Do you ever notice that you have this calm-in-the-workplace-perfect man who comes home and snaps at your family members for minor details? Or whether you’ve come to see that you react more harshly than the situation demands. This is a phenomenon called displacement, and it’s more pervasive than we can imagine.
What is Displacement?
Displacement happens when someone experiences stress, pain or a sense of impotence in one area of their life, but vents that anger or frustration toward someone else usually a friend, family member or colleague who doesn’t have anything to do with the original issue.
Signs of Displacement
Displacement might be detected when:
- If someone is a calm person outside, but at home they may be irritable or angry.
- Work stress leads relatives to yell or become frustrated.
- Errors are relatively small but create a huge reaction that is out of proportion to the situation.
- Apologies only come later, after the emotional damage has been inflicted.
Why Displacement Happens
Of course displacement doesn’t mean being “bad.” It normally implies that emotions were never safely processed. Well, the rage is there but the target was wrong, and the pain is transmitted, not processed. The Cost of Displacement. Unmanaged displacement can damage relationships and trust, as well as putting a strain on mental health. Children and partners and friends will silently bear someone else’s stress.
Breaking the Cycle
- The upside: With awareness and intentionality, displacement can be managed. And here are mechanisms for saving yourself and others.
- Wait before responding: Take a moment to check in with yourself.
- What is really on your mind: This may be the best question to ask yourself: “Am I mad at this person or is something else bothering me?”
- Release Stress Safely: Move, journal, meditate, talk to any type of neutral party (somebody with whom you want to feel relaxed), etc.
- Direct & Direct: Discuss pressures/frustrations rather than let them escape.
- Apologize fast: Wherever you have felt the negative emotions, apologize.
- Protect members of your loved ones: Anger is not about them; it is about you. And a simple line like, “I am stressed, not angry at you” would prevent years of heartache.
A Message for Those Who Had Displacement in Their Parents’ Houses and Children
It was not your fault; the emotional spillover is something learned, not inherited. Awareness gives you the opportunity to change that cycle from generation to generation. Conclusion. Stress and anger are natural human emotions, but unvoiced feelings can take on and hurt the people whom we love. Displacement shows us that healing begins when we confront our emotions (the things we have lugged into the future) and keep them from being passed down. The first step is awareness that you need and the ability to respond mindfully, rather than reactively.
