I keep encountering highly defensive people, people that seem to take everything I say out of context and become offended by it.
What should I do?
It is astonishing how frequently one will encounter highly defensive people. And I will admit that I have been on both sides of this dynamic over the years. In fact, I used to be so defensive that I would find myself yelling at people I had no business even being upset with. I used to interpret many things that people said through a lens of feeling attacked and insulted, until I simply got tired of doing so.
Very early on, I decided that I didn’t want to be such a defensive person anymore, and I embarked on a self-improvement crusade, where I would teach myself how to be less defensive.
For now, though, we’re going to focus on what to do when you encounter the very type of person I used to be.
It might be easier said than done, but believe me that it’s important to start by having a little compassion for these people that are defending themselves so mightily. After all, some people who are still trapped in being defensive will respond well to you modeling non-defensive, healthy behavior. Not to mention that understanding as much as possible about what makes other people do what they do can go a long way to crafting the best response.
So first let’s recognize that defensiveness is typically a signal that a person is afraid. Afraid of what, you might ask? Well, the sky’s the limit, quite honestly. Most of the time, though, they are afraid of looking bad, afraid of suddenly discovering that they are terrible people. They might have developed defensiveness honestly, having lived through situations where they actually were under attack much of the time. You won’t be able to know this, so just assume that they are doing their best in the moment you are both in right now. (This doesn’t mean that you just have to endure being yelled at by defensive people. Far from it. But start from a place of compassion whenever possible.)
Now these people often don’t overtly realize that they are acting from a place of fear. If you ask them, they are likely to (surprise, surprise) become defensive. But I’m still willing to venture a guess that fear is what’s driving them to defend. Fear causes them to be unwilling to look inward, unwilling to accept responsibility for any mistakes they might have made. It’s possible that they have been harshly punished for making mistakes in the past. But now, because they are so opposed to seeing or letting others see their mistakes, they will naturally seek someone else to blame when things go even ever so slightly wrong. And you sometimes will find yourself being the person they are targeting.
You might wonder what these people are defending themselves from. Maybe you genuinely know that you didn’t attack them, yet they are defending themselves so fiercely (often by counter-attacking this perceived, but oftentimes nonexistent, attack) that it can really throw you off balance, causing confusion and disarray.
While you can see objectively that you did not attack them (as long as you didn’t – be honest with yourself also), this person is interpreting what you said, what other say through a filter of their own making and of the world’s making. They are clearly telling themselves a story of some sort, making assumptions about your intentions or secret motivations and then completely believing this story that they created without question. Typically this story is one that paints them as the victim and you (or other people) as the protagonist. Remember that even though you can see that they created an entire made up story around the facts of what happened, they truly believe that they are only looking at facts. Their filters are just too strong for them to recognize them as filters.
Let’s take a look at a made-up example.
Debbie is a very defensive person. Now let’s imagine that Debbie is at work and her colleague, Connor, asks her why she didn’t respond to a message in the messaging system they use for work. Debbie immediately grows angry, snapping at Connor, “I’m so tired of you trying to make me look bad in front of our boss. Why don’t you focus on your own work and leave me alone?” In this case, Connor was truly curious why she hadn’t responded to a message that he had sent her the previous day, possibly assuming she had a great reason for having not responded. Now, he is startled by this reaction.
Debbie truly believes that Connor is trying to get her in trouble with the boss, whom they both report to. She believes this so completely that she snaps at Connor and walks away.
Sometimes defensiveness shows up as silence. Debbie might have refused to respond to Connor’s question, turning her back on Connor, “ghosting” him, as it were.
Sometimes defensiveness shows up as apparent agreement, followed by damaging gossip. In this case, she would have answered Connor’s question benignly with a response like, “Oh, I didn’t see it.” She then might have texted a coworker of theirs to let them know that Connor was on a rampage, trying to make people look bad in front of the boss. The unwitting coworker receiving this text, not having been given all the facts, might then spread this message to the next person and so on. Before you know it, the team has turned against Connor even though all he did was ask a simple question. This type of damage is confusing, hard to pinpoint and almost impossible to undo.
In contrast, a reasonably healthy, non-defensive person might have responded with, “Oh, I didn’t see that message” or maybe “To be honest, I wasn’t sure how to answer your question” or with any other neutral response. After talking with Connor for a moment, they would have resolved the miscommunication and all would proceed normally.
To paint the light of compassion on the situation, let’s consider what Debbie might be afraid of in this scenario. Maybe she already feels like a bit of an impostor at her job and is afraid of being exposed. Or maybe she holds herself to unbearably high standards and when anybody points out the slightest mistake, she is immediately pointing the finger back at them to detract from admitting this imperfection. Maybe she is afraid of losing her job for small mistakes.
Occasionally you will find someone like Debbie who is very defensive, but also very willing to apologize after the fact. In our example, if Debbie would have reached out to Connor after she lashed out and apologized for her behavior, this would have shown a bit of self-awareness. In my mind, people who can do this earn a bit more patience. But even still, if they repeatedly cycle through defensive, angry behavior and then apologies, this likely indicates that they aren’t working on the root problem of their defensiveness. You will still need to figure out how to deal with these types of interactions.
So now that we have a little empathy for people who tend to be defensive and a little clarity on what type of situation we are talking about. The question then is what do you do when you encounter this type of person?
Own your part, but cautiously
This might be surprising, but the next thing to do is to look inward, at your own behavior, to see if there’s anything at all that you might be able to own in what the person said to you. Sometimes we will find a little kernel of truth in what they said. In our example from above, maybe Connor was being a little vindictive when he asked her about why she hadn’t responded. If so, he could simply say, “I’m sorry. You’re right. I was being a little snarky.”
Then pay close attention to how the other person responds. When you are dealing with a reasonably healthy, generally non-defensive person, apologizing for your part will be well-received. If your apology is accepted and met with kindness and, ideally, them owning their part of the difficult interaction, that’s a good sign.
However, with a highly defensive person who is unable to handle this type of healthy interaction, they might not react kindly or they might respond in an even meaner way. If they become more punitive or start yelling at you, if they then change their approach and decide to punish you with silence, if they tell you they don’t forgive you, if they tell you how bad you are, or otherwise keep the focus on you and your errors, without any acknowledgment of their own contribution, this is important information. In fact, a person that is locked into a defensive posture might jump on your apology as proof that you were wrong and that you are accepting blame and they will turn this into an excuse to not look at how they might be contributing to the problem.
When you have identified this type of person, you should refrain from apologizing further, in this interaction or future ones. Of course, to maintain integrity and for your continued self-growth, continue to internally acknowledge your part in disagreements with them, but don’t outwardly admit any wrongdoing. Apologies from others will likely distract them from owning their part. Of course, you might be tempted to apologize to try and re-establish peace or to smooth things over. But when you have identified that you are dealing with a highly defensive person, I encourage you to resist that urge.
So what comes next?
Using reason to try to convince
Once you have taken a look at your part in the dynamic, it will likely seem tempting to reason with this defensive person, explain yourself. You might protest, pointing out had no negative intentions. In our example, Connor might say, “I’m not trying to make you look bad with the boss. I just wanted to know the answer to my question. I promise!”
Interestingly, you might start defending yourself in the process of explaining.
Please note that this is a normal reaction to somebody’s extreme defensiveness. Because defensive reactions often end up being an attack on your character or an accusation of your bad intentions, you will likely become frustrated and want to prove them wrong.
If you can do this in a healthy way, a little convincing (with healthy people) will go a long way. Therefore, give it a try. Offer the explanation as calmly and non-defensively as possible. And then see what happens next. If your explanation is well-received, excellent! However, if your explanation isn’t so well-received and an argument erupts, you will likely find yourself unsuccessful in your attempts to try to convince this highly defensive person of your good intentions. In fact, once they have made up their mind about why they believe you said or did something, they will often be wholly unwilling to budge from their stance. No amount of explaining will suffice.
This can quickly become an incredibly difficult situation. When you attempt to explain and your explanation is denied or rejected, you face the choice of either walking away, leaving that false accusation hanging between you and the other person, unchallenged, or continuing to engage in what is likely to be an unproductive and contentious conversation or argument with little hope for resolution.
If you continue to attempt to explain and/or defend yourself, you will remain in their line of fire, and in some ways end up ironically becoming a defensive person yourself.
Of course, this type of defensiveness is very different. This type of defensiveness is one of not wanting to be wrongly accused of something. In effect, when a highly defensive person experiences something, they view it as being attacked (even when it was not actually an attack). They then launch what they view as a counterattack, but is really the initial attack. When this perceived counterattack (or initial attack, in the real world) is aimed at you, your defense will be in reaction to what is, in effect, a real attack. In effect, you are now in a position of righteously defending yourself.
So what next steps can you take after you have tried to explain yourself in a reasonable way and you find yourself becoming defensive yourself?
Now you might try laying low
The next thing you might try with this type of person is laying low. After all, a little laying low can go a long way. Depending on the situation, choosing to lay low, to dodge arguments with this person, can sometimes work. If your goal is simply to keep the peace and if your interactions with this person are limited, this might be worth a shot, especially if reasoning with them didn’t work.
Laying low might look like tiptoeing around, walking on eggshells, trying to not accidentally bump into the defensive person’s defenses. In some very simple situations, this will be an acceptable strategy. However, be cautious that you don’t start sacrificing your integrity just to avoid the discomfort of doing the right thing. Walking on eggshells or choosing to agree with people that are highly defensive can end up turning you into a shell of your true self. Perhaps this is justifiable in certain situations or with people whom you encounter only occasionally, but when this person is a family member or a close work colleague, laying low consistently over a period of years can both change your personality and also result in harm to others. After all, dodging a highly defensive person’s accusations sometimes just lets them hit the person behind you. So, this tactic must also be used sparingly if you are to remain a person of high integrity.
Laying low, when taken too far, quickly becomes avoidance and unhealthy passivity. You might even end up witnessing others being treated poorly by this highly defensive person. Or you might end up experiencing the highly defensive person berating others (either to their faces or behind their backs). If you then stick with your laying low strategy, or, worse, choose to passively agree with this defensive person just to keep the peace, you will not only be sacrificing your integrity, but will also be unwittingly sacrificing other people. Not speaking up against mistreatment, yours or somebody else’s, to protect yourself from discomfort enables the defensive person to keep wreaking havoc.
So, always keep in mind that a little laying low goes a long way. And then you will need to make the next choice, which is often removing yourself from the situation.
Sometimes all you can do is remove yourself
In the end, sometimes the only reasonable choice you can make is to create actual physical distance from this person. As you might expect, removing yourself from the situation needs to be done cautiously. The world is already too full of flinchy people who run at the first sign of any type of disagreement or misunderstanding. Don’t do that. You can survive a little discomfort.
Before removing yourself (aka, running away), seek a little clarity, stick around to see what exactly you are dealing with. Sometimes you might think somebody is highly defensive, but in actuality they just had a bad day. Even you have bad days, so that is not reason enough to jump ship or stonewall somebody. The truth is that when you jump too quickly to remove yourself from situations, you lose out on some potentially great people and great organizations. In addition, removing yourself from situations with no explanation, often referred to as ghosting, especially over very small grievances, actually makes you the problem, rather than them. Always remember that you can act with integrity even when those around you aren’t doing so.
So though removing yourself should not be the first step, it might eventually become clear that this is your best option. When you have tried everything else and the pattern persists, you might decide that removing yourself is the only way you can keep yourself healthy. Yes, you might have to consider other people in the situation if the highly defensive person is a family member, but if you need to create distance, you will need to make this choice. After exhausting your other options – if you have shown them compassion, owned your part, tried to explain (but found yourself either begging or defending instead), and created emotional distance – it might be time to pull the plug. After all, when done with maturity and integrity, sometimes removing yourself is all you can do.
The final answer
So back to your question of what should you do when you keep encountering highly defensive people. I’m sensing that you might have spent a lot of energy trying to convince these highly defensive people you keep encountering of your good intentions or perhaps you’ve just spent a lot of energy arguing with them. Maybe you’ve even started to doubt yourself. If you have tried explaining and apologizing and wording things differently, if you have tried letting things go, and the problem persists, maybe it’s time to create some distance. But if you haven’t tried any of these things, maybe you could start there.
Just remember to take a moment to make sure that you are being honest with yourself. Make sure you aren’t causing your own set of problems. A little self-analysis will go a long way though. Especially if you tend to be a person who has been surrounded by defensiveness your whole life and you have often taken the blame for things that haven’t been your fault, you will be tired. If you grew up in a household with highly defensive parents, this might just be the case. So I still encourage you to take a look at yourself with as much honesty as possible, but don’t overdo it. You do not have to bear the brunt of everybody else’s flinchiness.
Once you are reasonably satisfied that you aren’t significantly contributing to the problems created by the defensive people in your orbit, resist the urge to internalize anything about their behavior. Even if you happen to be encountering a high number of very defensive people, that means nothing about you.
Believe it or not, there are other people out there in this big wide world. And not all of them will be defensive. So, maintain your integrity, mourn the loss of having to move on, and then hold your head high and walk forward with your hope in tact.
