The Turtle's Shell Children are left to their own devices when learning how to defend themselves verbally, so when two kids I know issued the following exchange over Christmas vacation, their words soon escalated into a fight. I hate your guts. Well, the responses are also some sort of truth which accurately reflect the level of animosity originally delivered. Ambivalent responses can quickly defuse an attack, transforming hostility into humor or mystification. Just like Forrest Gump.
Adults are in a worse predicament than children.
Nothing could be farther from the truth. So they feel angry at that person, or afraid of that person, or hurt by that person rather than reveling in the rhythm, pleasure, and joy of their own lives. Third, their childhood misunderstandings of verbal violence have become crystallized in their psyche, heaped upon by repeated attacks, and quite forgotten. Again, their misunderstandings have been crystallized and forgotten. Verbal self-defense has an astonishing dynamic and is rooted most firmly in understanding what's going on.