I believe it’s valuable to recognize that the knee jerk reaction was a result of tone and not content. It’s the whole point of nonviolent communication to refer explicitly to facts and to address emotions directly in order to prevent “tone issues”. However, I never implied any form of moral responsibility over the malaise, mental or otherwise. Communication is a two party process, it’s not just what is given as communication by the sending party, it’s also about what the receiving party does with it, how it is interpreted. So the tone problem is a result of two people communicating, the one writing and the one reading, in this case.

You see, I worked psychological care three years with people in detention and learned that mental illness, with the affected person, is better to address it directly without euphemisms or roundabouts. Most people (not all, just most) who end in detention, have or develop mental illness, many of which are personality disorders. These disorders mean people who have them don’t react too well to any sign that you’re hiding thoughts or secretly passing judgement of their conditions. So I did just that, actually debated over replying and wrote my reply with intent and complete transparency over my feelings and thoughts about the comment. Apologies if my intentions didn’t land, but they don’t come from a place of ill will or bad faith. Quite the opposite. Here’s my rationale.

If you are punched in the face that is, inequivocally, violence. If you insult a person calling them names or threatening to hurt them that is violence. If you do the opposite, being honest, direct and transparent with emotions, then that is almost impossible to be construed as violence. Most people know this intuitively. As you can see by other comments in this very post, most people find it baffling that you have to explain to other human beings that using insults or threats is a form of violence. However, the OC called nonviolent communication violence. How is that? Well, typically, most people understand the relationship of words, interactions and violence from a place of empathy. The ability to imagine and feel what others would feel like in such situations. To consider intentionally nonviolent communication as violence, one must dissociate actions from emotions. This is only possible if one either, can disconnect empathy selectively, or cannot feel empathy at all. Both are strong traits of sociopathy. Violence is not defined by harm, emotional or otherwise, to others in the mind of sociopaths, but as a form of negative transactional process. Material loss and functional inconvenience to a special party, them. The emotional side is erased, because they can’t relate to it healthily. A sociopath doesn’t consider a punch to the face as violence, unless it is detrimental to them, personally. I need to remove a person, so I do. You hurt someone I care about, so I hurt you back. People are objects. No feelings involved. This is how nonviolent communication can become violent, because it disarms the typical instruments of sociopathic behavior. Manipulation, lying, backstabbing, gaslighting, intimidation, etc. are viable tools for the sociopath that carry no remorse. If you take away their tools with clear, direct, honest communications, you disarm the veil of concealment that enables sociopaths to thrive. Thus it is violent, against them. Also, consider the underlying insinuation that people who are kind and compassionate have a hidden agenda or are being secretly hyprocrites and manipulative themselves.

What to do with it? I learned that addressing the elephant in the room is the best policy. I clearly stated what was wrong, to suggest that proper, clear, honest and direct communication is violence is incorrect. “Your kindness is violent” sounds mad and nonsensical, because it is. I can offer further examples, if you look closer to the comment:

distinguish between actual violence and hurt feelings

Separation of material actions and emotions. Dismissive of emotional consequences. Disconnect with other’s people emotional experiences. The term “actual violence” itself is troubling as it implies an objective definition of violence, which, by the way, implies that it is their definition, disregarding other’s subjective definitions, lived experiences or even socially normative definitions of violence.

I’m not trying to negate shitty bosses or toxic work environments, not at all, but I hate that this is now called violence.

Dismissal of emotional suffering as trivial or inconsequential.

calling everything rape

Disregard for emotions and trivialization of sexual violence.

anything that isn’t sweet and nice

Normalization of rudeness, plus the insinuation of hidden agendas from people who are genuinely being nice.

This kind of statements are not opinions I have heard any mentally stable and sound of mind individuals make. But I heard them a lot, in detention, from mentally ill inmates. So, my choice was to be direct and speak my mind. Because I’d rather offend a mentally ill person but get them to seek help and be less of a threat to others around them than to ignore it and let someone with a harmful belief system continue to think that what they’re thinking is ok or normal. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. I don’t mind to risk mistakes that hurts nobody if it carries the chance of doing good.