plain sight.
It might sound good on paper – being able to be hidden in plain site – but it’s so full of denial and repressed thoughts and emotions that it wears you out and wears you and others down.
But I came to learn you can develop superpowers from your dysfunctions. And when the people-pleaser starts to stand up for themselves and is no longer driven by fear and honors themselves instead of putting themselves last, everything they’ve learned can be used to deal with hurtful people.
That’s what happened to me. Now that I don’t let fear run my life, I can use what I’ve learned from dysfunction and use it for good. I can use it to protect me in a healthy way In that it empowers me) instead of hide myself in an unhealthy way (in that it wears me down).
This is what you can do as well. When you become and maintain your power, you can use what you’ve learned over the years for the sake of honoring yourself instead of honoring those who dishonor you.
That’s why I say to bring your best “functional” self into a relationship, not your dysfunctions. Identifying your dysfunctions can sometimes be challenging, but I have found the easiest way to do it is to look at your results.
Are you getting the results you want from every interaction?
In other words, do you like your results? Are you in a good mood and happier more than you are in a bad mood and unhappy?
Your results from every interaction with someone else or in other situations like work or while you’re out and about compound and create the life you have. When you are getting good results, where you feel happier more than you feel down, you’re probably on the right track.
But if you’re not as happy as you could be, or you keep finding yourself in situations that bring you down when you think life shouldn’t be this hard, it’s time to consider how you’re reacting and responding to people and events. Are you unknowingly facilitating bad behavior? Like the stuff I talked about in this article? Are you reacting to people in a way that makes them even worse?
I’m not blaming you if that’s what’s happening. I’m trying to empower you so it never happens again. We can’t stop every interaction, but we can look at how we react to what’s happening in our lives and make sure that we are not bringing our own dysfunctions into our daily lives.
Most of mine stemmed from people-pleasing, such as difficulty saying no, fear of conflict, seeking validation, taking on too many responsibilities, and so much more. Those qualities made me unhappy over and over again. And I brought them into so many interactions with others. I left so many conversations feeling worse because I couldn’t speak up, stand up, say no or yes when I meant no or yes, and more.
That’s why I want you to continue working on self-improvement. Self-improvement, to me, is all about evolving. Instead of just getting better at saying no, I wanted to evolve into someone who had no problem at all saying no and even felt good about it.
When I started honoring myself, saying no was hard, but I did it anyway (improvement).
When I did that often enough, saying no felt really good. I had no problem telling people what I wanted or didn’t want. It was no longer an issue in my life (evolution).
Keep improving and evolving. Keep moving forward so that you don’t even have to deal with the kind of people I talk about in this article. And pretty soon, you’ll find those kinds of people don’t want to interact with you anymore because you are no longer vulnerable to their bad behaviors.
And that’s a great place to be.
Key takeaways. Communication Tools for dealing with difficult people:
- Disarm Manipulators: Don’t react as they expect; keep them puzzled.
- Be Proactive, Not Reactive: Plan your responses in advance to avoid falling into old patterns.
- Own It: Agree with their viewpoint first, then redirect the conversation.
- Gray Rock Technique: Respond with minimal emotion to disarm their attempts at manipulation.
- Pre-Handle Objections: Mention potential criticisms before they do to disarm them.
- Avoid Defensive Responses: Statements like “I didn’t mean to” keep the focus on you, not them.
- Sidestep Verbal Punches: Let their negative energy pass by you, conserving your own energy.
- Be Mindful of Resistance: Any form of resistance is draining; be aware of your own.
- Work on Self-Improvement: Bring your best self into relationships.
- Gray Rock Technique: Be unapologetically unemotional to leave emotional abusers confused and grasping at straws
