So instead you waste time with people who are perfectly cordial, collected, passive, and reserved?
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not waste my time at all. Are people who actually have negative feelings from time to time due to stress somehow inferior to those who manage to internalize everything?
Now I have a serious question to ask yinz. (MeanJoe, lookie!)
Why is it that any expression or venting of anger is assumed to be an ‘inability to control’ that emotion if the expression comes out in a loud tone of voice?
I control my anger pretty well. When I am truly pissed off, I will start yellin dahn-tahn so loud that the people in skwuruhill can hear me, and five minutes later that is evacuated out of my system so that I don’t have to carry it around for days and days.
That method seems to be looked on as a lack of self control or immature by some of the posters here. So how come it’s so inferior and juvenile n’at?
It’s also me. I cannot think of a single time my husband or I have ever raised voices in anger towards one another. As Jadis said, it’s not that we are repressing this anger, it’s just that we are in control and mature enough to realize shouting and screaming will not solve the problem.
We usually take a time out till we’ve gotten over the initial anger and then discuss it calmly and rationally. We do this for our own self-preservation and respect for our partners, as well as demonstrating good anger-management techniques for our toddler.
Anyone, including my adult father, who yells at me and gets in my face is absolutely put in his/her place. I simply refuse to be spoken to like that.
Jadis and I must’ve had the same Dad.
I don’t know if it’s been mentioned here before, and I don’t have a cite, but I recall there being research to show a direct correlation between homes where the parents yell and scream and stress and anxiety in children. As a school teacher for many years, I could tell immediately when a child arrived at school if there had been a row that morning at home.
As a point of clarification, I personally am not talking about everyone being passive, etc. My husband and I both get upset, angry, frustrated, and everything else, but neither of us raises our voice to each other or yells. We don’t insult, we don’t use words like “worthless” or “stupid”. If one of us is so angry that the insults are coming and we can’t stop it, we remove ourselves from the situation and vent some other way. NOT at each other. Ever.
We’ve been together for 8 years and he has never, ever raised his voice at me in anger or cursed at me. He has done both TO me (regarding some issue he’s mad about with someone else) but never as a response to something I’ve done. I’m not a child and won’t be hollered at like one. We all make bad choices- stupid choices. We don’t need to be scolded in order to learn from them.
I’m not saying I’ve never lost my temper, but I can tell you it’s damned rare in this household. We both grew up in very loud yelling households and don’t want it anymore.
Tip to parents: look at how many people here are posting that they were verbally abused and how it’s affected their lives. Learn from it. Talk about scars that never, ever heal.
Zette
Therefore anyone who has ever yelled to express anger, frustration, or any other emotion is immature, lacks self control, and cannot solve problems?
Either that or they just have a different way of venting their frustrations than you do, which of course doesn’t mean that they are to automatically be judged as inferior to yourself.
I think you’re missing the point. It’s not about yelling to express anger or frustration, it’s about yelling AT someone to express anger or frustration.
As Zette pointed out, adults don’t need to be scolded to learn from their bad choices. If I’ve pissed someone off, I expect them to tell me that they’re pissed off and why, and I’ll give it due consideration. If I’ve pissed someone off and they yell at me or otherwise verbally abuse me (I’ve had someone resort to typing “Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you” in an online argument, which in my mind is the same thing as yelling), then you can go straight to hell. I don’t need that sort of stress, and I certainly deserve better than someone who doesn’t respect me enough to either talk rationally or walk away until they can.
Honestly…has screaming ever solved a problem?
And of course no adult EVER YELLS at another ADULT in THE PIT on the SDMB!!!
GET THE FUCK OFF OF MY FOOT!!!
[sub]…sorry[/sub]
Yes, it has.
I’ve had occasion to yell at someone because they did something which pissed me off where calm tone of voice was making absolutely no progress at all.
Case:
I had a roommate who didn’t believe in locking the door when she was out of the apartment. If I was out, and she left while I wasn’t there, I’d return to an unlocked door and (sometimes) people I didn’t know sitting on my couch watching my TV.
Repeated attempts to explain to her that it was unsafe to both our possessions and us to leave the door unlocked didn’t get through to her. Talking wasn’t getting things done, and after five or six discussions about the importance of locking the door when you go out, I was still coming home in the evening to an unlocked door and a roommate who was nowhere to be found. Her only reason for leaving the door unlocked all the time was that it was too cumbersome to carry the one key that unlocked both the doorknob lock and the deadbolt.
The shock that fried the processor came when she left the apartment while I was asleep to go clubbing. I woke up at 3 am to loud noise coming from the main room. There were five people I had never seen before having a party on my couch. ‘Please leave’ met with no success the first, second and third times. but screaming ‘Get the fuck out of my home before I call the cops’ did. I locked the door. Roommate returned home at around 5 am and found the door locked. I got up to let her in, and The Argument began with her telling me that door should never be locked. Given that my personal safety was on the line, and I was pissed off, I was damn well going to use any means I could to make an impression.
I yelled at her for about 15 solid minutes ending with ‘Your ass will be on the damn street if you don’t learn to be more responsible.’
She never left the apartment without locking the door again, and I never had to wake up and throw out a bunch of complete strangers again.
So yeah, after more than a month of discussion, one big screaming blowout solved the problem.
I lived on a farm for awhile, and the farmer had two kids. She was a great mom: very clear with her kids, very loving, very supportive. It was a small organic farm; she home-schooled her sons.
And if she was out in the field working and her five-year-old son started doing something that pissed her off, she would let loose.
“BENJAMIN PAGANO, I AM SO ANGRY WITH YOU!” she would scream, at the top of her lungs. “I’VE BEEN WORKING ALL SUMMER TO GROW THAT RADICCHIO, AND YOU JUST STOMPED OVER TEN PLANTS! THAT MAKES ME SO FRUSTRATED! You need to GO INSIDE THE HOUSE RIGHT NOW and give me time to CALM DOWN!”
And he would.
I think she would have cut off her own hand before ever hitting (even spanking) one of her kids, But she heartily endorsed yelling as a way of letting her kids know when they were frustrating her.
Now, they may be in therapy about it in ten years – I don’t know. But it sure didn’t seem like abuse to me.
Personally, I almost never yell, and definitely I never yell at people I love. Last time I yelled it was at an evil ex-housemate who stole $150 from me; I still don’t like people to talk about her around me, she makes me so angry. But I don’t think that yelling is always abusive, even when you’re yelling at those you love.
Daniel
I’m getting tired of the ads that show only men abusing women. Lets have a little balance in it, and show some situations of men being abused. it does happen. There is a organisation here in Ireland called AMEN which is an association for abused men. Their situation is never mentioned and it pisses me off that funded campaigns ignore it.
I can understand that some people like to vent. I’m pretty good about killing the mice attached to my pc on occaision coupled with some loud profanity in the office. But I have toned that down because not everyone appreciates or likes such locker room antics.
I worked for almost 2 years for an abusive boss. She would turning into a stark raving maniac several times every day. Okay, maybe 1-2 times a year I might do something avoidable that ends up costing the company significant money, and maybe, just maybe, that warrants getting yelled at. Maybe. But for her to blow up several times a day over stupid insignificant stuff. At least half the time she had her facts wrong, and of course never apologized.
“Goddamnit, why the fuckinng hell did you fucking do x” with spit flying, red faced complete aggro coming out of her mouth.
“Well, actually, you sent me an email yesterday ordering me to do x”
“Fuck, goddamn, I fucking goddamn would shit never goddamn do shit like that” and then a stream of abuse would follow.
No win situation. Took a long time. Eventually, she was sent back to the US, where she lasted about a month before her abusive behavior got her fired.
It was outrageous abuse. She was the general manager her in China and could get away with whatever she wanted. I had a family to support. I took that abuse. Eventually got fired over it (and successfully sued), but it was nasty. If I ever run into her again now that I do not have a job to protect, even the maturity I have gained over the years may not prevent me from from doing something I may later regret.
It is a grey line, but certainly there are people who cross it with verbal abuse and with the volume
Believe me, I am a non-yeller, and I don’t think anyone who does yell is (by that fact alone) inferior and juvenile. I realize that some people express their feelings by yelling. Different personality types, I guess.
Please do rest assured that my failure to yell does not mean I am repressing my emotions or not actually angry or anything else. I’m bemused by the comments made by some people in this thread that imply that non-yellers are somehow emotionally lacking. When I get angry, I express it, deal with it, and move on.
I don’t carry it around for days and days.
It is not surprising then that Mr. Del has a similar view of yelling – he doesn’t it do (at people in general, at me in particular). Being yelled at is not something I ever tolerate, from anyone. That doesn’t mean we never get angry, but when we do, we deal with it without yelling.
For me, yelling at a person is a sign of disrespect. I don’t want to treat people that way, in large part because I don’t like being treated disrespectfully by others (the ol’ social contract thing). Now, you may point out that there are millions of fun and interesting people in the world that I will never get to know because I am put off by their yelling. Which is, in a sense, true. However, there are millions of people in the world that I will never get to know anyway, seeing that the human lifespan is fairly short and I like to spend some of that time taking naps. Everyone, to some extent, develops criteria for making decisions about who is going to become a spouse, a friend, a business partner. For me, yelling (or non-yelling) is one of my factors.
Again, I’m talking about yelling at another person in anger. Obviously I raise my voice to warn people if an ACME safe is about to fall upon their heads. I yell at sporting events. I yelled at myself and the IRS in general when I realized that I seriously screwed the pooch by making a silly mistake on my tax return. Like my father did, I do occasionally march around the house bellowing “For the love of Pete, why won’t these Christmas lights work?!?” and then I shake the unlit bulbs toward heaven in a menacing way.
I do think adult people can and should choose whether they feel comfortable being yelled at. If you don’t care, great. If you do mind, then it is in your power to do something to make that situation change.
I don’t yell in most circumstances. It takes something very extreme to cause me to blow my stack at somebody.
The 1 month + of roommate who couldn’t lock the door and refused to have a discussion about why it was important, that was pushing it. The night I woke up and 5 gangstas were drinkin 40s and watchin Snoop Dogg on my couch because somebody went out clubbing and didn’t lock the door - that cemented it.
That was some high volume screeching.
At that point in time, that was the ONLY way the message was going to get into her brain.
Machines I yell at on a far more regular basis. They seem to respond well to it.
On the phone doesn’t count.
No. I didn’t say that. Express your anger all you like, but don’t do it at me. It’s disrespectful and I will disregard all the sage, wise and clever things you say if they are coming at me with anger, aggression and rage. I’m not judging your right to get angry and shout at people, I’m just telling you that it is my right to refuse to be on the receiving end of it.
If you don’t respect me enough to explain to me why you are angry in a rational way, I will not respect you enough to listen to you and you’ll probably either get hung up on or I’ll just leave the room or situation.
I don’t see how yelling at someone makes them listen to you. I’ve learned this from years of being on the receiving end of yelling. It just is not a civilized way, IMHO to behave towards others.
With ‘The Roommate From Hell Who Shall Remane Forever Nameless’ the only thing that worked was extremely high volume.
<catsix> Please, please lock the door when you leave. People have been wandering in here.
<TRFHWSRFN> But I don’t like to carry my keys.
<catsix> It’s just not safe for the door to be unlocked all the time. Stuff has disappeared from here, people have come in here. It’s not safe, so please lock the door.
<TRFHWSRFN> It’s too inconvenient for me to carry keys.
<catsix> Well it is kinda inconvenient for me when five crack dealers are on my couch at 5 am watching Snoop Dogg and passing around the crackpipe.
<TRFHWSRFN> That’s not a big deal.
(repeat daily for six weeks)
<catsix> LOCK THE FUCKING DOOR FROM NOW ON OR YOU WILL NO LONGER LIVE HERE. GOT IT?
<TRFHWSRFN> Um… ok. Lock door.
Light dawned on marble head.
Congratulations, pkpites on a really good thread in which you posed a reasonable question which elicited reasonable responses from so many people without once insulting anyone! See, it can be done even in the Barbecue Pit. I’m proud of you, boy! (And I mean “boy” in the most adult and politically correct way.) 
If I understood your original question, (it took a long time for me to read this far and I am a geezer, after all) your objection to the statement in the commercial was to its categorical nature. I agree with you. That’s the trouble with “commercials,” especially serious ones. They try to cover in thirty seconds enough material to cost you thousands of bucks if you were on a shrink’s couch.
Once again, congratulations on an excellent thread.
I always try to remain calm and rational when i’m angry, but I have to admit, sometimes raising my voice a few octaves just makes me feel better then remaining perfectly calm.
When I found out my boyfriend had cheated on me, I stayed calm as I told him that he broke my heart and it was over and blah de blah blah. For some reason I just didn’t quite feel better.
So I called him a little later and went off. I think the people in the next apartment complex heard me. It lasted about five minutes, as opposed to the previous hour long conversation and lo and behold, I felt 200% better. Five minutes of raw screaming versus an hour of “rational” conversation.
And to whoever said that no one listens when people yell. I’m afraid I have to disagree with that. The pain I was feeling didn’t seem to compute with the boyfriend during our “rational” conversation. But after the yelling? He seemed a lot more moved. That may have been all on him, but i’ve noticed off and on in my life that in certain circumstances, some people just tend to react more to yelling. More of an attention getter I guess. I’m probably gonna get reamed by the anti-yellers in this thread but I know that sometimes when people say to me “i’m mad at you” I sometimes take them half serious because hey, they don’t sound THAT mad, but when they start yelling, I think to myself “whoah, they really ARE pissed…”
Yelling is reserved for instances when I am truly upset, and is used to convey to the other person that I am ideed, REALLY PISSED. I grew up in a household where there was a lot of yelling, but instead of looking at it as abuse, I just see it as “I’m REALLY PISSED AND I MEAN BUSINESS!” because it is not a normal, everyday thing. I don’t do it often and when I do, it tends to get results. I really don’t think that makes me imature, abusive, or defective.
I don’t think occasional yelling is innappropriate at all. It’s a way to communicate anger or frustration, for example. Sometimes it’s more effective at communicating this anger or frustration than calmness or just words can, sometimes it isn’t.