Microaggressions & chronic stress

Microaggressions contribute to chronic stress/distress

A common misperception is that microaggressions are small or insignificant in impact.

While this may be understandable given the terms start with micro, it’s also a defensive reaction driven by our own desires to disavow any harm we may have caused.

Whether or not intentional, microaggressions are damaging to the people they are directed at, an effect that has been repeatedly demonstrated in research. For those who experience microaggressions, they are often encountering these insults multiple times a day. Thus, the effects of these experiences are cumulative. Even when they are not having to actively deal with them, there can be a level of on-going hypervigilance, waiting for another microaggression to occur.

There is the time and energy that is expended in trying to prepare for or minimize these experiences, as well as the emotional labor of deciding if/how they are going to deal with the microaggression, and then going through the labor of actually addressing it or managing the impact of it. For the person committing the microaggression, it may be a single, unintentional harm caused, but for the person experiencing it, it is one of many accumulating in their minds, hearts, and bodies. Downplaying the impact of microaggressions causes further harm to people who are already being harmed by the behavior and disadvantaged by the culture/systems around them that deny the reality of the harm caused.