“Angry people want you to see how powerful they are.
Loving people want you to see how powerful YOU are.”
– Chief Red Eagle
Sometimes loving, normally supportive, empowering people suddenly become hostile. What’s up with that?
It can be a shock when a normally nice person suddenly behaves in a way that is hurtful and unreasonable. Often, this behaviour is because the person has extremely low self-esteem.
They might love you, but their primary, first and foremost focus is on protecting themselves from criticism or being “found out.” They live in fear that people will find out they are not perfect. Because of their low self-esteem, their self-worth depends on others’ high opinions of them.
Individuals with extremely low self-esteem have an unconscious, all or nothing belief — they believe that if people see even one flaw or mistake in them, if people realize they are not all knowing, all talented, or all perfect, those people will lose respect for them and see them as worthless. I believe this comes partly from having extremely critical parents.
If low self-esteem individuals are panicking and hyper focused on protecting themselves from being found out, often they won’t even be able to SEE you clearly or remember to care about your feelings or needs. When they are criticized or even have it gently pointed out that they were possibly thoughtless for a moment, fear takes over. A lot of nice but low self-esteem people are so devoted to their loved ones’ happiness, it is wildly confusing when all that devotion goes out the window and the person morphs into a defensive, surly, cold, unreasonable stranger.
First, (in the frightened person’s mind), they must make sure you never find out they’re imperfect or that they made a mistake. They will deny the truth and twist the facts, as they defend themselves. This is what makes the nice person seem suddenly irrational. If you feel hurt by something they did, they will tell you that you are overreacting. This will seem inconsistent with the way they usually care so much about your feelings. It IS consistent with their low self-esteem, however, and the way it triggers their fear of being found out. When they are consumed by fear, they are incapable of seeing you clearly.
They don’t want you to think they would unintentionally, unfairly, or thoughtlessly do something to hurt you. They can’t bear for you to realize they’re less than perfect and they made a mistake. It is monumentally hard for these people to simply say, “I made a mistake.” In their relationship with you, with their all or nothing thinking, it becomes a life and death need for them to convince you somehow, that they did not make a mistake, they did not hurt you, it’s not what it seems, and you misunderstood.
This is one of the key reasons, in my observation, that in the heat of the moment, normally nice, well-intentioned people can become surprisingly nasty, defensive, irrational, unfair, and throw empathy out the window.
A lot of these people have either Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) or Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). In Resources, I have recommended books about coping in relationships with BPDs and NPDs.
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