Put-downs

I regularly receive negative messages and put-downs, and they are either explicit or implicit. Here are some of the explicit ones:

• “You take everything as a criticism”
• “You’re lousy at admitting you’re wrong”
• “You’re being defensive”
• “You’re too sensitive”
• “You’re a f***ing lousy listener”
• “You’re not good at multitasking”
• “You just don’t understand”
• “You’re not good at finding things”
• “You’re mean”
• “You’re cruel”
• “You’re emotionally abusive”
• “You don’t engage with me”
• “You care more about your books/piano than you do about me”
• “You used to do nice things for me”
• “It’s wrong to talk to your friends about us; talk to me first”
• “You’re full of shit” (this is usually accompanied by a yelled “F*** you!”)
• “You’re a terrible caretaker”
• “You don’t understand how relationships work”
• “You exaggerate a lot”

And the most amusing one:

• “You’re slow at doing math in your head”

There are a number of reasons for these accusations. What makes them so confusing is that sometimes they are based on a kernel of truth. Yet more often than not they seem out of proportion to my actual faults. I’ll explore some of them in more detail later and illustrate them with actual incidents.