Passive aggressive behavior: how to recognize it
Anger is often seen as a destructive feeling. When you let it out, you can lose your inhibitions, hurting another person with certain words or gestures, with the extreme limit of violence. Leaving aside these more serious cases, even a simple episode of anger is considered in a negative way. However, not keeping and releasing this feeling to yourself can be a much better choice than to enclose it in your soul, continuing to "bottle up" resentment, anger and resentment.
All these states of mind, in fact, end up manifesting themselves in a behavior that the British define passive aggressive behavior, or the passive aggressive one. A person who acts in this way can have far worse effects than those who release their anger and then return to a state of inner calm. The passive-aggressive personality has repercussions at the level of manipulation and can be glimpsed in attitudes ranging from "indifference to" disguised aggression.
To recognize this behavior - which in the most serious cases can lead to a real disorder, inserted in the DSM - there are several signs that can be recognized in the attitudes of others.
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How to recognize a passive-aggressive personality
Perhaps not everyone knows that the condition of passive aggression dates back to the Second World War. This type of behavior, in fact, was attributed to the soldiers returning from the conflict who showed a defiant attitude towards the psychiatrists who were treating them, as well as a certain reluctance to express and express their anger with respect to the lived experience and a passive resistance in carrying out certain orders. Even if over the years it has been shown that the military was a Post-traumatic stress disorder, the definition of "passive aggressive behavior" always derives from here.
1. Beware of passive aggressive language
The first sign to be grasped if a person is suspected of being passive-aggressive is to be found in language. This form of expression, in fact, always results to oscillate from "being" passive ", that is, without a real response or with various attempts to close the dialogue, to hostility.
In the phrases of passive-aggressive individuals there is never a lack of irony and sarcasm, which are taken to the extreme with the intent of hurting. Not funny jokes and digs of any kind will be on the agenda. Of course, when these people are about to be exposed, they take the opportunity to deflect the gravity of the situation with a "but I was just kidding!" or "you take everything too seriously!". By doing so, they shift the attention and the problem from themselves, who appear as "victims", to others, who may feel "guilty" of having misinterpreted.
In general, this type of language can only strike - and in many cases hurt - the interlocutor, because he will feel displaced in front of certain answers and will not be able to counter.
2. Procrastination
Just as "had happened for the soldiers of the Second World War who did not want to submit to orders, the same attitude can be found in which he manifests a" passive aggression. What these people don't like will always be done unwillingly or, in the worst cases, they will try to sabotage the project they don't want to work on, the event they don't want to participate in and other situations they don't like.
However, this trend of theirs is not revealed immediately. Especially in the field of a love relationship, passive-aggressive people can show themselves to be very available and compliant in the early periods. This condition, however, will not last long and soon they will begin to criticize everything, not to accept judgments about themselves, to procrastinate everything they do not like to do and to blame others for a mistake made by them.
3. Silence hides much more than you think
Revealing your own emotion or feeling to others requires a high level of assertiveness. In fact, if you are gifted - and if you have cultivated all your life - assertiveness, then you will have no problem "getting naked" of feelings and what you think, without even being afraid to show anger when In most cases, however, people are unable to verbalize their anger, acting passively and withdrawing into themselves.
This behavior is already noticeable in children, such as pouting or refusing to speak after an argument. It is the parents' duty to dampen this attitude, because otherwise silence will always be considered as "a refuge" and also "a" weapon.
When faced with a quarrel or a simple conflict, a passive-aggressive adult pretends that there is no tension or takes on the role of the victim.
The passive-aggressive in love
The behaviors described above are used by those who suffer from passive aggression in all the various relationships of life and this also includes those of love. A passive-aggressive partner violates, more or less unconsciously, one of the essential prerequisites of a relationship, that is to want and know how to express one's feelings and what one thinks, so as to establish a couple dialogue. Indeed, the person passive-aggressive also in this circumstance he will use silence as a weapon to lead in some circumstances to dangerous outbursts of anger, for example, for the umpteenth unwelcome project of which, however, he had never expressed his discontent.
Finally, it should be noted that these people show a certain emotional dependence towards their partner. They can criticize various aspects of his personality, but, at the same time, they don't know how to do without them.
How to deal with a passive-aggressive person
It is not always possible to completely remove a person from passive aggressive behavior from their life. In some cases it is necessary to live with it and learn not to be carried away or manipulated by this attitude.
First, it is essential to make the best use of what psychologists call "emotional intelligence". It's about that ability to balance your emotions and decide for yourself how much you want to be influenced by others. If we perceive that an individual has a particular negative influence on us, we must learn to give him the "right weight" and push him away.
Then, those who show passive aggression feel even stronger when their provocations are successful and manifest effects on who they are dealing with. Therefore, if there is no possibility of rejecting them altogether, they must be somehow ignored, without reacting to jokes or jokes without joking intent. The same is true if you have a partner who demonstrates such behaviors: if you still want to carry on the relationship, it is useless to be authoritarian, because this stance could increase anger even more.
Finally, if the passive aggressive behavior comes from a family member, who can be both an adult and a child, it is necessary to consult a psychologist who can go to correct this attitude.
