Explore how verbal aggression in relationships affects emotional safety, self-esteem and the body, and why empathy should never require self-erasure.
Verbal aggression is often treated as less serious than other forms of harm because it does not always leave visible evidence. There may be no broken objects, no physical injuries, and no single incident that seems dramatic enough to explain why someone feels so deeply affected. Yet words can change the emotional atmosphere of a relationship. Over time, repeated criticism, shouting, humiliation, sarcasm, blame, intimidation, or contempt can begin to alter the way a person sees themselves.
When Someone Else Becomes the Place Where Anger Is Released
Sometimes, a verbally aggressive person uses another human being as a safe target for emotions they do not know how to regulate. Instead of recognising their anger, frustration, shame, disappointment, or sense of powerlessness and taking responsibility for it, they discharge it through an attack. Their emotional tension decreases because someone else has been made to carry it. The relief may be temporary, but the pattern can become familiar: one person releases what they cannot tolerate inside themselves, while the other is left holding the fear, confusion, and self-doubt that follow.
This does not mean that every person who raises their voice is abusive, or that every expression of anger is dangerous. Anger can be communicated directly without becoming an attack on someone’s dignity. Conflict is part of relationships, and people sometimes speak badly in moments of overwhelm. What matters is the pattern: whether the person takes responsibility, repairs the harm, becomes curious about their reactions, and makes an honest effort to change—or whether the same behaviour continues while the person being hurt is expected to understand, forgive, and adapt.
Why Kind and Empathic People Can Become Safe Targets
People who behave aggressively may direct their anger towards those who feel emotionally safe to them. Not safe in the sense of being loved and respected, but safe in the sense that they are unlikely to retaliate, leave, expose the behaviour, or create consequences.
The target may be a kind, empathic, or patient person who naturally tries to understand what lies beneath the anger. They may use silence as their main defence, hoping that remaining calm will prevent the situation from escalating. They may tell themselves that the other person is tired, stressed, wounded, or simply unable to communicate differently.
Empathy can help us understand behaviour, but it should never require us to make ourselves available for mistreatment. Understanding where someone’s aggression comes from does not make the aggression harmless. A difficult childhood, emotional pain, insecurity, stress, or problems with emotional regulation may provide context, but they do not remove responsibility. There is an important difference between understanding someone’s wounds and allowing those wounds to be repeatedly used against you.
When Silence Becomes a Survival Response
Silence is often misunderstood. From the outside, it can look like passivity, weakness, or agreement. Inside the body, however, something very different may be happening.
The person may be freezing, monitoring the aggressor’s tone, carefully choosing every word, or trying to disappear emotionally until the danger has passed. Their heart may be racing even while their face appears calm. Their muscles may become tense before the other person has said anything because their body has learned to recognise subtle changes in expression, movement, or voice.
In these moments, silence is not necessarily a conscious decision. It can be the nervous system’s attempt to preserve safety when speaking, disagreeing, or defending oneself has repeatedly made the situation worse.
Over time, this adaptation can extend far beyond the moments of conflict. A person may begin rehearsing ordinary conversations in advance, questioning whether a simple request will provoke anger, or editing themselves to keep the emotional atmosphere stable. They may stop expressing disappointment, setting boundaries, or bringing up their own needs. What begins as an effort to prevent another argument can slowly become a way of living: staying alert, staying agreeable, and staying small.
How Verbal Aggression Affects Self-Worth
One of the most damaging aspects of repeated verbal aggression is that the attack does not always remain outside the person who receives it. Gradually, it can become part of their inner voice.
If someone is repeatedly told that they are selfish, incapable, too sensitive, irrational, ungrateful, or responsible for every conflict, they may begin to question their own perception. They may lose confidence in decisions they once made easily. They may apologise when they have done nothing wrong, explain themselves excessively, or become afraid of making ordinary mistakes.
Psychological abuse does not always announce itself clearly. Sometimes it develops through an accumulation of moments that are individually minimised but collectively damaging. A cruel comment is dismissed as frustration. Shouting is explained as passion. Humiliation is called honesty. The person on the receiving end is told that they are overreacting, while their nervous system is learning that closeness is unpredictable and that safety depends on keeping someone else emotionally regulated.
Intention Does Not Erase Impact
Perhaps this is one reason verbal aggression is so widely tolerated. We tend to focus on whether the aggressor “meant it” rather than on what repeatedly experiencing the behaviour does to the other person.
Intention matters, but impact matters too. A relationship cannot become emotionally safe when one person’s anger is consistently given more space than the other person’s dignity. An apology also loses its meaning when it repeatedly closes the conversation without leading to accountability, repair, or behavioural change.
There is something uncomfortable we may need to admit: being endlessly understanding does not always help another person change. Sometimes, it protects them from encountering the consequences of their behaviour. When empathy has no boundaries, it can become the space in which aggression continues. The person attacking is allowed to release their emotions, apologise vaguely, and return to normal, while the person who was attacked quietly repairs the damage inside themselves.
When Keeping the Peace Means Abandoning Yourself
If you recognise yourself in this dynamic, the first step is not necessarily to confront the other person immediately. Confrontation may not feel possible or safe, and only you can assess the reality of your situation. The first step may simply be to listen to what your own body and emotions have been communicating.
What happens inside you when the other person’s tone changes? Which needs have you stopped expressing? What do you believe would happen if you said no, disagreed, or ended the conversation? When did protecting the relationship begin to require abandoning parts of yourself?
These questions are not meant to blame you for staying silent. Your silence may have protected you in ways that other people cannot see. But a response that once helped you survive a difficult moment can eventually become a pattern that prevents you from recognising how much the relationship is costing you.
Self-work in this situation is not about becoming less sensitive or learning to tolerate aggression more effectively. It is about rebuilding trust in your own perception, understanding the protective responses that may have kept you silent, and recognising that compassion does not require self-erasure. It also means learning that another adult’s emotional regulation is not your responsibility.
Taking Your Experience Seriously
Therapy can offer a place to name what has been happening without minimising it, explore why silence became necessary, and reconnect with the parts of you that learned to disappear in order to feel safe. You do not have to wait until the behaviour becomes “bad enough” to seek support. If a relationship repeatedly leaves you feeling afraid, confused, incapable, or smaller than you were before, that experience deserves your attention.
The question is not only whether the other person is hurting enough to explain their anger. The question is whether you are being hurt—and how much of yourself you have already had to silence to remain close to them.
Healing may begin when you stop measuring the seriousness of their behaviour by what other people would tolerate and start taking seriously what your own mind and body have been trying to tell you. Therapy can help you understand the pattern, recover trust in yourself, and consider what emotional safety would look like in your life—not only in theory, but in the way you are spoken to, treated, and allowed to exist within your relationships.
Continue Your Journey
If this reflection resonated with you, you can explore more writing on my blog, where I share reflections on emotional patterns, relationships, self-awareness, and the ways we learn to understand ourselves more deeply.
If you recognise yourself in this experience and feel ready to explore it with professional support, you’re welcome to book a therapy session with me. Therapy can offer a space to name what has been happening without minimising it, rebuild trust in your own perception, and explore what emotional safety could look like in your relationships and within yourself.
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Warmly,
Andressa
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