The Myth Of "Nobody Can Make You Feel Bad Without Your Permission"
There’s a common sentiment that goes, “Nobody can make you feel bad without your permission” – generally trotted out when someone’s been hurt by a mean thing that someone said.
The idea, I believe, is that we are all rational, robot-like beings who can control our emotions – and thus if we get upset by someone’s assholic statements, we have chosen to be upset. We could have shrugged it off instead.
Problem is, people don’t work that way.
Now, first off, “shrugging off other people’s insults and accusations” is a learned skill. If you’ve ever raised a kid, you know most of them don’t come pre-baked with the “Eh, whatever” switch – if you yell at them, they cry. If other kids make fun of them, they get upset. Actually placing the “Okay, they’re mocking you, but do you respect their opinion?” switch in place is a process that takes years, requires a healthy ego on the kid’s part, and isn’t 100% successful.
So expecting everyone to have that skill is kinda jerky. Admittedly, it’s a vital skill that everyone should actively cultivate – without it, abusers can emotionally manipulate you into the most awful of situations by pressing your “guilt” button whenever you complain about valid stuff.
But not everyone had nice parents. Not everyone’s discovered how to interrupt their emotions with logic. And as such, sneering, “Well, you chose to feel bad”isn’t actually true. They have yet to develop a barrier between the onrush of primal feelings and the rationality to say, “Wait, no, that’s actually something I shouldn’t feel.”
You might want to start that long discussion of how to get to the point where they can shove off that tidal wave of sadness with a cold freeze of logic… but that’s not how this is used. Instead, the “Nobody can make you feel bad…” argument is generally wielded as a club to make it the victim’s fault when someone decided to be an asshole at them.
Yet hey! What about me? I’ve been on the Internets for years. I’ve received death threats. I’ve had hundreds of blog-entries devoted to what a jerk I am, entire forum-threads of vitriol. Some people loathe me personally, and they’ve never met me – and yet I’m still posting my opinions daily.
So as one of the most thick-skinned people I know, I clearly understand how nobody can make me feel bad without my permission, right? Otherwise I’d just be shivering in a closet.
Wrong.
What I know is that I can shut down those bad feelings that come when someone chucks a nastygram in my direction – but it takes me effort to do so.
I think of it as walking to the store. Under normal circumstances, I’ll get to where I’m going. But with the right insult, some asshole can drop a fifty-pound weight in my backpack. I’ll still get to the store, but thanks to their jerktasticness, it’s a fuck of a lot more effort.
And if I was low on energy that day? Or in a rush to get somewhere?
Lord, those insults can fuck up my day, whether I wanted them to or not.
And that’s not me saying that human interaction should be scrubbed of all potentially harmful content. Some people do get butthurt incredibly easily, and I think there’s a point at which you have to make the decision that this person’s rigid boundaries are going to hem in your speech to unacceptable levels, and blow them off.
(Some people don’t read me because they’re offended by my swearing. I support their right to unfriend me in order to protect their sanity, but stopping? Fuck that noise.)
But when you say, “Well, nobody can make you feel bad without your permission!”, that sets up a world where you have no responsibility for your speech. Were you digging for weak spots, mocking to make a point? Oh, hey, well, you were trying your damndest to make them feel bad, but if it worked it’s their fault for not having sufficient defenses. It’s not 100% correlation, but when I see “Nobody can make you feel bad!” I usually find a taunting dillweed nearby, taking potshots from the brush and then claiming no responsibility.
No. You may not be able to make someone feel bad, but you sure as fuck can make them burn strength they were planning to use for other projects that day. So speak carefully. Try to be kind. And don’t be a dick unless it’s your last choice.
It won’t hurt to be a little nicer, man. I promise.
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I had a manager you used to say this.
“You made me feel really bad,” I told her once. She huffed and replied, “No one can MAKE you feel anything! You chose to feel bad and that’s not my problem!”
Yeah she had issues and needless to say, I didn’t work there very long.
WHO used to say this. Must have more tea before commenting…
My mother used to say it, and so did umpteen baby boomers and their parents and the bullies they chose to raise.
Yes. Yes. So much fucking yes.
Thanks for saying this. I usually roll my eyes at the new age bunkum that tries to tell people it’s their own fault if they get sick or aren’t rich or were raped. The dictate to not feel anything because of other peoples’ actions doesn’t even work for the gods, let alone people. (Go on and think of any story in mythology in which one of them died. Did the other ones cry? Yeah, they did, huh.)
I guess the people who subscribe to that “secret” think that life is like a dream— sometimes you have nightmares, but they come from your consciousness and are a part of it.
How narrow is that world, that it does not shock and amaze and awe every day? Leave the poor little people to their poor little lives, and hope they grow out of wishful thinking before they start using it as birth control.
Great post! Also, I agree with your response, Erin.
I am a cancer survivor, and I had a “friend” who merrily told me that SHE never gets sick or ill, as SHE always “thinks positively”.
Yeah, that was a horrible thing to say to someone with cancer, and it did upset me. I am human and I do have feelings.
All this new age psycho babble about “don’t take anything personally” is just that ….bunkum
Thanks for a great post.
I love this! I could not have said this better myself! Thank you for posting and I hope a million people read this!
The actual “quote” is ‘No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.’ It’s attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt but is actually a Reader’s Digest version of the following incident:
” The Secretary of Labor in the Roosevelt administration was invited to give a speech at the University of California, Berkeley on the Charter Day of the school. The customary host of the event was unhappy because she felt that the chosen speaker should not have been a political figure. She refused to serve as the host and several newspaper commentators viewed her action as a rebuff and an insult.
Eleanor Roosevelt was asked at a White House press conference whether the Secretary had been snubbed, and her response was widely disseminated in newspapers. Here is an excerpt from an Associated Press article [ERNC]:
“A snub” defined the first lady, “is the effort of a person who feels superior to make someone else feel inferior. To do so, he has to find someone who can be made to feel inferior.”
She made clear she didn’t think the labor secretary fell within the category of the “snubable.””
-http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/03/30/not-inferior/
the absolute authority of the infallible quoteinvestigator site not withstanding, eleanor roosevelt actually paraphrased (or more accurately plagiarized) mahatma gandhi, who said long before ER, “no one can offend me without my permission.”
Which is to say, people who spout lines like “feel bad without your permission” are dead wrong. The “Roosevelt” quote isn’t about not feeling hurt. It’s asking you whether you feel *inferior* to the people who are insulting you. Whether you’re buying into their power play.
Not uncommon for rape survivors to torment themselves, and be tormented by well-meaning friends, with this very platitude— YOU’RE the one who’s CHOOSING to be traumatized. Please stop your whining!
Glad to see it so solidly drubbed. Thanks.
it was ONLY “solidly drubbed” in the mind of the author and a handful of triggered SJWs commenting here. in the first place, a physical assault is hardly equivalent to a verbal insult. to equivocate the two belies YOUR fundamental bias and warped perspective.
but in the end, it is still true that a victim of ANY crime has the choice to wallow in self-pity and feel sorry for themselves for the rest of their lives, or put on their big boy pants and move forward and upward. it’s kind of arrogant and self-centered to ASSUME that those around you haven’t had their share of traumatic experiences.
I think I love you. THANK YOU for this… and for you honesty, frankness, and the swearing… I LOVE the swearing. Sometimes there is nothing that can express exactly what you’re thinking (or feeling) than a heartfelt cuss word… or as my 3 yr old asked me when I stubbed my toe really hard “Is that a OH FUCK moment, mommy?” (My son is very precocious.)
I’m a first-time reader, but you can be sure it’s not the last 😀
Well said, and needful. Thank you very much.
I’ve needed a way to explain why I let people’s comments/taunts/blows with baseball bats hurt me (with my permission). Thank you for explaining that sometimes we make that choice because the choice to not let it hurt you does take too much energy.
I really wish people didn’t see the need to say or do hurtful things, especially when the purpose is to hurt.
It seems like you’re trying to paint a picture where logic and emotion are anathema to one another, but they aren’t. Humans are emotional creatures, and logic always coexists with emotion. I think the idea/level of logic you’re talking about exists only in sci-fi movies.
It isn’t about shutting down your emotions or feelings when you’re deciding how to respond to someone who does something hurtful to you, but about asking yourself why they are able to make you feel the way that you do. Of course you must first feel that way to understand it, but then you have to wonder what exactly is going on inside yourself that brings any undesirable emotion forward. And of course you’re not always going to understand it at first, but you have at least begun that process.
If what you’re saying here is it’s obvious that others can control the way you feel by how they treat you, then you must wonder why you can’t have that same reign over the way you feel by the way you think about what has been done to you.
Actually, you can kind of control your responses, including some of your emotional ones. The key to shutting out other peoples’ hurtful behaviours is to feel apathy towards them. They’ll still be able to impact you, but only if you yourself choose or have chosen to believe their statements and implications.
It takes excellent mental and emotional control, though, to do this. The ability to hold off on all responses, as it were.
Perfectly said. When I’m hurt by someone, it takes a lot of time to process what exactly happened, why it hurt, what their actual intent may have been, etc before I can then pack it away and feel better. The worst comes from people with *power* over you, because their opinion may determine your grade, your performance evaluation, letters of recommendation, and so on. It isn’t always possible to shrug off a person’s sarcasm or betrayal as irrelevant. And even if it is someone you can walk away from, there’s still time you want to spend cooling down and determining the cost of breaking off or distancing from them.
I think eleanor Roosevelt, commonly thought of as the person who popularized this saying, meant this in a more global way than ” you should never let anything a jerky person does hurt you”. She endured an awful lot of ridicule about her looks, taunts about staying in her place , criticism about getting involved in causes and politics. I suspect she meant that you can’t let people’s nasty comments be the thing that shapes how you feel about yourself. She would not be happy to see the phrase used as a way to justify nasty behavior and unkindness. Good article calling people out for being jerks and then denying its their fault or problem.
Right on! I do think the phrase is useful when used to reflect on our own reactions and internalization of the judgments of others. But certainly this phrase should not be used to justify mean – or perhaps more often – inconsiderate – behavior.
Same for “Don’t take anything personally.” Don Miguel Ruiz’s four agreements are not about giving people license to act badly. Rather they are about working to free ourselves from the suffering that we experience because of it. And as the author hear notes, that is *work.* It takes a lot of mental and emotional work to examine where someone else’s judgements or actions are touching on our own self doubts and untangle ourselves from that. Work worth doing, but definitely lets not add to anyone else’s work load by adding new judgements, or weights to their backpacks.
Yes, it is a learned skill. Good post. Sorry about the jerks trying to blame you for reacting to their verbal abuse.
Here is the article ‘in a nutshell’- quoted directly from this article:
“shrugging off other people’s insults and accusations” is a learned skill. . . .So expecting everyone to have that skill is kinda jerky.
But when you say, “Well, nobody can make you feel bad without your permission!”, that sets up a world where you have no responsibility for your speech.
“Nobody can make you feel bad…” argument is generally wielded as a club to make it the victim’s fault when someone decided to be an asshole at them.
What I know is that I can shut down those bad feelings that come when someone chucks a nastygram in my direction – but it takes me effort to do so.
No. You may not be able to make someone feel bad, but you sure as fuck can make them burn strength they were planning to use for other projects that day.
I’m gonna remember these points, the next time I hear bullshit like this. “Don’t worry, be happy,” etc. As if it was that easy!
The person who says the thing that makes you feel bad does not have a right to say that it is you making yourself feel bad. They need to take responsibility for the inaccuracy of what they have said and the cack-handed way they have said it. In your own head, you should take them to task for what is wrong with what they have said, and push it away, to restore your equilibrium. Only later, when you’re sitting quietly by the window, should you consider, perhaps I am vulnerable for this or that reason, perhaps underneath, that comment does have a small point, and I can make a small adjustment here. But you cannot think like that until you have taken the pressure off yourself.
For me, learning this vital lesson took going through and breaking off what ended up turning out to be a toxic, long-term friendship with a girl who I discovered was not only manipulative but backstabbing. She’s the sort of person who has gone through life playing the victim card with every guy and female friend she’s ever had and was always extremely private about her past. Once I finally wised up to her game, she cut me off and in nearly 10 years that have passed since, she’s made a point of discrediting me to our mutual acquaintances.
The lesson I’ve had to learn is ignoring the knee-jerk, gut reaction to defend myself against her false accusations, but in the end, I discovered that habit was only alienating people more rather than helping the situation. Now, I just politely brush off any attempts by people we both know to delve into or bring up he subject of what new he-said-she-said nonsense this girl is spreading around.
It’s true we’re not taught this important skill early on and it’s something we can all learn to cultivate as adults.
Oh my god, this is what I’ve been needing to read for such a long time. I have been scouring the internet in hopes that I wasn’t just completely insane, here is why:
After i was raped several years ago, several of my friends at the time taunted me with this bit of dangerous philosophical bullshit that’s been circulated it seems. I was told it was my fault I was having nightmares, I could choose to get over it if I truly wanted it. That my symptoms meant that I must want people to feel sorry for me, otherwise I would just simply “choose” to not feel such heavy pain.
I had given my rapist permission to hurt me, and its my own fault I’m not ok.
I was told that I obviously didn’t care about them anymore since all I did was cry.
One of the boys told me :
“You know, nobody can force you to do anything against your will” I asked him, “but what if they have a gun?”
His answer, I shit you not, went like this: “You still chose it, you could have chosen death but you didn’t. Don’t expect anyone to feel sorry for you for your own choices”
At the time, I was completely unaware, that this was an actual psychological philosophy being preached by several online. And when trying to find articles to help myself, I found nothing but webpage, after webpage telling me the same thing my (ex) friends had:
I had given my rapist permission to hurt me, and its my own fault I’m not ok.
Perhaps my experience has screwed up in my head, many of the things I’ve read online; but between what I’ve seen being spouted about, and my experience with my (ex) friends, I wonder if there is not some conspiracy to turn people into complete psychopaths, while causing others to off themselves. Population control maybe?
I’m so sorry you went through that. Of course people can cause you or me or anyone hurt, and it’s not your/my/ other people’s fault when we’re harmed by others and it bothers us, especially when it’s obvious they intentionally caused harm. The blames lies squarely on the attackers. I may be responsible for choosing how to react to my emotions, but I certainly don’t apologize for having perfectly normal feelings and emotional responses in the first place. I don’t know when this new-agey insanity gained momentum, but it’s absurd and sick. I have some of those same, troubling acquaintances, and I’ve heard them say similar things about child abuse and worse. One of them actually thinks the millions of victims of the Holocaust chose/ allowed themselves to be hurt, as they “spiritually contracted” to be murdered to “learn a spiritual lesson.” Talk about blaming the victims. It really does make me wonder if they are sociopaths.
OMG, Thank you for having the courage to share your story. I am so sorry what happened. I believe you and it is NOT your fault.
I too was raped several months ago. When I went to the ER, the SANE Nurse had that quote “No one can make you feel inferior without your permission” hanging over her door for me to stare at as I was getting my pelvic exam.
What a terrible message for a nurse to send to women who have just been raped!
The very nature of a rape is that you did NOT give your consent and yet the other person robbed you of your dignity anyway. The rapist purposely violates you and takes away the most private, personal part of you.
What many have noted is that this phrase is not always helpful and I think we first need to acknowledge and validate that people have feelings. A rape survivor feels victimized – of course! Compassion tells us to acknowledge and support the person as they process these feelings.
Down the line, someone who is supporting a rape victim may try to help her see that she actually still has the right to her dignity because the person who should be ashamed is the rapist, not her. But this should be a discussion when the person is ready to think about how to frame her self-concept after the trauma – not as a way to shut down her very natural emotional reactions.
It is true. If I give someone else’s opinion more value than my own then another can decide how I feel, when and for what length of time. If, however, my opinion of me matters more then nothing you or anyone else can say can hurt me. You don’t matter so your opinion doesn’t matter. Get it? Say whatever you like. Be cruel, heartless, viscous and cold. It just doesn’t matter because you don’t matter.
I Think Jody hit the nail on the head with this one, in reality nobody matters at all, so why should anything they say matter? stop worrying about what other people say or do. If someone is “abusing” you, and you get hurt, then guess what? you probably deserve it for being such a whiner in the first place! I blame feminism for most of this crap.
This is part of the article that I take issue with. You do not need to be cold or robot-like to be immune from the judgements of others. You could even look at it from a place of compassion (though I am not that Zen myself!). For example, you can acknowledge that someone else’s judgement says more about who they are than about who you are, and if they are saying or doing unkind things, that shows that they are probably wounded themselves. Not an excuse, but when you value your own sense of worth over what others say, and have compassion, you can see this and rather than responding with hurt or anger, just feel compassion for the person.
That is not easy of course! But it is worth striving for, I think. It limits your own suffering without taking away your humanity.
Absolutely love this!
Thank You!
The whole idea that no one can make you feel anything is biologically unsound. Emotions originate in the most primitive part of the brain. You are feeling them before you even consciously know how or why. By the time that information gets to your prefrontal cortext, the most recently-evolved part of your brain, the part in charge of logic and abstraction, the emotion is already in your body. The related hormones are already doing their thing, affecting your temperature, blood pressure, balance, etc. At that point, your prefrontal cortext can start to reason through it (“Hey, this guy’s a jerk! Who cares what he says?”), but the emotion is already there. You’re feeling it whether your conscious mind thought this feeling was a good idea or not. Your conscious mind may be able to help you dial it back later, but it can’t make the stress hormones vanish. That’s not how we’re wired.
I came here because someone just made me feel bad.. I did nothing wrong, it’s just that he ‘s being mean and the good thing is that I don’t feel as bad as I used to.
I know very well it’s an issue I must deal with myself.. Learning to shrug off is way much easier than cleaning the world off all @$$holes. Moreover, I strongly believe that it’s wrong to avoid places where similar incidences are likely…I believe the more such incidences happen the faster I learn to shrug off …
The way I was raised up was all about respect from the perspective of right and duty… It has made me the nice man who acts nicely out of duty and expect an in-kind treatment… Which I know believe it’s wrong!
To shrug off, I must compromise my good character! Those who feel bad are good people. It’s not wrong to be good and it’s not so bad to feel bad about how people mistreat you! But I do not want to be good, and the way to shrug it off comes in by some changes in the way I behave …
– never do good just to impress others.. Do it only when you believe in it.
– It’s the duty of front desk staff at hotels and stores to act nicely, I shouldn’t initiate the nice act or even expect it! With this I still have to act polite without getting out of my way.
– Return attacks at the spot, the majority of @$$holes chicken out with little aggressive tone and look from me! I do this and works amazing, to the extent that I sometimes feel bad about them not because of them. Try it!!!
– Money is something of interest to all.. Keep yours and leave mine! I used to feel shy to talk about it and feel bad when someone ripped me off!
Never ever act nice in the wrong medium.. When I travel to countries like in South Asia for example, I used to look so nice to taxi drivers that they used to rip me off! It took me so long to learn to bargain and tell sellers off for trying to rip me off!
Eh … I got a lot to say .. I don’t have time … You just practice things like these …
Your belief system is that which holds you up under the scrutiny of others barbs and malignment. I can just as easily not be embarrassed or hurt because I know what I believe in and who I believe in. There is a starting point for these moments and they way you react, feel, and process depends on the credibility you give the information and or the person.
It is my belief that this phrase was meant to combat all the victims of the world who say, “he made me feel bad” or “that makes me unhappy”.
Personally, I have dropped that kind of wording from my life. I may feel bad when someone says something to me or when something happens in my life. But I choose how I feel. I might even choose to feel bad. But I am not a victim. My feelings are my choice.
Thank you! I actually came upon your blog when I was searching “who the fuck is that therapist that coined “no one can make you feel anything …but yourself.” I have been in so many dysfunctional or abusive relationships that use this phrase to get out of the fact that they are being an asshole. To me, it is the biggest cop out statement, a way out of taking responsibility that your comments or actions can hurt or directly impact someone’s self esteem. So my reaction, for instance I say “you have just made me feel like piece of crap” and they say “No one can make you feel anything but you….”. I respond by saying …”you could actually just be nice, or take responsibility for your actions as hurtful, bullying, violent….whatever they maybe. Maybe in some ideal world …no one could make us feel anything…but in that ideal world no one would be assholes either. My other beef with the statement is.. .if you do something pleasant, or full of love, or an act of kindness…you take pleasure and credit for making that person feel good. So why is it when you make a person feel bad…you all of the sudden pull out your “get out of jail free card.” I call that card bullshit and take some responsibility for your actions people!
it drives me insane. that train of thought created a monster who is my boyfriend. He uses that against me every time I tell him that he hurt me. It doesn’t matter whether its because he yelled at me, or because he told me I use my depression an anxiety to get attention, or because I didn’t want him to bring up a traumatic event, he will usually say he can’t make me feel anything so he’s free of guilt even if I’m crying my eyes out or having thoughts of self-harm. To him, the mentality is a get out of jail free card. Then I feel inferior and insane even though I was raised to stick up for myself when people hurt me.
I usually abhor all-caps but in this case THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! What a fucking fantastic article! Couldn’t agree more. I knew this complete arrogant asshole who spewed this stupid argument and basically was a black hole sucking up attention. Only thing to do when meeting these dickholes is to get away from them. Again, thanks.
I think the term for a person who can easily shrug off the negative opinions of others is either “Bodhisattva” or “sociopath”. And I think most people aren’t either one of those.
Oftentimes people out of ignorance and pride, hurt you not with words but with gestures and mocking or monkey moves, making fun. As a person of East Asian descent every now and then I “eat” these treatments that are hurtful in the society where I live and work in these regions of Earth (middle East, mediterranean, Greece). Few good people who noticed this and gave me exactly those sorry advices “Don’t let ‘them’ get to you, don’t allow it to hurt you, be strong, easy to brush it off, etc”. There’s absolutely nothing you can do to remedy the hurt without resorting to violence or something unthinkable and dangerous (physical). Everybody needs acceptance, love and understanding. They hate us while we must accept and tolerate them. Hates beget bigger hates. I have eery feelings that the world is indeed nearing its next and biggest war.
I’ve been hearing this clap trap most of my life & every single person who has said it was a narcissistic asshole who needed to crush others to feel better about themselves… being sensitive to abusive, fake, self-centered mongrels who make it their life’s mission to belittle and humiliate for their own enjoyment is not a negative thing…it teaches us about the kind of person we don’t want to be and the behaviours (& people) we want to stay away from in order to live a happy, peaceful life.
Thank you so much for this well written article! This has been on my mind a lot so I looked it up and BAM, found this article that articulated my thoughts better than I ever could. Thank you for making me feel GOOD!! LOL