Shouting As Communication: Common In Many Families

Shouting overstimulates our brain, puts us on guard and attacks the subtle balance of our emotions. Unfortunately, shouting as communication is very common in many families. As a consequence, discomfort and invisible aggression affect each of us with very deep consequences.

Jardiel Poncela always said it well; people who have nothing to say, say it out loud. But as strange as it may seem, there are some who do not understand any other form of communication than the one where yelling is used to ask you to send the potatoes, to get the attention of the child right next to you, or even to comment on the TV show you are watching as a family. There are people who cannot communicate without anxiety, their own or the one they are projecting.

“I can not help it,” they justify. Avoiding raising their voice is beyond their control because it is the sound and tone they have heard since early childhood, because it is shouting that has always helped them to be noticed, to mark territory to define authority and also, why not, to channel the rage, frustration and trapped ego that seeks escape routes.

They want to hear us better, not by raising your voice, we know this, but often you have to shout because it is the only frequency we know to communicate, the only channel where we see ourselves in front of others without knowing that if one shouts,  it is very likely that the other reacts in the same way, and in that way disorder and compulsive dynamics are formed.

Something that, unfortunately, abounds in many families…

Shouting quietly destroys our relationships

Shouting, beyond how it may seem, has a very special purpose in the very nature of man and other animals: to protect our survival and the group in the face of danger. Let’s look at a simple example. We are in the middle of the jungle, walking and enjoying nature. Suddenly a cry is heard, it is a capuchin monkey that makes a loud scream that sticks in the brain.

Now, that cry does not just act as an “alarm” that warns you and your group. Most animals in that environment, like us, react with fear, with excitement. It is a defense mechanism that controls a very specific structure of the brain: the amygdala. Just hearing a loud sound, a voice in a high pitch, will cause this small area of ​​the brain to interpret it as a threat and activate our sympathetic nervous system to activate our need to escape.

When we know this, understand this biological and instinctive foundation, we can already deduce what it means, for example, to grow up in an environment where there is shouting in abundance and where communication always takes place with high volume. The brain lives in a state of constant alarm. Adrenaline is always there, the feeling that we have to defend ourselves against “something” throws us into a state of chronic stress, permanent, disturbing anxiety.

On the other hand, what intensifies this reality is that when faced with an aggressive communication style, it is common to generate defensive responses with the same emotional charge, with the same offensive component. In this way, we consciously or unconsciously fall into a vicious circle and into such a destructive dynamic where we all accumulate consequences in this complex jungle of human relationships where the quality of communication is everything.

Shouting as communication in families

Laura is 18 years old and has just realized something she had not known about before. She speaks in a very loud voice. Her classmates often tell her that her voice is loudest in class, and that when she is in a group, the way she communicates is somewhat threatening.

Laura wants to control this behavior. She knows it will not be easy, because at home parents and siblings always communicate in this way: shout. It is not necessary that there are any quarrels, it is simply that this is the tone of the voice she has always grown up to and to which she has become accustomed. She also knows that in her house is the one who shouts, the one who makes himself heard, and it is necessary to raise his voice  because the TV is always on, because everyone is in their own world and because… there is not enough harmony.

In this case, Laura must understand that you can not change a family dynamic from one day to the next. She cannot change others, not even her parents or siblings, but she can change herself. What she can and should do is to cognitively control her own verbal style to understand that the person shouting is attacking, that you do not have to raise your voice to be heard, and that often a calm and peaceful voice serves a much better affiliation with others.

With this simple example we want to make something very simple clear: sometimes we can not change those who raised us, we can not edit our past or erase the family dynamics where shouting was always present even if it was just to ask about what time it was is or how an exam went.

We can not change the past, but we can prevent the type of communication that characterizes us in our present, in our friendships or in romantic relationships, in our own homes. Let us remember that it is no longer right if you shout it, sometimes it is more intelligent to know how to be quiet and listen, and even more wise, to be the one who knows how and in what way to communicate.