Some of us feel so powerless about our emotional impact on other people that often unwittingly we are far more heavy-handed than we intend to be. We expect that, unless we exaggerate, other people won’t pay any attention to what we have to say.

Paradoxically, when we carry on in extravagant displays of temper or self-pity, it is our overkill that keeps people from taking us seriously. For example, if we feel that someone has been less considerate than we would have wished, we whine that they have broken our hearts, or we strike back at what we experience as a slap in the face by condemning them as completely cruel and uncaring.

When we become captive of our own overblown metaphors, we find it easy to justify our counter-attacks. In the midst of the desperation that we experience as our helplessness, we are likely to treat the person who has offended us much worse than they treated us.

Beware of mistaking metaphors for the experiences they were intended to express.