Have you ever found yourself getting really frustrated, and maybe even angry, about something somebody did, and then you start mercilessly criticizing them about it? Later you realize that you were blowing it way out of proportion and that you were way too critical. Many of us do that sometimes, don't we? Well, what's that about?
Typically we try to look at ourselves a little to figure it out. We tell ourselves, "I guess I'm just tired," or "Maybe she didn't understand what I was talking about, and I just got frustrated," or "I've been working really hard and he must not have realized that it was a really bad time." Actually, it's good sometimes to give ourselves that kind of break. Some people, after expressing even the smallest irritation, might say to themselves, "I'm just too mean to people," or "I bet they'll really think I'm a jerk." Either way, the irritation within us is clear, and we realize we've become very critical. Yet sometimes there appears to have been little provocation.
When we come to realize that we had blown things out of proportion, we may still believe that we were tired, frustrated, or overburdened, but we feel badly about the feelings we've caused in another. They're feeling downtrodden and undercut. Perhaps their confidence is a bit worse due to our seeming lack of confidence in them. We know we were too hard on them and we want them to know we know it. Apologizing is good. But understanding what happened could help us prevent it from happening in the future.
So, I'll tell you something strange. If we've criticized way too harshly, the person we're really being most critical of, but very indirectly so, is ourselves. Excessively harsh criticism might occur when we're tired, overburdened, or frustrated because that's when we are most vulnerable, but the specific thing we we became critical about is typically something we fear within ourselves.
I know that might seem odd, but it's true. Imagine yourself helping your child with their homework, let's say it's math, and you start to act like it's unbelievable that they aren't getting it. If that's what's happening, my guess is that you have felt like you were "stupid" some time in the past (or that others thought you were "stupid"). It doesn't have to be math that was your issue in the past. It's that you have trouble tolerating "stupidity" in yourself, even if you know you've never been "stupid." Now, when you think the person you're helping might have that "stupidity" trait, you have to attack. It's as though you have to prove that the trait is not yours. You distance yourself as much as you possibly can from the trait by acting like it's the other person who is "stupid," thus limiting the possibility that anyone, including yourself, could ever think it was you.
Another example would be the desire to call someone "lazy." Now, I am not saying that there are no lazy people. "Laziness" is a trait that goes along with depression or learned helplessness, and sometimes people have never experienced the benefit of working hard or have no interests to fuel motivation. When your thoughts about someone being "lazy" move into the realm of harsh criticism, however, it's my guess that the issue is really yours. Typically, criticism about "laziness" happens in a context where people have different values about the worth of a particular activity. If you can see that the real issue is that the person who is not doing as much of a certain activity values it less, the issue of "laziness" doesn't come up. If you understand, for example, that a person who keeps a messy home spends all their time working really hard at their job, it's not likely that you'll think they're lazy (even if you don't agree with their priorities). But when the issue is within ourselves, that is perhaps someone used to call us "lazy" or we continue to call ourselves "lazy," our thoughts about differing values gets short-circuited and we come down on others harshly. This leaves the other person feeling deflated and even less able to work hard on that particular activity. They feel misunderstood as well, and it's likely they'll become stubborn and not work at all. Again, when we clearly define the other as the one who is "lazy," we have distanced ourselves. Not only do we successfully feel like we're not "lazy," but when we deflect by levelling the accusation at someone eles, it's unlikely others will think we're "lazy" either.
Of course the situation where this criticism is most rife is within families - toward spouses and children. Because we're so close to our family members, seeing our traits in them is especially threatening. When our children do something we recognize as especially reflective of ourselves, we defend ourselves against seeing it's like us. It's almost as if a battle ensues within us, with the ultimate result being that we project that trait into our children and lose all recognition that it's like us at all. Thus, we're primed to become excessively critical when anything our family members do reminds us of our own weaknesses. We also fool ourselves sometimes into thinking it's our job to mold them appropriately, so the likelihood that we'll criticize has great precedent in "normal" parenting. Where we see any behavior in our loved one's that suggests they might be developing the same traits we believe we've overcome, it's as if there's a trail blazed traversing directly to the freedom to criticize.
With our spouses extreme criticism is most likely to rear it's head when we think the family is going in the wrong direction (immoderate criticism also, of course, develops from plain selfishness when one starts to feel cheated by circumstances – that is, one can begin to see their partner as not good enough - but that is beyond the purview of this article). It can be something truly important like a financial worry, but more often it's something small like a parenting issue. We act as though the other parent is too harsh when we feel really irritated ourselves, or we act like the other parent is too lenient when we've just recently been especially indulgent. We can see something we've done, or something we do, and then we actually look for it in the other so we can jump on it and prove that it's not us.
Since we've all been excessively criticized before, we know of its effects. It feels terrible and demeaning and rarely has any redeeming effect. It is clear what makes us do it, but what is less clear is how to stop it. You could agree with everything you've read so far and still not see how much this issue affects you personally. You could see that you do this sometimes, but think of it as rare so that it requires no effort to change, or you could try to confront yourself about it and have little impact. The only way to really put a stop to this pattern is to look within yourself every time you become critical and truly explore all your feelings and thoughts about the issue.
It could be "stupidity," "laziness," "fairness," "being afraid," "indulging," "not disciplining," "being a downer," "not being careful," or "being greedy." Whatever it is, if you find yourself being unreasonably harsh about it, you need to go back to your deepest feelings about that thing and really work on accepting you. That is where the problem lies. You may know you're not these things. It's easy to see that a particular trait doesn't fit you. But believe me, if your behavior about that thing is out of bounds or exaggerated, the strength of your feelings indicates it's your problem.
The antidote is to explore the bad feelings and beliefs about yourself related to this area. Let yourself really feel the bad feelings and really try on the bad beliefs. When you've really examined all the negative feelings and beliefs you have about yourself in that area, then you are ready to go back to thinking the positive feelings and beliefs about yourself that you have already developed. You are able to know why you're not "lazy" or "stupid," just like you feel and think you've always known. Only now, if you take the exercise seriously, you will see that you don't see the issues in others as much. Because you understand your own beliefs and feelings about that personality trait, you now find yourself being less judgmental about that trait in others. You'll see that you don't need to criticize people about that issue. Most importantly, when you've really worked on seeing that ugly trait within yourself, you'll find you've freed yourself from the criticism you once heard or felt because you're now free from your own extreme and excessive criticism of yourself.
