AIBU to ask if anyone works in a job where verbal abuse is expected, and how they deal with it?

[CountSlugula]

Just that really. I work in mental health. Not new, I have been in the field 15+ years. It's part and parcel of the job with people who are seriously mentally unwell, I know that, and it isn't necessarily a true reflection of who they are when well. Just having a particularly challenging time at the moment with relentless abuse of really personal nastiness (of me and many others in my team, including racism, homophobia) and have to grit my teeth and get on with it.

I have to be very careful about confidentiality so won't be able to give more details. So just looking for general tips, rather than specific advice on my situation.

Because unfortunately not everyone in caring roles are trying to help you or have your best interests at heart. A lot of seriously mentally ill people are locked up and sedated

Zero tolerance to people who lack capacity. That makes sense

Op has asked how to deal with it. Ive said what works best thats my advice. Your advice is to shout and swear back that is your advice. Op can try both and see which works better

I work as a teacher. I've been verbally abused by children for over 20 years ( not every day obviously but often enough) . A few times by parents too. It should be the line you don't cross but unfortunately it happens so often that people just seem to "accept" it.

Do you have peer supervision as well as your normal supervision? I think it’s really important to have a more informal opportunity to process what you experience, and hopefully even find some humour in it.

your advice is for staff to fawn, placate and accept abuse?

If the patient is seriously mentally unwell absolutely.

No one should have to accept being abused at work, are you coming from the patients viewpoint that “if I want to abuse you I am entitled to “?

This is the only way. Ask them if you are mad with me or mad with the organisation. Most will say the organisation at which point you have some opportunity to get them more on side. You can frame yourself to them as face of the organisation, but only the face. Because their anger isn't about you. If you're really lucky they calm down enough to have a rational conversation.

@CountSlugula I empathise hugely, you do such a great job. I don't have experience of the type you suffer. I did work for a psychopath once, I fought them using the process/procedures for 3m, but they had something on someone senior, so I left. 6m later she was fired. The project director sent me a message through the recruiter to let me know. I suppose the only thing that kept me going was knowing my behaviour was sound. I leave others bad behaviour with them.

I really don’t feel that I need to have your approval not to want to be abused or threatened!

Kill them with kindness.

Worked in many call centres, you'd be amazed how many people forget we're human at the end of the line, dealing with crap and outdated slow as buggery systems whilst getting lashed at by management for taking too long. If the person on the other end of the phone gets a whiff of you being overwhelmed they absolutely make it personal.

I know it's a very simplified way of looking at it but people can only upset you if you let them. Often that is their goal, and to not get upset about what they're saying helps you keep the power. Naming their emotions back to them can make them realise they're being a bit of a dick. "I can tell you're having a very upsetting day today Mr Tom" or "That's no way to speak to someone who is trying to help you now is it?"

If they're just venting at the system or process let them vent but if it's personal, be kind but firm.

Used to work in a pub so I’ve been called every name under the sun. Now I’m a maths tutor and I’ve had a few kids who are pissy they have to do maths on a Saturday get a bit nippy, but genuinely water off a ducks back now. Tbh when regulars would insult me at the pub I’d just always think “Yhe at least I’m not you”. Maybe try that? Like at least you’re not on the psyche ward?

Professional services. Bullying is rife.

Special Forces techniques re. mental resilience, blocking it out when it’s happening and not reacting. Works a treat 😂

Do you realise how utterly insulting it is for you to think you have any authority to comment on what teaching is like because you once went to school and you have teenagers? I’m really fed up of this patronising nonsense. I don’t see any other job where people question the realities with no actual experience or basis for doing so.
Yes abuse is utterly rife in teaching.
it’s not a competition as to who gets abused the most. No one actually said they get abused more than those working with mental health patients. But I can guarantee you that every teacher has been subject to it and then they have to put up with it from the same quarters day after day for years. At least patients are discharged. The question was for others who experience it to offer their strategies and straight away you jump to question it. I’m utterly sick of this dismissive attitude towards the realities of teaching.

Longtime GP here - people now think they have a carte blanche to abuse you. A/E, mental health and GP get it worse than everywhere else imo but maximum respect to our long suffering teacher and call centre colleagues too.
So draining & demoralising and makes people
leave our profession all the time.
It only gets harder with time to bite your tongue when people - who have zero idea about the heavy workload pressures we face and the emotional cost to us from even our best patient contacts - dish out their entitled aggression, ignorance, abuse and contempt on our team. Ventilating is the only thing that helps (with colleagues who understand). I also agree that the Stepford style robotic limitless patience approach is the least worst approach but it can feel like a betrayal of yourself after endless capitulation for the sake of speed & efficiency . I also think that the Conservative Party played a role in normalising this abuse (as someone said on here recently) with the post Covid empty waiting rooms, closed surgeries fallacies inflaming the most reprehensible contingents to try it on.

To answer your question op the key is to listen and keep your voice low and calm. You can just repeat what they’ve said back to you. “I hear you” you are angry, you think… “ - active listening -or even just stay quiet and walk away if you can. I would honestly urge you to look at the strategies for dealing with dysregulated children! I’ve learnt so much about how to help my ND children and have found the same strategies work incredibly well on abusive and angry adults. It’s not about you usually so you have to try and learn not to take it personally. But you have my sincerest sympathy because it sounds very hard. It’s very hard not to let it get to you.

Oh and having someone who understands to vent to! Don’t carry it on your own.

Don't be so bloody ridiculous. You clearly have never seen someone in the throes of a manic or psychotic episode.

I also had this, but I was allowed to tell abusive customers that I was terminating the call.

My experiences pale in comparison to OP's, but I realised that I simply couldn't take any of the abuse or criticism personally, which was a massive help. Once, a customer phoned me a couple of times to have a long rant about something, in which he suggested that I was corrupt. Then the following day, he had a long conversation with my colleague and it became clear that he thought we were the same person. How could I take any of it personally after that?

Also, I found that if I didn't push back/argue, people tended to rant for a while then run out of steam. I just said things like, "OK", or "well, no that doesn't sound very good", or when I simply couldn't agree, (such as when they called our CEO names), I just said "right" or "mmm".

I work in a large company dealing with complaints and get called names and screamed at regularly. I deal with it by acknowledging to myself that they don’t know me, that they’re reacting to the situation, not me. I I don’t really care about the opinion of someone who I don’t know, and who doesn’t know me.

I'm trying to work out if you actually do the work.

Other than that your constant refrain that no one should have to accept or manage behaviour makes no sense. If it isn't the nurses it's secuirty. If they don't it's police. Then courts. Then prison guards. Someone has to manage behaviour. Doesn't make it easy or acceptable. But you can't say no one should. Someone has to.

Patients don't really know you, so just focus that it isn't personal, because it can't be.
It is just a reflection of their personal prejudices- it says far more about them than it ever could about you.
Verbal abuse is far harder to deal with from colleagues because they will know you, at least to some extent- and probably don't have serious mental health issues.

When I was teaching, my last HT (in my permanent post) told me that teachers should expect to be sworn at.

Latterly, there were no consequences. I've already told on other threads of how I was punched in the stomach by a teenage boy I didn't even know - during break. He had run into class, chasing after another pupil.

I must have had PTSD, because I remember two male teachers being punched when they came to help; some time later, it wasn't until I found the statement I wrote on the day that I knew that I'd been punched.

To this day, I can remember the precursor to the punch, the men being punched and miscarrying the next day. 20 plus years later, I don't remember the punch to my stomach - I only know about it because I wrote it down, if that makes sense. Fortunately, the pregnancy was very early - I'd only had a faint positive and was waiting to re-test.

There's been mention of dealing with people with mental health issues. Teachers do that on an almost daily basis.

I remember one girl in particular. She wrecked my classroom one time. She was constantly aggressive verbally though she never hit me. As an adult, she was responsible for someone's death, but got off with it because the victim had a heart condition.

How did I deal? Eventually, I'd leave the building at lunch whenever I could. I'd maybe go into a cafe after work to decompress, but couldn't do that when I was also caring for my parents and my husband.