Why do insults make me feel worthless? Why I don't laugh when someone insults me?

[Never_give_up]

There is a guy that everytime he sees me he says bad words about me so I can hear them and then laughs like he heard the most hilarious joke. I can see through his insecurities. No happy person would go to such length to make someone feel bad. That's not my problem.

I also know what to do next time this occurs and he is not going to like it.

 

This is not about what to do or what's wrong with him. This is about me. Why this insult makes me angry and feel worthless? Why I can't just laugh with it as I usally do with these kind of people? 

I thought I had improved my personality so much that these things didn't affect me anymore(and most times they don't) but everytime he laughs like this it gets to me. 

Like, what exactly makes me so irritated and feeling so worthless that I can't ignore low consciousness people like him? It makes me feel like I can't control my own emotions which is weird cause no one can make me feel bad at least longer than a minute, if it's not something serious. But this time, something that isn't serious at all, makes me feel worthless... why? 

Most of the time I feel a worthy person, but when I sometimes remember those instances with this low consciousness person, it makes me feel worthless for some moments.

[Whitney Edwards]

(no chatgpt used in writing this post) 

It depends largely on how much importance you place on his opinions about you. It also depends on how you place him socially in relation to you or how he is placed by the human social system in relation to you. Is he in a higher position financially, socially or hierarchy-wise in relation to you? Does he have more friends than you do or a wider social circle? Does he have community influence? 

Do you feel insecure around him in regard to your self image? Do you feel like he will make you look bad in front of others? As in he might say something nasty about you and others might believe it? Do you feel like his insults are somewhat true or have validity to them?

Your problems are both external and internal. By psychoanalyzing your post (although more context would have been better), I'm concluding that you are having these issues —

1. Low self confidence. You inherently don't feel super good about yourself. Maybe there's a dip in your confidence levels. You don't feel super duper confident even though subconsciously you would like to. 

2. You overthink other's opinions. You are putting in too much value into what this person thinks or says to you. It either hurts your dignity/self respect or you give too much value/validation to it. 

3. You subconsciously believe it (his insults) to be true. This may or may not be true. This could purely be  my assumption. If you believe them to be true, for example, someone might consider themselves to be fat because they were fat shamed. In this case you'll need to determine if his opinion or insult is shaping your self image in your mind. If he is being constructively critical of you, then it's okay for you to explore it. Since he is insulting you, you should not believe it to be true at all. It will impact your self esteem. This process is called internalization where our mind tends to internalize what the other person is saying and actually begin to believe them. It's very harmful. 

4. You feel like fighting it off - you are probably attached to your self image that any insult becomes a threat to your inner self image. Then you feel an intense urge to fight it or resist. This is okay. The feeling is completely valid although not useful as it will take away your inner peace. It will bolster the bully as they can see that you give them attention and they relish in you fighting back. Fighting and resisting it is okay too if that makes you feel like you are standing your ground. But if you're ruminating over it constantly, then it's already eating your peace of mind. 

Now external problems —

1. You could be in a unhealthy environment where this person is being extremely toxic to you from time to time, triggering you on purpose and it would be safer to simply remove yourself from their vicinity if it's too much of a headache. This is not your internal problem but something that could happen to anyone with healthy self esteem and the abuse should not be tolerated. This might mean that his bad behavior is really crossing the limit and it's best to not engage with his harmful conduct. This might happen where despite trying your best to keep your internal locus of control and inner peace, it still bothers you. Here the problem is external and your inner mindset didn't play a part in making you feel worse. It's overly toxic and you are better off without that environment. 

2. These incidents have happened to you in the past and they are probably happening again and causing you stress. Or they are just something you're always sensitive to and you operate healthier, optimal and better when such things don't exist. In which case, they are best avoided and you shouldn't think that something internal is hindering you. Just avoid people who act like jerks. 

3. Higher position - if this person is at a higher position socially then you, then it's completely valid for you to feel bad about yourself after hearing their insults. The human mind naturally places more value on someone's opinion if that someone is considered more important socially. In this case too, you simply try not to validate their insult or let it impact. They are not important and they shouldn't have an influence on you. Try to not give them power from your side and stand your ground internally although this is a bit tougher to do when the person is in an authority position. For example if someone random insults me I wouldn't feel as much bad as I would if my own mother insults me, since I view her as more important than others. 

Hope it helps. 

Edited January 16 by Buck Edwards

[NewKidOnTheBlock]

That's because you can't control your emotions (noone can) and you will feel that stinge of a bad feeling (whatever that is) anytime someone hurls negativity at you. Noone is immune to this. You just gotta deal with it somehow. Just you expecting it is going to make things easier for you

Words do have tangible effects. They always will

Edited January 16 by NewKidOnTheBlock

[Salvijus]

6 hours ago, Never_give_up said:

Why this insult makes me angry and feel worthless? Why I can't just laugh with it as I usally do with these kind of people? 

Some roasting is friendly and not serious. And some roasting can be just plain verbal abuse. 

Allow yourself to experience those memories of verbal abuse with the attitude of defenselessness and vulnerability. Allow it all to pass through. That way you'll discover the power of what needs no defense, your true self. And it will heal those memories into something that you can forgive and let go. 

Good luck 

[numbersinarow]

Wherever you look, there's only winning or losing [which is to say, evil], and it's utterly unfair and miserable. The way the universe is structured, the only way to live is to never lose, to completely avoid the pain of losing. You know deep down that you are at least close to losing because of the words that you hear.

[integral]

9 hours ago, Never_give_up said:

feel worthless

It is a self-invented game that you're playing with yourself deciding if you're worthy or worthless.

I was bullied like crazy throughout the first 13 years of schooling, and never once that I think the awful things they were telling me had anything to do with my self-worth. It didn't affect my self worth because it never occurred to me to question my self worth. The question of "who I am" and "if I am worthy" is something you're asking yourself and battling with. Why? Why would anything ever have anything to do with your self-worth? I'm not seeing the connection. There is nothing external or internal that has anything to do with self-worth. 

Self worth doesn't exist. It's a game you're playing.

Respect or being disrespected doesn't exist it's a game people are playing. Choosing to play unconsciously.

Pride is a game people are choosing to play.

These kind of things disappear when you grow up. Not that you have self-respect not that you have pride not that you have self-worth, that they just don't exist at all, and you never think about it again.

When you have self-confidence, you don't think that you have confidence, it it becomes completely automatic and outside your awareness, like breathing air.

As you grow up these things will Disappear Completely. Respect, Pride, Worth or confidence vanish.

Edited January 16 by integral

[Hojo]

@Never_give_up I'm gunna say you want to say something. You shouldn't let people talk to you like that. You need to stand up for yourself.

He says something to you your body says react you say no I'm better than that. You are not letting your body do what it wants. You don't want people to talk to you like that.

You are letting the persons words make you feel what they say, they are being bullies and are lying and you are letting them lie about you. If someone trash talk you, you need to say something, not saying anything is making their statement true, and your body is telling you, you are not at the stage where you can let it go.

I have had times in my life where this has happened and you look back and think you should have reacted. Sometimes speaking your mind leads to altercations and that is the path. These moments are defining you, it will stay with you. You can use this as a story where you look back and say I told that mf off instead of I didnt say anything and I still remeber it.

Edited January 17 by Hojo

[Whitney Edwards]

7 hours ago, Hojo said:

@Never_give_up I'm gunna say you want to say something. You shouldn't let people talk to you like that. You need to stand up for yourself.

He says something to you your body says react you say no I'm better than that. You are not letting your body do what it wants. You don't want people to talk to you like that.

You are letting the persons words make you feel what they say, they are being bullies and are lying and you are letting them lie about you. If someone trash talk you, you need to say something, not saying anything is making their statement true, and your body is telling you, you are not at the stage where you can let it go.

I have had times in my life where this has happened and you look back and think you should have reacted. Sometimes speaking your mind leads to altercations and that is the path. These moments are defining you, it will stay with you. You can use this as a story where you look back and say I told that mf off instead of I didnt say anything and I still remeber it.

Thank you for that post. 

[Princess Arabia]

18 hours ago, Hojo said:

@Never_give_up I'm gunna say you want to say something. You shouldn't let people talk to you like that. You need to stand up for yourself.

He says something to you your body says react you say no I'm better than that. You are not letting your body do what it wants. You don't want people to talk to you like that.

You are letting the persons words make you feel what they say, they are being bullies and are lying and you are letting them lie about you. If someone trash talk you, you need to say something, not saying anything is making their statement true, and your body is telling you, you are not at the stage where you can let it go.

I have had times in my life where this has happened and you look back and think you should have reacted. Sometimes speaking your mind leads to altercations and that is the path. These moments are defining you, it will stay with you. You can use this as a story where you look back and say I told that mf off instead of I didnt say anything and I still remeber it.

Not all the time, is this necessary. To me, it depends on who it is and my relations with them amongst other factors. Sometimes, it's just best to ignore and walk away and sometimes say something, but not necessarily "telling off" or becoming threatening. We sometimes turn something into a bigger issue by even paying it any attention and the effects just becomes a chain reaction.

In the past, i used to react to everything and then other issues would stem from that reaction. When I find myself ignoring or paying very little emotional attention, I find that the issue dissolves itself and it's like it never occurred. The brain captures a snapshot of our emotional reactions to circumstances and our memory bank will remember that image again and again when something in our lives similarly occur and that has nothing to do with the initial occurrence. We set ourselves up to go through the emotional roller coaster of emotions by paying attention to every little thing that happens to us. That's why it's best to try and ignore as much as possible or at best try not to react too emotionally to anything that's not in our best interest.

[Princess Arabia]

On 1/16/2025 at 2:39 AM, Never_give_up said:

Like, what exactly makes me so irritated and feeling so worthless that I can't ignore low consciousness people like him?

 

On 1/16/2025 at 2:39 AM, Never_give_up said:

Most of the time I feel a worthy person, but when I sometimes remember those instances with this low consciousness person, it makes me feel worthless for some moments.

These are some of the apparent dangers/traps in viewing people and circumstances as low consciousness. It's a learnt thing and subjected to you rating yourself and others. Now, you feel worse off than you would normally feel, if you didn't see yourself as 'better' than or more conscious than them. You feel worse because you have set a standard for yourself as high conscious and have set your own relative and subjective meaning to what that term means. If I'm highly conscious I shouldn't let that bother me and I've worked on myself and I feel worthy and so on and so forth. 

You are quickly realizing, and if you're not, this comment might open you up to realize your petty little ego's construction has nothing to do with life's appearances and anything can happen to shatter it's illusive nature, no matter how much you think you've worked on it. It helps to realize it's just a construction and to not take it too seriously and to be ready for it to be torn to pieces because of spontaneous emotions and random feelings that are occurring out of nowhere. Yes, nowhere. 

Buckle up and be ready for your high conscious/low conscious persona to be shattered by life's unexpected turns and twists that doesn't care about your states of consciousness when it hits. Stop adopting every little spiritual notion and idea you've heard and try to see things as they are as much as you can without labels. In this case, just see it as someone that said things that made you feel badly. THAT'S IT.

Analyzing and trying to figure out why am I feeling this way as he's low conscious and I'm not, will create the illusion and story behind what was just simply an occurence that could have just went right back into the ocean from whence it came and be forgotten. This is what happens when we don't see things as they are without labels, definitions and interpretations which is very hard for the ego to do, but well worth the practice to undo as much as we can. It won't be all the way because it's not practical for the ego but try to do this as much as possible. These are true spiritual practices, in my opinion, because they allow for one to see life for what it is which is the whole purpose for spiritual growth. 

I can tell from your post that you're going off of a lot of spiritual teachings and what they have instilled in you and how you should be. Well, it takes for one to be at an apparent stage in life to be able to adopt those teachings correctly and to apply them more appropriately and with the proper discernment. 

Edited January 17 by Princess Arabia

[Princess Arabia]

On 1/16/2025 at 0:07 PM, integral said:

Self worth doesn't exist. It's a game you're playing.

Respect or being disrespected doesn't exist it's a game people are playing. Choosing to play unconsciously.

Pride is a game people are choosing to play.

These kind of things disappear when you grow up. Not that you have self-respect not that you have pride not that you have self-worth, that they just don't exist at all, and you never think about it again.

When you have self-confidence, you don't think that you have confidence, it it becomes completely automatic and outside your awareness, like breathing air.

As you grow up these things will Disappear Completely. Respect, Pride, Worth or confidence vanish.

Nice. I like this. (except for the term 'grow up') but it doesn't matter. It doesn't take away the essence of the message. Grown ups can still not recognize this. Anyway, nicely put.

Edited January 17 by Princess Arabia

[Raze]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbb_0qNdjjo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OqKsCS9OCk

 

https://www.girlschase.com/comment/5262 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTgrvy0IvkU
 

 

[Atb210201]

You don't have to laugh it off all the time.

You don't have to take it seriously all the time.

You choose.

[Sugarcoat]

Maybe the expectation you hold on yourself to laugh at it contributes to that inner turmoil. Like you criticize yourself for not being socially calibrated for not laughing contributes to the negative feeling 

Maybe you define yourself by some external metrics like your performance, looks, contribution etc and you feel unworthy because you have an insecurity in these areas and the person is speaking to those insecurities. 
 

Your sense of self is not independent so it partly relies on external validation. Like your brain is too extroverted. But it’s good you’ve worked on your personality to form stronger confidence so hopefully that can become a foundation you can stand on for good self worth irregardless of other people

The most basic kind of self esteem is a self worth for simply existing and being human. Doesn’t need anything more, this nobody should be able to bring down because it’s a permanent quality of you 

Edited January 28 by Sugarcoat

[Schizophonia]

Tell him to stop ?

 

[Basman]

A part of self-esteem is not suppressing how you feel. You clearly feel insulted but your doubting even just that as if your supposed to feel a particular way. An insult is meant to be hurtful by definition.

If you don't have the ability to do anything about this bully consider changing your circumstances so you no longer have him in your life (change school for example).