The study of relational cruelty has long been a special interest of mine — recognizing where it comes from and what it does to us.
The excerpt below, from Mitch Horowitz’s article Escape From Cruel People, encapsulates one of the top 5 issues I see in my client sessions: conscientious individuals (typically neurodivergent) in environments where cruelty is inflicted, whether casually or on purpose, who try to shock-absorb its effects rather than addressing the issue directly.
It never works, but we’ve been programmed to imagine it’s a noble choice to try. And, “shock absorption” ends up looking like them trying to “work harder on themselves”, wondering what they’re doing wrong, why they can’t focus on their goals and projects. I’ve been there.
The answer is no amount of this particular efforting will fix their (our) predicament.
Resolution might involve initiating change within the system they’re in, if others are truly willing to invest and create a new relational paradigm together.
This requires a kind of leverage: something the other(s) want so much that they will invest in the process of change, be it for the relationship to work, or not to traumatize others the way they have been traumatized (such as when parents realize they’re hurting their kids the way they were hurt, and are ready to put a stop to it).
It might also mean creating distance and cutting ties if needed — and it often does.
“Our culture is staggering under stress—and a good deal of it, I believe, emerges from the silently abided agony of relationships, random or close, family or professional, intimate or distant, longtime or new, steeped in cruelty. This crisis endures because it is unidentified—or when it is identified, its nature is watered down and effectively denied. Nor are workable solutions presented. I believe that far too much is made of forgiveness, acceptance, or methods of verbal jujitsu within our spiritual and therapeutic cultures. Even as therapeutic language and concepts abound, cruelty ranks among the least-discussed aspects of human relations, albeit we sometimes categorize it (with fairness) under narcissism.”