You’ve never ever raised your voice or snapped at a signifigant other?
Marc
Are we really in danger of a person who is happy, content and fulfilled by their marriage and generally unphased by the occasional “You did WHAT to the CAR? @#$%!” seeing this commercial and suddenly calling the police about abuse? I think the target audience is something to consider. If you are being yelled at, and it is intimidating and threatening and makes you unhappy and frightened, then perhaps the commercial gives you the information you need to do something about it.
I’m puzzled by the people who are saying that everybody yells (in anger) sometimes. Some people never yell in anger. It is possible to be angry and express it and deal with it without yelling. While I agree it is true that many people do yell every once in a while, don’t justify it by claiming that <i>everybody</i> does it.
Well, I never have, and I presume there are others out there in this big, wide world that haven’t either.
I grew up in a household where my father would yell about everything and everything. One didn’t converse with my father, one just listened to an ongoing lecture. I’m an adult now, and I refuse to live like that. If you can’t talk to me in a reasonable and normal tone of voice, then you have anger issues that I don’t feel like dealing with. Get away from me until you can control yourself. Yelling is for 2 year olds who don’t get their way.
Yell at me once and we’ll have a discussion on why I won’t be treated that way. Yell at me again and I’m gone. That’s all there is to it. I treat people with respect, and I expect the same consideration.
Er . . . doesn’t the whole thing depend on whether or not the ‘yellee’ feels abused? Obviously, some people are comfortable with raised voices and others aren’t, but it seems to me that if the person being yelled at feels threatened, it qualifies as abuse. If it doesn’t bother them, then it isn’t abuse - it’s an acceptable form of communication, blowing off steam, or whatever.
Personally, I cannot stand to be yelled at and will not tolerate it from anyone - but, like jlzania, I grew up in a household where yelling usually involved abuse. A voice raised in anger, even heard at a distance, makes my stomach clench and my heart pound.
IMO, anyone who sees this commercial and thinks ‘Hey, I’m being abused!’ probably is being abused - which, I would think, is the intent of the commercial in pointing out that yelling can, indeed, be considered abuse. Anyone who is simply looking for an excuse to claim abuse - maybe to get sympathy or improve their position in a divorce or custody case - doesn’t need this commercial to give them ideas.
IMHO, yes. Why would you yell at her for an accident? An accident is an accident. Not grounds for yelling at someone. (at least for me)
Over time constant yelling (at a child or an adult) can have lasting negative effects- think about the message being sent when yelling is going on.
Zette
I’d think the real worry is that nonabused people will hear the commercial claim that yelling is abuse and, based on that obvious silliness, dismiss the claims of people who actually ARE being abused. They’ll think that people suffering abuse must be whiners who break down crying every time a voice is raised at them.
Way I see it, there’s a bright line around physical abuse: if you EVER touch a partner in a way that intentionally inflicts pain or injury, you’re abusing that person.
There’s no bright line around mental abuse. Yelling isn’t necessarily abusive; not yelling isn’t necessarily nonabusive.
Conflating the two in a simplistic fashion could make people dismiss the whole thing.
Daniel
Jadis and jlzania, you’re not actually my two older sisters, are you?
Well, if nothing else maybe we’ve identified some sort of syndrome here - people who were subjected to abusive yelling as children seem to feel that yelling = abuse.
And just to throw another wrench into the works, let’s not forget about context. I have the type of relationship with my girlfriend where saying the above is perfectly acceptable, because she knows it’s a joke, and that I would never, ever say that to someone seriously, especially not her.
In response, I’d expect her to say something like (with a perfectly straight face):
“You’re a miserable excuse for a lover, and you smell bad.”
or
“You’re hopelessly freakish looking, you have terrible taste in music, and your ass looks fat in those pants.”
At this point, I normally threaten to kick her ass (“I’ve been known to slap a woman down!”), she responds threateningly (“Bring it, bitch!”) or simply launches herself at me, we get into a tickle fight, and the whole thing ends with us laughing like a pair of idiots.
Ah, love. 
Was she talking on the phone? Doing her make-up? Reading the paper? Reading the god-damned paper while trying to put on her makeup and talk on the phone?!?!?!
[sub]Hey, I’ve seen people do it…[/sub]
Yelling at her because she got hit by the person doing the above would be abusive.
You better believe if my SO takes my car out and is reading the paper, talking on the phone and eating cereal when he rear ends someone going down the Parkway because he failed to see the line of cars stopped at the entrance to the Fort Pitt, damn right I’m gonna yell at his dumb ass.
I’m gonna find out he’s ok, and then I’m gonna chew his head off for doing something so moronic. I’m gonna vent the anger at the fact that he’d be so irresponsible, and gonna vent it at him. And then when my car is all fixed (or I get a new car) I’ll forgive his mistake and never let him drive my car again.
But yeah, sometimes people yell. If I need to express my extreme anger in a situation like that, I think yelling would be the best of the alternatives. Expecting that I’d internalize something like that to spare the feelings of the person who did the irresponsible move is unreasonable.
Now if I found out he had cheated on me, the yelling would definitely take place. I’m sure I’d run the gamut of four letter words and explore a wide variety of insults. Course if someone gains my trust and then deliberately abuses it, is it really reasonable to expect me NOT to express anger at them?
<hijack>
Catsix - I am formerly from Pittsburgh, it was good to see the home-town references in your post!
<hijack>
I grew up in a home with both physical and verbal abuse. The result, I swore I would never “hit a woman” and physical violence against women sends me into a bit of barely containable rage.
Sadly, I picked up the verbal abuse habits and continue to deal with them as an ongoing life lesson. Am I horribly abusive? No, I do not think so. Can I fly off on the handle sometimes when a natural arguement occurs and “go too far” into what maybe construed as abusive, yes. I am aware of that and try my best to identify triggers that may lead to that in an effort to avoid it. Habits formed in youth are sometimes hard to break, even with a dedicated effort.
I think the points brought up about this OP regarding applying common sense to a situation are valid. Not all yelling equals abuse. Anger, frustration, etc., are common healthy emotions, just as happiness, sadness, grief, etc.
Finally, I do not mean to point out Jadis specifically here but anyone who has never raised their voice or snapped at a family member or significant other concerns me. I applaud his/her decision to respect others and expect respect in return. No one should tolerate “abuse”. I also accept that she/he MAY indeed be an incredibly rare person who manages anger/frustration, etc., much better than the average person. However, just as yelling can be taken too far and be abusive, bottling up certain ‘normal’ emotions can also be damaging. Different set of issues and concerns entirely from verbal abuse but neither is ‘healthy’ in my opinion. Again, I want to point out I do not know Jadis so this may not be the case in his/her specific situation but generally speaking someone who never gets upset and ‘yells’… well, that would scare me! 
MeanJoe
coosa-I think you’re on to something here as regards the low tolerence that children that were bullied have for adult screamers. As far as being your older sister well, Mom always insisted that I was an only child and I think she’d remember giving birth.
- quoted from ** catsix ***
Why would you be involved with something that would do something so stupid that it would warrant your yelling at him? When I pull a truly bone-headed stunt, I feel really idiotic. There is nothing Mr 'zania could do to make me feel worse. I don’t need my partner to punish me when I blow it-I can handle that all on my own.
‘Bone headed’ is a little different than (all hometown references fully for Mean Joe’s benefit):
‘So baby, I was browsing the PG heading goin up 19 to the Liberty Tubes when I saw this article on how Penn Dot closed up those Fort Pitt Tunnels. I got all irate because I knew I couldn’t make a left onto McArdle like usual, so I switched my bowl of cereal to the ground and floored it to go through the yellow before I got stuck at that clusterfuck they call the intersection there at route 51. I was tryin so hard to keep my bowl of cereal from spilling onto my cell phone while I called up my boss down at PPG to tell him I was gonna be late for work due to this goddamn Penn DoT shit that I didn’t pay any attention to the fact that the PAT bus in front of me actually STOPPED at the light. So basically, your car has been towed to Three Rivers Auto Body, but from the looks of it, it’s totaled. I know you just got it a month ago and all, but c’mon, I didn’t wanna spill that milk on my cereal.’
At that point I’m going to think about my car. My new car. My … I don’t have a car anymore. I’m going to be upset. I’m going to be emotional. Uhoh. Yelling. Yelling coupled with crying. Reminding SO that anyone who reads the PG in route 19 rush hour traffic just outside the Liberty Tubes while calling his boss at PPG is obviously being an inconsiderate fucktard because nobody who loevs me should be that cavalier with my Cavalier. It’s not entirely about ‘punishing’ him. It’s that I’m upset, highly pissed off that I no longer have a car, and I really, really need to vent. It is not healthy for me to keep that inside and pretend to him that it’s not a big deal.
The cheating thing, oh that is not hypothetical. That happened. I overheard him bragging to his friends about how stupid I was and how I would never figure it out. That wasn’t yelling. That was ballistic. That was dumping his lyin ass.
*** In bliss after reading catsix’s last post ***
Throw in a few ‘Yenz’, ‘n-nat’, and ‘dawn-tawns’ and I’d be ready to embraced at the Pearly Gate’s by J.C. himself…
I didn’t mean to imply that I bottle up all of my anger/frustration/etc. because that’s not the case at all. If I’m angry or upset about something, you’ll know it. My only point is that shrieking at someone at the top of your lungs solves nothing, and certainly breeds resentment in the person you’re shrieking at. You don’t need to raise you voice to let someone know that you’re unhappy, and you don’t have to be abusive about it. Someone pointed out above that saying “You’re a fucking idiot” in a moderate tone is just as obnoxious as screaming it like a lunatic. Neither is acceptable to me, and both will be dealt with in a similar manner.
Basically, being angry is fine. Abusing someone is not. It’s possible to express your emotions without trampling people.
IMO, hollering at someone in a fit of rage is juvenile and disrespectful. But that’s just me.
Nobody yelled in my family when I was growing up - we talked, discussed, hashed, rehashed, etc. etc. etc until the cows came home.
As a consequence, I don’t react well to people yelling at me now, as an adult. Ditto for swearing. I’ve never yelled at someone in anger either, and I don’t swear when I’m angry. I consider it disrespectful to the listener.
I’ve been in a situation where a disagreement occurs between me and someone - if they start to yell and swear, I ask them to stop. Every time this has happened (which is not really that many times) the person has stopped yelling/swearing. Had they not, then I think that would have been abusive.
As I said, it might be a good position to take when you’re working with victims- that is, people who are abused.I have never heard of a woman seeking help from any battered women’s organizations complaining only of yelling or controlling behavior, so I’m certain that all of this trainer’s clients complained of physical abuse. In the context of their lives, raising the voice itself might be abusive - “Don’t flush when I’m in the shower” means something different in a situation where the last time you flushed when I was in the shower you ended up with bruises.
Doreen
Jadis,
Thank you for clarifying in a little more detail and not taking my reference to be a personal attack on you. I agree with you but find in my own personal experience that is a bigger challenge than it would seem.
…my, my… this feels quite out of place considering we are in the Pit and all so…
Shit, Damn and Fuck!
Life is too short to waste time on people who can’t contol their anger, either verbally or physically.
You know, I have to put in my two cents here. . .
. . .I was verbally abused as a child. I was told that I was a fat pig, that I was stupid, that I was weak for crying, that I could never cry. If I didn’t go to help with something–without being asked–I got it. My dad–he was the one who did it–and I still have a pretty tenuous relationship, even though the abuse stopped a couple years ago, as he seemed to grow some form of conscience.
Thing is, he did the same thing to my mom. Should she have put up with it? Hell no. Yeah, things do get better, but a lot of times they don’t. My mom just sort of thought that all the yelling and insults and not being able to yell back were part of a marriage, that they were normal.
I’m not much for blaming my faults on my past; I don’t want to absolve myself of all blame for who I am. But the fact that I will let people walk all over me at times, that I have a poor body image, that I sometimes think no one will like me, ever. . .I think it can be at least partially tied back to that.
People need to know that abuse CAN take the form of yelling…that’s why it was in the ad, and that’s why I agree with its being there.