Hello and every week I'll help you meet life's challenges with evidence-based

I'm Dr Ellen Hendrickson and every week I'll help you meet life's challenges

with evidence-based research, a sympathetic ear, and zero judgment.

Slights with a smile.

Silence when you know they can hear you.

Compliments with a side of Side Eye.

Passive aggressive people know how to serve up

a veritable buffet of, oh no, she didn't.

And tacking on LOL afterwards doesn't negate things.

So if you are tired of being on the receiving end of insults,

followed with JK, or sick of finding ostensibly polite but obviously angry notes from your roommate, today's episode

is for you. By request from Steve in Boston, here are five ways to deal with the passive

aggressive people in your life.

Because, after all, we're not passive aggressive, unlike some people we know.

However it manifests, passive aggression is the fine art of being angry without seeming angry.

And there are two ingredients, anger and avoidance.

So the first, anger, or its cousin's annoyance, frustration or

irritation, always bubbles beneath the surface, but trying to suppress anger is

like trying to keep a lid on a pot of boiling water.

Eventually it will spew out like a steam vent.

Now in addition to thinly veiled anger, the second ingredient in passive aggression is avoidance.

It's a way to avoid conflict, avoid feeling genuine anger, and avoid having to be direct in a situation where one feels incapable. So individuals who are

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