Emotion Sickness
Last week, my girlfriend was all annoyed about something (something relatively unimportant). I'm normally not a bad listener, but I was getting stressed out just hearing about this. I blurted out, "Calm down!" and she really flipped, yelling, "DON'T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!" It took me forever (and lots of "I'm sorrrreeee"s) to get her to mellow out. I mentioned this incident to a friend, and he said, "Man, don't you know? You never say that to a woman!" Please explain.
--Mr. Doghouse
There are times you may want to tell a woman to calm down, like when you lack live electrical wire to chew on or are curious as to how the nurses would react if you walked into the ER with your head under your arm.
Many people believe the myth that the typical man is about as emotionally sensitive as the typical hammer. However, neuroscientist Tor Wager looked at the findings from 65 brain imaging studies and found that -- overall -- men's brains weren't any less responsive to emotional stimuli than women's. However, Wager's study and others did find sex differences, like that women seem more likely to experience negative emotions -- fear, anxiety, and depression. Women also seem to be more emotionally expressive -- verbally and in writing -- and better at processing emotions, so they're less likely to end up feeling dragged out back and beaten up by them.
But for men, when women get emotional, and especially when they veer off into rantville, emotion processing can play out something like this. Woman: "Knock-knock." Man: "Who's there?" Woman (upset): "Feelings!" (Silence. More silence.) Woman: "Hello? Hello?! I know you're in there! I can hear the TV!"
To a man, an irate woman's sharing of her emotional drama can be a bit like her sharing her Drano-tini. Relationships researcher John Gottman explains that men can become physiologically overwhelmed from stressful conversation alone, getting "flooded" with stress hormones and feeling physically ill and desperate to withdraw.
This happens through a "misattribution of arousal," which means that your brain subconsciously (and instantaneously) puts mere talk that has a stressful vibe into the wrong bin -- the "fight or flight" bin that alerts you, "Run from that tiger!" In response, adrenaline surges, your heart races, sweat beads up, and parts of your brain and body that aren't vital for bolting the hell out of there shut down. Yes, that's a "Sorry, we're closed!" sign on your digestive tract, and -- oopsy! -- there's another on your brain's higher reasoning center (which makes sense, considering you're supposed to be dashing away from the tiger, not parsing whether you have ill-will toward its mother-in-law).
The thing is, running away -- as your body has primed you to do -- would metabolize the stress hormones. But when you just sit there, the stress hormones just sit there, pooling, poisoning you, leading to sickening feelings. The natural impulse is to take shelter from the adrenaline storm -- to escape and go off and recover -- but this is hard to explain in any articulate and emotionally sensitive way in the moment, as your ability to reason is on sabbatical. So, in lieu of ducking under the nearest couch like the cat, you do it verbally, telling her, "Calm down!"
Of course, the problem here wasn't that she needed to calm down, but that you did. So when you laid that on her, she probably heard, "I'm not just going to ignore your feelings; I'm going to dismiss them." (This always goes over so well with women.)
Explaining the sex differences in emotion processing might help you both keep in mind that a man isn't just a woman with a different set of funparts. For example, for her, venting her feelings may simply be a way of managing them. Chances are, she just needs you to be listening (or at least appear to be while playing "Minecraft" in your head).
The next time she's "all het up" about something, take some deep breaths and remind yourself that you aren't under attack; you're just somebody's boyfriend. Should you start feeling emotionally swamped, take Gottman's advice: "Let your [partner] know that you're feeling flooded and need to take a break. The break should last at least 20 minutes, since it will be that long before your body calms down."
Going for a run wouldn't be a bad idea. However, in the spirit of better male/female communication, you need to tell your girlfriend your plan. No, you can't just flash her a look of panic and bolt out the door -- though being chased down the street by an enraged woman clutching your renaissance faire crossbow should do wonders in diminishing that nasty adrenaline buildup.
dunno... the problem escalates er, before paragraph one.
Why would you tell a woman to: "calm down?"
same reason you tell a kid to. they are talking so fast, in a conversation that is going so many ways you're having a hard time following it.
BOYA IS NOT EVEN STRESSED OUT YET. Because he hasn't even figured out what is going on.
What he has is a tsunami of emotional words, and ideas, and no facts.
This is the moment you generally tell someone to calm down, because they are babbling.
It is true, though, that EVEN IF a woman is babbling, you shouldn't tell her to calm down, because if she was wrapped around the axle before, she will be enraged by that.
So boya needs to figure out what part of all this conversation is going in what direction.
First, IS THERE DANGER?
Has the wife almost hit a dog, and is now freaking out to you, but you can't figure out where the kids are?
This is a STOP. Don't tell her to calm down, TELL HER TO STOP. Then proceede with DANGER Questions. Where is the car, where are the kids, is anyone hurt, do you need to call the police?
Wife turns and runs outside, and so do I, to find the kid still buckled in the car in the driveway, with the door open and the engine running.
True story. Assess the magnitude of the problem.
You forgot for the 20th time to take the garbage out and the conversation is devolving into some real nastiness?
Yeah, dude, different situation entirely. Not only is it actually your fault, but it's better to let her get it all out before you even apologize... so saying "calm down" is like a nuke.
So. There are many different situations where the reaction someone is having is making it impossible for you to converse with them, let alone get any facts... but it is a constant, that telling them to calm down is an insult, EVEN IF THAT IS PRECISELY WHAT THEY NEED TO DO.
The information and words they are using actually DO make sense in their own heads, so you are having a conversational problem.
So, let's talk stress. This is the whole different ballgame that occurs, when these kinds of emotional conversations happen a lot.
Not the one shot thing, but that it seems that you only talk about problems or situations when everything has gone to the negative emotional side.
Now is when I believe that everybody gets even more stressed, and de-escalation is sorely needed.
The thing is, depending on your partner, you may not know when a problem is brewing until you are being screamed at by a very un-calm person. This is why it feels like an attack.
I disagree that there is no attack happening. There MIGHT not be one. You have to be discerning here.
Is this common?, have you paid attention to when it happens? Does there seem to be a reason, that isn't related. Have you had this conversation before?
These things tell you a lot. They also indicate if the attack is on you, or if it's completely unrelated to you.
Had a fight with her sister over something and is now avalanching you with tons of rock.
Maybe, "walk with me, talk with me..." is the answer. In such situation, you can't totally disengage if you are being flooded, because she wants to talk to you NOW... but you can change the pace... rather than saying calm down, take her to a calmer place, maybe just for a walk around the block. This keeps you from getting stressed, and may help here to turn it down a notch...
This helps with other people too, it's just that we see this so often with spouse/partner, that ya need help with that part.
Most importantly, when someone comes to you and is in this mode where you can't get a word in edgewise...
Whatever it is, it's REALLY important to them, even if you can't figure heads or tails what it is.
So give it some weight. "(something relatively unimportant)."
Maybe to you, but why do you think she'd get so wrapped around the axle, over something unimportant?
THAT'S why she flipped out. You dismissed something that she was clearly upset about, by thinking it was unimportant.
Maybe it was. Maybe this was the third time her fancy new shoes had torn in the same damn place, and she was going to go ballistic on Macy's...
To which your reaction was: "buy a new pair, what's the problem." Put those bad boys on, and walk a mile in them. You likely DON'T think alike and knowing that, and asking for explanations is better than discounting the information and feelings. Even if, the situation is actually trivial.
Take both of your feelings into account, here. She may just need to unload here burden on you, no questions, or she may want help, this may be about you, or something that happened 10 years ago. Try and listen to figure it. And if each one of these situations is stressful to you, you may need to take the walk, or take some time, or whatever.
If you are lucky, your partner might eventually key in that when she comes to you with an intractable work problem, and you get that look of horror on your face, maybe her unloading on you is a bit much, too.
Hopefully when you need someone to freak out to, she'll be there for you.
SwissArmyD at August 11, 2015 5:34 PM
For us, there's the 15 second rule. My girlfriend knows that I will be listening. For 15 seconds. Then I just hear this high-pitched creaking sound in my house and assume it's one of the cats. It works very well for us.
She needs to talk, but she doesn't need for me to listen. Every once in a while she say "didn't you hear what I said?" and I'll say "No, of course not; you know I don't" and then there's that weird sound again - one of the cats. She's surprisingly fine with this, maybe because she will talk for hours and knows perfectly well that the information level is rather low.
Jesper at August 12, 2015 1:29 AM
Why is he even with her?
Patrick at August 12, 2015 3:41 AM
Not sure a lecture on chemistry is what LW needed. For the record, I agree with SwissArmyD's response. When the issue goes into full-babble mode, I am likely to say "STOP! ["Calm down!" is also possible.] Anyone bleeding? No? Okay, anything on fire? No? Cops coming? No. Okay, bring me up to speed. You bounced a check? Do you need money now? No? They fixed it? Got it. And you're still upset. Okay, I'm there. Proceed."
Also for the record, I'm pretty sure SwissArmyD and I are doing it wrong, tho' I'm not sure why.
How about it, Amy? Is SwissArmyD wrong? Howcome?
minos at August 12, 2015 6:21 AM
SwissArmyD sounds like a good dude who's doing his best. But he also sounds like he's hooked up with someone who might possibly benefit from therapy? This doesn't seem like a partner with healthy ways of processing stress.
And I say this as a lady-type person who has had some issues with anxiety and depression, and has benefitted greatly from a combination of therapy, lots of cardio, and learning to stop and, yes, calm down before I go into full-blown anxiety mode. So I'm really not coming from a "bitches be crazy" place, more of a, if she has this much trouble expressing herself and is this overwrought, some cognitive therapy tools might help.
People get emotional. People appreciate a loved one helping out. But when it devolves into incoherence frequently enough that you have a set of strategies for dealing with it, that might mean she needs more help than you're qualified to give. I mean, the occasional freakout is normal, I think (like, running over a dog counts as freakout material). But she herself might be happier if she had strategies for not getting into that mode so often.
Anathema at August 12, 2015 7:20 AM
I am very curious about the context here and what this "unimportant" thing was.
Because this sounds similar to a situation I've been in -- and that pretty much every couple I know has been involved in. It stems from one person seeing a situation as "urgent" and the other as "not that important." Both parties are needed to solve the problem, but one party just thinks the other party needs to "calm down."
sofar at August 12, 2015 8:13 AM
heh telling someone they need therapy is to "calm down"...
as an a-bomb is to an h-bomb... some thousands of times more explosive.
SwissArmyD at August 12, 2015 10:28 AM
I'm not clear on what happened here... was this an argument, or was this LW's GF having a freakout over something not having to do with him?
And I will say that having someone who's always coming at you with a million-words-a-minute mouth and using it to demand your undivided attention is stressing and draining. In the past I've had to distance myself from some people who did that, because life is too short.
Cousin Dave at August 12, 2015 11:17 AM
Rant screech rant wail.
"Honey, ok, calm down, now --
Don't you tell ME to calm down!
"Ok, sorry, let me help you to --"
Help me? HELP ME?!! I'm not some helpless 1950's ditzoid housewife! I don't need your HELP!
"My bad, let me explain --"
Oh, now you're MANSPLAINING to me?!
Astute readers will note that none of this has to do with her problem and she happily transfers her rage at - whatever - to the person she claims to love with nary a hint of restraint.
The LW should marry this girl immediately and enjoy a lifetime of escalation, transference, blame, and misdirected rage. All the better if she's grinning at the moment she realizes she's flipped the script on him and her problem is now his problem.
Or as American men have come to understand it, "love". Mark the occasion with a gigantic, expensive diamond, and make damn sure it's bigger and better than her best friend's ring.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at August 12, 2015 12:55 PM
Minos - not sure that you're wrong. But not sure that you're right, either. My 2 cents:
The way I look at it is that there are two types of problems. There are the ones where someone wants you to solve and is looking for advice on how to solve it. There are also problems where someone is just blowing off steam. The first problem is pretty simple. You discuss, work out a solution and go for it. It sounds like this letter covers the second type.
When someone's venting, telling them to "Calm down!" implies that they're over reacting, which can be irritating when someone just wants to vent. (Because that's the point of venting - it's to purge your emotions so that you don't act irrationally/like a jerk later on.)
You also don't really want to give advice to someone who's blowing off steam. It can come off as arrogant, because a lot of the time the person knows how to solve the problem, they just want someone to sympathize and listen for a few minutes so that they can reduce the emotional tension from boiling to simmering, if that makes any sense.
Different people tend to need more venting than others. If you're with someone who needs a lot and you don't like being vented to, probably you're with the wrong person.
Mahkara at August 12, 2015 2:04 PM
The next time you have the urge to tell wifey to calm down, baptize your cat. The results will be the same and you can run away from the cat!
wtf at August 12, 2015 4:28 PM
I wonder if it would be fair for men to get upset when women tell them to "Calm down." Or is this another double standard against men?
T. J. Patriarch at August 12, 2015 6:00 PM
There are a few times my boyfriend has become angry and upset about something - maybe a situation at work, or there was that time he got T-boned in an intersection because a lady ran the stop sign.
I listen to him rant and rave, ask a clarifying question or two, so he knows I'm paying attention, and I express sympathy and take his side.
This has the effect of calming him down without me having to get all bossy and crabby, like, 'Calm down!'
Nobody likes being told what to do. Telling someone to 'Calm down!' is annoying and presumptuous, right along with those people who tell you to 'Smile!'
When I'm going on a rant about something, he tends to handle it the same way. Plus my rants tend to be humorous sometimes, so I don't think he really minds.
Pirate Jo at August 13, 2015 5:17 AM
Mahkara: Well said. I agree. Thank you.
minos at August 13, 2015 6:22 AM
I've had female friends who told me about problems they were having. It's a natural male thing to want to solve problems. It's sometimes rather hard for us to understand that a solution isn't what the woman wants.
Maybe she already has a solution and just needs to blow off steam. Or - in the case of the women I'm thinking of - they didn't want solutions, because the problems gave them something to fuss about. They were incapable of seeing the good in a situation, but they could always find the bad.
Once I realized that, I stopped volunteering to listen. It also explained why they had trouble finding boyfriends.
a_random_guy at August 13, 2015 6:37 AM
In my experience, there are two ways to tell a woman to calm down.
Neither one works.
bkmale at August 13, 2015 8:05 AM
Pirate Jo, I can't imagine anyone telling someone to calm down who was describing getting T-boned that day. Maybe if the car rolled over, was about to catch fire and they needed to know if someone else was in the car, but other than that, no. Telling someone to calm down about something serious is a dick move. Emotions exist precisely to help handle such situations.
Telling someone to calm down who actually isn't all that emotional is also a dick move. I.e, if you're merely describing something that happened at work, it is the equivalent of "Shut up, I don't care."
Telling someone to calm down because they're venting about what you see as pretty typical day, or situation, is a mistake. The mistake might be on the speakers part. Or it might be in the relationships existence.
SlowMindThinking at August 14, 2015 8:11 AM
SlowMindThinking,
Exactly, exactly, exactly. Unless you are a 911 operator, you should never tell anyone to calm down.
Pirate Jo at August 15, 2015 8:17 AM
Telling someone to calm down about something serious is a dick move. Emotions exist precisely to help handle such situations.
No more or less a dick move than disregarding the emotion need of the person you are venting on.
Why is your need as a woman to go on a rant intrinsically more valuable than the mans need for a small amount of emotional stability, especially given we dont process our emotions as easily as women on average?
Your bias against men is showing on several levels
lujlp at August 15, 2015 11:31 AM
Lujip, well, speaking as a introverted, middle age guy, who has never gone on a rant about anything, I have to say ranting about a driver who T-bones you is entirely justified. I know a woman who has never recovered (physically) from being T-boned. If a guy can't handle a rant about that, he can't handle you.
SlowMindThinking at August 16, 2015 3:10 PM
Fair point, but most of the rants women go on have to do with non life threatening interpersonal issues they have with other people.
And they have the right to their emotional state, as does the guy who wants them to calm down so he can experience an emotional state that he is comfortable with.
The fact that all these ladies dont give a shit about the guys emotional needs is nothing but bias and sexism.
lujlp at August 16, 2015 7:15 PM
Where I used to say "calm down" I now say "I don't understand. Can you speak more slowly?"
Lamont Cranston at August 19, 2015 10:49 AM
Men are supposed to know the chemistry, the damage it does to their system, at least temporarily, absorb it and act accordingly.
Women don't need to know the chemistry, the stress they're putting on their listener.
They get free play.
?????
Richard Aubrey at August 28, 2015 1:31 PM
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