I Thought It Was Just Me!
Here is a strange trick that some people pull off: they treat you badly and then persuade you that you had it coming. Plain bullying is one thing, but this can run deeper. It arrives wrapped in a phrase like, "I'm only telling you this for your own good." The person claims to be helping. So why does it sting so much? Why do you come away feeling ashamed, maybe wanting to stay indoors until the sky gets dark? Everything you offer out of what you believe is kindness seems to land as an insult.
If you really are trying to help someone, none of this applies to you. But if the "help" is dressed-up criticism, then those comments do no good and that behavior isn't kind. Ask what the long game is. Do you come out of it feeling a notch above the person you just corrected? Does it matter to you that the one you are setting straight, for their own good of course, walks away feeling small? If not shame, then guilt will do. Women, in my observation, tend to be more skilled at this particular game than men. Plenty of men would rather just throw a punch and leave your sense of self intact.
Is a dose of shame easier to carry than a black eye? For a lot of women, I doubt it. None of this is permission to hit a woman, as if a slap landed better than the words "God damn you." Abuse that works on the mind and the feelings is still abuse. So what does a person actually gain from the privilege of correcting another? If there is any satisfaction in it at all, the "for your own good" story starts to look thin.
Think about the phrase "take it like a man" aimed at someone being battered with fists or words. If the target is a woman, is she supposed to take it like a woman, and what on earth would that mean? That no matter how vicious the lecture, she should spin around and apologize for a thing she never knew was an offense? Always for her own good. Then why does it feel like being hit from the side by something she never saw coming?
And why does the person dishing it out seem so relieved once they have unloaded? Sometimes what they're really angry about never had anything to do with you. It ricocheted. The hurt bounced off their own back and landed on the so-called victim. A man quarrels with his wife, then boots the cat on his way out the door, muttering that the animal was underfoot. The one doing the kicking can be remarkably blind to the link between being furious at one thing and dumping it on another. Road rage runs on the same fuel, somebody blowing up over a minor slight on the highway, far out of scale with whatever actually happened.
Years ago I used to receive letters picking apart my parenting, and at the time I didn't recognize what was going on. It is a kind of scapegoating: the other person makes you feel terrible so they can feel better. Picture a flaming bag of something foul left on your porch, except the trouble is the size of the thing and how long the shelling lasts. The blasts come one after another with no gap to catch your breath. With no shelter, you cover your ears, shut your mouth, wrap your arms around yourself, and try to be the smallest target you can. And once the barrage ends, it costs the bombardier nothing to look perfectly normal, even cheerful, in front of everyone else.