Silencing The Screaming Sensation

Why do adults scream? Is it a remnant of a childhood that lacked correction? The other day I had gone to a children’s party. The usual giggles, sound of running feet and parents chattering was pierced by a ceiling-splitting cry. An adorable little thing in orange was howling her tonsils out for she didn’t like the colour of the juice. There was a split second pause and the child was ushered out hastily, in an attempt to distract her from the things that displeased her. Once she was out of sight, the world continued as if nothing had happened.

When I see a grown-up person yell, I wonder whether I should do that. Carry that person across my shoulder into another room and say, ‘Look, look, there’s a lizard on the wall.’ Will that stop her? When an adult shouts at another adult, don’t they realise what they have so shrilly demanded is done under a cloud of negativity, coercion and unhappiness?

A friend of mine is a bright, young thing whose aggressiveness makes men cower in local trains. I have, at least on two occasions heard her boss abuse her over the phone, so loudly, that I knew the exact import of her conversation. I told her she had to tell this screeching sensation, even at the cost of losing her job, to communicate in decibels that are within a certain range. It took some time but now her boss has learnt to express displeasure without tearing her eardrums.

Personally, I didn’t begin as a non-screamer. In the days of the past, I gave as good as I thought I should. Fights would leave me hoarse, gasping for water. One day, while shouting I suddenly became mindful and saw myself for what I became in the midst of a temper tantrum- a horrible woman, whose face was twisted by rage, spewing terrible things, which she didn’t mean. Disgusted, I stopped, almost overnight. It’s been years now since I have raised my voice. Of course, that doesn’t mean I don’t express anger. According to my partner, I ‘scream softly’.

Whenever I hear mothers roar at their grown-up children, partners yell at their spouses, employer’s screech at their employees I feel like going up to the person who is being hollered at and I want to tell them, ‘Don’t take it. Nobody has the right to shout at you. You have to have zero-tolerance to anybody expressing their anger this way.’

Read more by the author: What Kind Of Sicko Do You Want To Be?

Why aren’t we taught this at school? Along with knitting and moral science we should all have a self-respect class, where we teach children that nobody is allowed to yell at them. I strongly believe that one of the reasons people scream is because there are people who take it. If each one of us stood up against these bullies with booming voices, they will learn to tone down and talk in tones that human ears are meant to hear.

Still Figuring It Out’ a funny, sad, questioning take on adulthood will appear every Saturday on newsable.com. Arathi Menon is the author of Leaving Home With Half a Fridge, a memoir published by Pan Macmillan. She tweets at https://twitter.com/unopenedbottle. The views expressed here are her own.