Overwhelmed by Hatred: How to Cope and Move Forward

Feeling consumed by hatred can be overwhelming and confusing. Tatyana Slavinskaya-Puzyrevich, an expert in brain function, shares insights on how to manage this intense emotion without causing harm to ourselves.

Understanding Hatred: A Complex Emotion

Hatred is a complex emotion that arises when we encounter situations or behaviors that strongly contradict our core values. It is an intense feeling that often manifests as a wave of burning hatred. This composite emotion can be broken down into several basic emotions: disgust, fear, anger, and resentment.

When we experience hatred, we might feel:

Nausea and a gagging reaction
Changes in breathing patterns
Anxiety and panic attacks
Freezing or hyperactivity
Anger and aggression
Heat and/or cold, blood pressure spikes
Increased heart rate
A strong urge to move

Hatred triggers an immediate reaction to extreme events, often involving other people. It serves to activate a behavioral model that helps preserve both the individual and the society they live in. The emotions that constitute hatred have specific functions:

Protecting us from contact with something repulsive, harmful, or toxic
Shielding us from threatening circumstances
Creating a desire to eliminate the source of hatred
Mobilizing the body to destroy the object causing hatred

The Consequences of Mismanaging Hatred

The initial reaction triggered by hatred is the desire to act, seek revenge, destroy, and make those who caused the situation suffer. If this reaction is not managed constructively, a person can quickly feel emotionally and physically drained. In the long term, this can lead to symptoms of chronic stress, such as:

Fear, anxiety, and panic
Anger, fear, and aggression
Helplessness and emotional exhaustion
Confusion about how to act or what to do
Muscle tension, spasms, and pain
Disruption of physiological processes (sleep, digestion, hormonal system, etc.)

Coping with Hatred: Minimizing the Impact

The key rule is to keep moving. The mobilization of the body due to hatred is one of the strongest reactions, occurring at the limbic system level and is poorly controlled by rational thought. To avoid triggering an uncontrolled destructive stress response, it is essential to start doing something, preferably something energy-consuming, or even better, something that involves helping others.

Recommended Activities

Chopping wood, drilling walls, hand washing clothes, digging gardens, etc.
Starting to walk, run, or take the dog for a walk
Going to the gym, boxing, or lifting weights
Going to the forest to shout or stomp
Helping others, especially those who are currently struggling. It’s better to help with real actions, not just monetary donations.

Activities to Avoid

Washing dishes by hand and touching objects that can cause harm (knives, needles, glass, etc.)
Hitting hard surfaces with hands and feet (risk of fractures)
Driving a car or operating machinery

When experiencing hatred, it is crucial to try to understand what specifically triggered this emotion. Break down the news or event that caused the hatred into fragments and analyze each one. Also, break down the hatred you feel into basic emotions (you might experience other basic emotions besides disgust, anger, fear, and resentment) and work through each one methodically.

These steps can help shift the experience of hatred from a neurophysiological level, which is difficult to control, to a cognitive level, where rational therapeutic methods can be used to manage this extreme state more healthily.

And remember, it is very important to keep breathing, sleeping, and eating during this process.

For more information, you can refer to this authoritative source on managing intense emotions.