What’s Your Armor in Conflict?
We often enjoy putting ourselves into categories. Buzzfeed quizzes love having some quizzes that after a few questions tells you which Hogwarts House you belong to, or which Disney character you are. I’m often trying to figure out what kind of armor client’s wear. Often when we get into fights we get defensive, scared, maybe even mean, anxious, and so many other overwhelming emotions pop up. This might happen at work, with friends, but often more with family and your significant other(s).
Karen Horney, one of the first pioneers in psychology, had a concept called the Three Trends. These trends were ways we tried to handle difficult situations and how we adapted to our environment. Horney saw these strategies in the animal kingdom as well and helped creatures survive and adapt to their surroundings. Her Three Trends were often adaptive and helped out in a lot of situations, but we sometimes may rely too heavily on them in difficult situations where they block us from resolving fights. Her Three Trends are the Armors I’m referring to.
We need to know what style our Armors take because we often Armor Up involuntarily. When we feel insecure and vulnerable we have a tendency to Armor Up. We put up an Armor so you can’t hurt us. They may help us feel safe in an unsafe situation, but they put a wall up that disallows us from intimacy and connecting with the person we actually might want to connect with. Armors are the aspects we take one when we are trying to resolve a fight and that hinders us from actually connecting with the person we are in conflict with.
I often describe a Vulnerability Dartboard. We all have layers of boundaries, outside of boundaries, outsider of boundaries. If we draw it out it looks like a dartboard. The people who we can be the most vulnerable with are the ones that earn that space in the bullseye. They don’t spread gossip, they try to understand where we are coming from, they don’t judge use, and they work on resolving conflicts. They are the people we feel like we can take our Armors off and feel the closest to. When we Armor Up we don’t allow people into that bullseye space and we feel lonely, and when our Armor is up it makes others feel uncomfortable so they Armor Up, which makes us feel unsafe and need to Armor Up even more. Armors can create some vicious cycles in relationships so explore and consider what is your Armor. Below are the three common ones that Horney often saw.
Deflective Armor
One of the Armors is what I call the Deflective Armor (“Move Against” in Horney’s Trends). When stressed, people who put on this Armor become more domineering and lean more to the fight response. This is helpful because sometimes we need to fight and stick up for ourselves. We’re not going to let people just walk all over us. When someone tries to cut us down, we cut back. By puffing up and being the biggest one in the room we can stand our ground and not feel small.
Deflective Armors don’t allow us to actually hear what are ways we might hurt others around us. When we wear it too often we will take no feedback when we are viewed in a negative light. In couples therapy it often plays out like this
Person A: Hey we talked about you cleaning up after yourself after you used the kitchen.
Person B: Oh I don’t clean up after myself one time and now you’re down my throat. You’re always whining. And you’re always leaving your damn stuff all over the place.
Person B in the situation has Armored Up and deflected the conversation away from themselves and onto another topic (mainly all the faults of the other person). Sometimes we might make ourselves look big or we might try to cut the other person down. “You’re going to try to make us feel small? Oh we will cut you down in size.” The problem is then that we can never receive feedback when.
I once had a client describe that they received a “papercut” from a sexist microaggression that happened, but was “sliced open” by the response their partner gave when they tried to share the papercut experience. We teach others that you should not dare try to give me any negative feedback or else we’ll slice you open if you try. And then people are less likely to want to be close to us because you never get the feedback of their boundaries and what they need to be closer on their Vulnerability Dartboard.
The Deflective Armor usually pops on when we are feeling unsafe or uncomfortable. We might feel lonely and not respected and sometimes pick up that others are walking on eggshells around us. But at the same time leaving our selves exposed and vulnerable is frightening because what if we’re the ones sliced open. But if we find the ways to feel safe without our Armor people might see our softer side and also work on not cutting it to pieces.
It is important for people who use this Armor to understand how they impact others. We also have to learn to hold back the daggers that might be on our tongues to not keep inflicting the wounds on others. Some of your anger might be valid, but it will never be heard if we can’t validate the other’s experience. It is also important to know that when others try to give us feedback it is not to cut us down, but information to keep you close. Make sure to listen to that feedback because it might be a way to move closer on that other person’s Vulnerability Dartboard. By building their trust we earn a place closer to their bullseye space.
People Pleaser Armor
Another Armor is People Pleaser Armor (Horney’s “Move Towards). Why can’t we just all hug and get along? The best way to avoid fights is to just do what the person needs us to do. Let’s figure out how to fix the problem. If we get everyone to like us then no one will be angry at us. If someone is angry at us it must mean we’re not working hard enough or found the right fix yet. This armor sounds great; what’s wrong with making other people happy?
This Armor is all about submission. Those that wield the People Pleaser Armor are constantly looking for validation of their efforts. When we wear the People Pleaser Armor we try to get others to focus on the similarities and avoid focusing on the differences. We are looking for validation, love, acceptance, appreciation and feeling needed. We focus so much on other people’s needs that we have neglected our own needs.
Common issues for those who use the People Pleaser Armor is that when we do get negative feedback we are more likely to be seeking validation then trying to listen to the problem OR we are so in our head in how to fix the problem that we don’t actually listen to the problem and the hurt that was caused. Partners often get frustrated with the People Pleaser’s need to be validated. If we do get negative feedback we have a tendency to work harder(, but not necessarily smarter). If we just work harder than we can get that validation we are constantly craving.
The problem is that validation of all our work is a short term fix. Now we have to keep working hard to keep getting that validation and then it becomes the only way we feel secure. This drives a fear of disappointing others which we then feel unsafe. We neglect our own Vulnerability Dartboard and don’t get to understand the true things that make us feel safe and secure. People Pleaser Armor doesn’t like it when others help us because that doesn’t help us feel appreciated. But when people actually do help us or adjust to our feelings, then they actually move closer on our Vulnerability Dartboard. All the running around fixing things is not allowing anyone to get closer to us. Getting out of this Armor is about letting other people in, listening instead of fixing, and asking for things you need.
Retreat Armor
The third Armor is the Retreat Armor (Or Horney’s “move away”). It is time for a hasty retreat. If we just had some space and time to self-reflect we could think about things much clearer. This environment feels unsafe and/or toxic so we need to leave. We’re just going to learn to adapt to the situation and not bring up concerns because why would we bring up conflict that can feel overwhelming. If people make us feel unsafe we will just move away from them or maybe cut them out of our life. We’ll just make myself so self-sufficient that we don’t rely on people anymore. When it gets hard it is just a sign that it isn’t working and we need to quit. Well if they are so mad at us or if this isn’t working they why do they hang out with us? If we just handle this one our own and they handle their stuff then everything will workout fine.
In couples therapy I sometimes see people with the Retreat Armor have a hard time sitting with difficult situations. Everything in the body is telling us to run and sometimes we do just up and leave the conversation because it has gotten too intense. This often leaves a confused and hurt partner left on the couch alone. It is good to be able to call Time Outs, but it can often be frustrating from the other partner to be cut out of the conversation. Restarting the conversation can be hard, but allows people to become closer. Another version often seen is that we might just say “yes” to everything but then not process what it is being said. We are literally just trying to get out of the conversation as quickly as possible.
Often with the Retreat Armor the goal is self-sufficiency. Similar to the People Pleasure Armor, this Armor would also like to avoid fights by not having them. If we just divide everything so I have my clear duties and you have yours then we can just handle things on our own and never have to cross lines. Sometimes the self-sufficiency borders on perfectionism. We try to make order in a chaotic world and trying to bring other people into the mix just welcomes more chaos. We don’t necessarily cut ourselves off from the world but sometimes limit our experiences to avoid some of the extreme negative feelings.
People with this Armor don’t often let people in the Vulnerability Dartboard. Maybe we’ve have been hurt too many times. Maybe we carry a lot of shame and anxiety. Maybe we think if people saw how messed up we are they wouldn’t stick around. Yep, better to just keep things to ourselves and not leave ourselves exposed. Whatever the case, being vulnerable is one of those chaotic negative emotions that we don’t want to deal with.
This Armor has a hard time letting people see the cracks and flaws. But if we let others see those cracks they might be able to sit with us and still want to embrace us. As Leonard Cohen sang “There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.” By avoiding conflicts we sometimes don’t get to learn which ones are worth having. What types of conflict are worth avoiding and which ones actually make people feel closer to us and allows them to welcome us in.
We all have a version of Armors that we wear in conflict. It might not look exactly like how I’m describing in the writings here because Armors come in all shapes and sizes and we might switch styles depending on the situation and/or person. In some situations they might be very helpful. But it is important to name the Armors and be familar when they become maladaptive. By working on understanding our Armors and building new strategies that allow us to be vulnerable will help us welcome more people closer on our Vulnerability Dartboard.
It may also be helpful to talk to your close relationships to give them permission to call out when you Armor Up. This is an involuntary reaction that we don’t always have control over. Welcoming others to call it out may help us learn what causes us to Armor Up and be able to take off the Armor in the moment. It is also helpful to talk to close friends or a therapist about your Armors so you can work on dismantling them.
In our current times our Armor prevents us from being accountable for actions that might hurt other people. We need to start learning to stop deflecting, avoiding, and moving around problems and learn to address them head on, but that can only happen is we creates spaces where we can notice the cracks. Again “There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.”