About criticism and humiliation.

It happens that you make someone literally crushed or humiliated by your words and behavior. She or he takes a harmless "it's hard for me to be around you" or "when I see you, I get anxious" as the harshest criticism or a violent attack. And then you wonder: "What did I say?" You've suddenly become a horrible monster to the other and no excuses can help. Or sometimes someone tells you that you have humiliated her or him, while you are sure that you would never do such a thing. You are again left wondering. How could this happen? The truth is that your words hurt the most when they coincide with what the person's "inner critic" tells him/her. People are crushed not by someone else's words, but by their feelings of inferiority.