Accumulating feelings as evidence

It's not good for us to "save up" bad feelings in order to justify an eventual explosion. When we do that, we accomplish nothing except to vent. The person we "explode" at simply sees us as being "emotional" and easily becomes defensive. No problem was ever solved while people were attacking and defending emotionally. Problems only get solved by thought, not by explosion, as far as I know.

But we notice when someone persistently and consistently criticizes us. When the issue remains the same over weeks or months, it is a specific single issue which is important and must be dealt with. On the other hand, when the criticism is constant but its content varies, the issue is not about a particular issue but is about us personally. In Transactional Analysis language, we begin to experience the criticisms not as "doing strokes", that is, negative strokes for specific behaviors, but as "being strokes", or criticisms of the whole person. There is a critical difference between the two kinds of strokes: "doing" strokes are limited to the behavior and gradually dissipate over time; "being" strokes are relatively permanent.

So when we begin to infer or guess that the negative comments made by the other person are about how we are as people, they become much more damaging to the relationship between us. It's one thing to gripe at someone because they forgot to get something at the grocery store; it's quite another to accuse them of being "thoughtless and inconsiderate". The former, a negative "doing" stroke, is fixed when we go back to the store, or is forgotten over a period of time. The criticism is not a personal one, and is really simply a request for a change in behavior. The latter stroke, that of being "thoughtless and inconsiderate", is a relatively permanent and attributive critism of the person to whom the comment is made. It has a permanent impact on the relationship and on one's expectations for future strokes.

As a result, in any important relationship, we are more attentive to "being" strokes than to "doing" strokes. When the negative comments and criticisms are for a variety of different behaviors, we begin to sense a deterioration in the relationship and a more and more toxic quality to the comments. When we "blow up", we are beginning to acknowledge that our relationship has become more toxic. We hope that this is not true and that "things can be fixed", but we are beginning to experience negative "being" strokes which in the long run are fatal to intimacy.

Relationships in which we are not liked are toxic. No one can live in an atmosphere of perpetual disapproval without emotionally withdrawing. Intimacy is not possible in such a relationship. It's important that we be careful with what we say to each other. We can and should listen to and sometimes give negative criticisms of behavior, but we should be careful in the extreme not to give negative "being" strokes, which leave permanent marks on the relationship and the person to whom they are given. And when we consistently criticize the other person for a variety of things, they begin to experience negative "being" strokes.

Sticks and stones may break our bones, but they will heal. Words can cut us deeply and can leave marks that simply never go away.