Make a Choice and Make It Now

The soldier has choices, but he has to make those choices in a split second. His choices determine the outcome of his well-being. He can run for his life, he can hide, he can shoot back, or he can use a hand grenade and blow everything to bits. He also has another choice, and that is to do nothing and die in battle.
This scenario would never have happened at all had the leaders of the two opposing sides sat down in an attempt to make peace with one another.
Even though this is a rather harsh analogy, it’s the naked truth! After all, this book is about defending yourself against the enemy—the verbal enemy!
The strategy for verbal self-defense is no different from the one the soldier uses. You, like the soldier, have to make choices—and immediate choices at that! The choices you make determine the outcome of your wellbeing.
You can run for your life and never look back (the Unplug Strategy). You can shoot back (Mirroring Strategy). You can really let the verbal enemy have it, by verbally blowing him or her to bits (Give ‘Em Hell and Yell Technique). Finally, you can do nothing. You can simply remain silent and allow the verbally abusive enemy’s toxins to fester inside you, to the point that it makes you mentally or physically ill. If the verbal abuse takes place over long periods of time, the end result can even kill you!

Keep Your Eyes and Ears Open at All Times

The first thing you need to do when dealing with a toxic situation is get your head out of the sand and face the situation directly. If you don’t do this the only one who is going to get hurt is you.
The first step of any martial arts training is to keep your eyes fixed on your opponent so that you can anticipate any move he or she makes. This way you can block his kick, and take him off balance by leaning back or going forward. The same is true in the verbal arts. You need to keep both your eyes and your ears on the alert at all times.
It’s time to come out of the closet! It’s time to admit to yourself and to everyone else that you are a human being. You are a human being who both requires and deserves respect—respect from others, and most important of all, self-respect.
A self-respecting human being would never allow the earlier scenario to go so far. She would nip it in the bud immediately! When a soldier is engaged in actual battle on the battlefield, does she wait two hours, a week, a month, or a year to deal with the enemy who has just attacked her? Of course not! It goes without saying that she would be dead if she didn’t handle the situation immediately!

Knowing When to Attack Back

It is only when you really know yourself (which you probably do by now) that you become utterly confident and secure that you are doing the right thing. You automatically know when to take matters in your own hands and attack back! You know what your limits are. Nobody else but you does.
In order to feel more comfortable attacking back, think of all the times in your life when you didn’t attack back or respond to your verbal adversary. Think about how you felt immediately afterwards, two hours later, during your sleep (not being able to sleep, or having a bad dream about it), and when you got up the next morning. In the following chart, put an X next to the times of the day when someone said something that bothered you.
Write down as many situations as you can remember, even from childhood, where you took the verbal abuse and didn’t react immediately.