Emotional Abuse
[A first draft sample from Facing Abuse]
Emotional abuse is often thought of as a lesser kind of abuse. An article about domestic violence from insurance provider Prudential, for example, states that “When a partner wants to leave the home and you stand in the doorway to prevent it, that is domestic violence. When people fear for their safety even though there has been no concrete incident, that indicates that at least emotional abuse is taking place.” Physical abuse is often cited as next worst, followed by sexual abuse, which is often regarded as the worst possible kind of abuse that anyone could experience.
Yet, beyond the inadvisability of ranking abuse experiences like that, and the various forms it leaves out, abuse is also not so easy to separate. Sexual abuse always occurs on either a physical or emotional level or both; physical abuse causes deep emotional wounds; and I am not sure it is even possible for sexual or physical abuse to occur in a relationship without emotional abuse first paving the way for it. Lawyer Andrew Vachss, who specializes in litigation against child abuse of all kinds, stated in an article for Parade magazine that “of all the many forms of child abuse, emotional abuse may be the cruelest and longest-lasting of all” because it is “the systematic diminishment of another.”
One of the worst aspects of emotional abuse is its invisibility. Even with physical forms of abuse, it is hard for many people to accept that anything but the clearest and most extreme examples are abuse. They often simply have too much invested in believing that anything less is not abusive, maybe not even harmful. With emotional abuse, there are no physical scars left: there is nothing visibly damaging enough for some people to accept. It is much easier to minimize it, because the moment that the words are out of the abuser’s mouth, they are gone. We can begin immediately to tell ourselves that we deserved it, they didn’t mean it, it didn’t bother us, they are right, or simply to distract ourselves from what is happening.
The concept of freedom of speech, for all its importance to society, can also confuse us. We can understand that someone’s right to move their fist ends where our skin begins, but it is harder to draw that line when the weapon is psychological. Here, then, is a series of examples of emotional abuse, which may also be called psychological or verbal abuse. This is not intended as a comprehensive list: it is only meant to help people understand what emotional abuse looks like. Like art, we may not be able to explain what it is, but we can at least come to know it when we see it.
“Crazy-Making” Behavior
In Stop, You’re Driving Me Crazy, Dr. George R. Bach posits four rights that everyone has in relationships, which are violated by emotionally abusive behavior:
The right to know. This is a tricky one because it goes both ways. Denying information or deliberately confusing it, in certain ways, is abuse, but so is insisting that you have the right to know everything about another person’s ideas, feelings, or actions.
In a healthy relationship, all parties know where their boundaries are around sharing information. They can explore those boundaries together as they develop mutual trust. If something that one person does not wish to share with another brings up feelings of rage, abandonment, shame, fear, or other issues in either person, they can go to their support system and use healthy tools to distinguish their feelings from the reality of the situation. In an emotionally abusive situation, this situation often instead degenerates into shaming, blaming, accusing, guilt-tripping, and other emotionally abusive responses to those feelings.
Some emotionally abusive ways to deny “the right to know” include hiding letters, bills, or emails that contain information the other person needs to have; refusing to answer questions even with an “I don’t know” or an explanation of the reasons for not answering; talking around an issue or providing a welter of unrelated information so that the other person does not even realize until later that they still do not have an answer to their question; lying or providing misleading information; or changing stories repeatedly, especially when insisting that “this is exactly what I said!”
The right to feel. In a healthy relationship, each person is able to recognize what they are feeling at any given moment and feel it safely. They can talk about it with other trustworthy people. They are able to anticipate and fulfill their own needs. They are able to notice when their needs are not being met, or when old unresolved issues are being triggered for them, and take responsibility for dealing with these matters.
In an emotionally abusive relationship, people expect others to anticipate and fulfill their needs – and if their needs are not fulfilled, things become quite unpleasant. One person may know that they lash out at others when their blood sugar is low, yet routinely ignore hunger signals and mealtimes and take it out on those around them. They may have many triggers from past abuse and react to others unwittingly triggering them as if the others are their abusers; or they may know about the buttons and triggers that other people have, and push them intentionally. They may not even realize what emotions or issues are coming up for them, and simply react by projecting their fears and resentments onto those around them: snapping at them, yelling at them, judging them, picking fights with them, or responding to them with cold anger.
The right to feel is also violated by simply being told how we are feeling, how we are going to feel, or how we should or should not feel. For example: “This is why I didn’t want to tell you! I knew you’d just get mad about it!” “You don’t really hate me.” “Well, don’t get so upset about it!” In an emotionally abusive relationship, nobody’s emotions are safe. Both partners usually have unresolved emotional issues, or there would be no relationship: the person who was being abused would simply set boundaries, discover that they were not being respected, and walk away.
The right to impact. That is, the right to have agency, to have power in our own lives, to make a difference in the world. In a healthy relationship, there is no question: people know who they are, what they want to do, and how they are appreciated by others. They have more than one community of support, and many individual friendships and other positive relationships outside of their romantic lives.
In an emotionally abusive relationship, people often do not feel appreciated. The abusive partner may ridicule, criticize, and insult them. They may criticize presents they give or help they offer, their appearance, or simply everything about them. Most insidiously, they may present this criticism as “jokes” at their partner’s expense, which allows them to claim that it was “just a joke” while involving everyone who laughs in the abuse. They are often drawn into a cycle of trying ever harder to prove that the abuser loves them, while their partner becomes increasingly abusive. The harder they try, the more enmeshed they become, and the less they are able to tell what is and is not abusive.
The members of the relationship often become isolated. One partner may try consciously to cut the other off from their base of support by criticizing their friends or attacking their friends directly, by making greater and greater demands on their personal time, or by simply asking or telling them, gradually or all at once, to stop hanging out with those people. They may do any of these things without consciously intending to isolate their partner; that does not make the relationship less abusive. They may even unconsciously isolate together, as they become increasingly enmeshed in their unhealthy relationship. It’s like a cult of one… or, in polyamorous relationships, just a cult.
Their impact on the world, therefore, becomes lessened. The greater the percentage of one person’s life is that another person takes up, the more that person can abuse them without consequence. When one person becomes fifty, eighty-five, a hundred percent of your world, there is less room for all the healthy and delightful things that might otherwise highlight anything unhealthy that is going on with that person.
As the relationship becomes more enmeshed, as that percentage grows, the emotional abuse against our right to impact can be increasingly blatant. Abuses against our right to feel can make it very clear that our needs are not important, that we are not important, which creates a sense of invisibility. A lack of impact. One openly hostile variation on this is to pretend that someone does not exist: “Did you hear something? I could have sworn there was someone talking to me, but there’s nobody here!” A less obvious method is to use avoidance tactics in conversation: to misinterpret or pick away at small details in an argument, refusing to hear what the other person is actually communicating; to turn an accusation around on the other person; or to bring up something unrelated that they have done wrong. To complete the takeover of power in the relationship, some people “pull rank”, emphasizing that they are the breadwinner, the husband, the wife, the boss of the relationship, the cook, et cetera. Some even go so far as to refer to themselves as “Mommy” or “Daddy” when ordering their adult partner around – “Daddy wants you to come home right now!” “Mommy is very angry with you!” Pulling rank is also called “role-playing,” and is similar in some ways to that practiced in the emotionally abusive Gorean lifestyle.
The right to space. In a healthy relationship, each person knows where their boundaries are around their emotional, mental, and physical space and their time. They have a sturdy sense of perspective and are able to set and communicate their priorities in respectful and loving ways. They take care of their own space, and respect others’. They can be happy when another person sets clear boundaries, because they know that when that person takes care of their needs they will be more emotionally available for the relationship. They feel safe hearing other people set clear boundaries, because they know that that means their own boundaries will be respected too. And they are able and willing to notice when things aren’t perfect and when they need to address their problems, and address them directly and honestly.
In an emotionally abusive relationship, boundaries are perceived as a threat or an attack. Every kind of space is perceived as a zero-sum game: there is not enough time for everyone to have their needs met and do what they want to do. There is not enough space for everyone’s personal space and personal objects to be respected. If one person is upset, it means that the other person will never get to express their feelings. There is no room allowed for compromise or balance. Everything the abuser does is a right, and everything anyone else does is a violation of those rights. And the more space they take up, the less space others have to maintain their grip on reality. The abusive relationship slowly swallows up their entire world. The right to space implies the right to have our own interests, our own skills and talents, our own desires, our own relationships, our own lives. In an emotionally abusive relationship, all of that eventually falls away. Often, people who have a pattern of emotionally abusive relationships have already given those things up, believing that this is the only way to get the love they deserve.
Emotional incest is another violation of the right to space. It occurs most often in adult-child relationships, when a parent or other adult confides inappropriately in a child, asks the child to make decisions about their romantic or business life for them, shares deep emotional information – in short, when they relate to a child in a way that is only appropriate in a relationship with another adult. In Silently Seduced: When Adults Make Their Children Partners – Understanding Emotional Incest, psychologist Kenneth Adams identifies the problem: “Did you have a parent whose love for you felt more confining than freeing, more demanding than giving, more instrusive than nurturing? Did you feel trapped in a ‘psychological marriage’ with this parent? If so, you may be a victim of covert incest. Identification of this kind of incest is difficult, since covert incest victims often feel idealized and privileged, not violated and abused.”
A recent New York Times article demonstrated how this sense of privilege and power can mask the abuse which is truly occuring. In Mommy and Daddy’s Little Life Coach, journalist Stephanie Rosenbloom profiled parents who rely on their eleven-year-olds to make the purchasing decisions for their real-estate businesses, choose their own schools, and handle the remodeling process on their own houses while their parents are at work. One mother, who runs a website for single parents, relies on her teenage son for dating advice.
Quotes from several of the parents are quite telling: the website maven bemoans how hard it is “when your own child is more sophisticated or intuitive or sensitive or funny than the men that are out there,” and a single mother urologist says of her pre-teen daughter, “It’s just the two of us. That makes her more like a partner in some ways than a child.” Yet despite quoting the author of Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood, Rosenbloom does not seem to understand that this kind of relationship is emotional incest, nor that emotional incest is harmful. She repeatedly throws in positive – and unrelated – choices like “inviting children to help choose which board game to play or which DVD to rent.” She repeatedly casts these experiences of emotional incest in a positive light, quoting the children as saying that they enjoy not being looked down on by their parents. And to end the article, she quotes a professor of child psychology who observes that children used to have many more responsibilities at earlier ages, apparently with no awareness that it is not the responsibility itself that is the question, but how age-appropriate the particular responsibility is.
This is the biggest threat of emotional abuse: its invisibility, and people’s resulting ignorance about it.
Escalation
One hallmark of abusive relationships is that the abuse escalates over time. As resentments grow, and as the fact that you cannot completely control another human being becomes increasingly evident, the abuser must resort to increasingly emotionally violent tactics. If they did not start out using physical, sexual, [financial abuse, or other forms of abuse, they may begin incorporating them. If the relationship did not start out as mutually abusive it may become so with time, as one partner, unable to see other options, begins lashing out at their abuser.
In Alcoholics Anonymous, they say that alcoholism is a progressive disease: with time, the alcoholic engages more and more in their addictive behavior and the addiction gets worse and worse. The same applies to abuse. Abuse and addiction are deeply linked. Abuse is an attempt to control other people and situations, which stems from codependency, which is an addiction and which is caused by a history of abuse. Abuse is an addiction, and it is part of a vicious cycle in which it causes other addictions and leads to more abuse.
By the same token, many people who have been abused have never known anything else. They can’t imagine what it would be like to put themselves first, to love themselves so much that they do not need the validation of others, to set boundaries fearlessly and to have relationships where they are automatically respected. They may be able to imagine better than what they have, but the reality of how much better it can be never seems real to them. They see no other option than to throw their own boundaries, needs, even selves away, thinking that that will protect themselves from future abuse. The first step in healing from emotional abuse is to get out of the relationship, but the key to healing is to stop the emotional abuse that is coming from within
well done. please do finish it. love the freedom of speech part. it’s past time that was mentioned. if i may say, i call it rape. mental rape. they take what is most yours against your will; violates the right to say “no” …it takes away the voice … but you can’t tell this to people who can’t hear you. works on everyone then everyone works on you. love the thoroughness, please continue.
Very well said. I’ve been living in a marriage like this for almost 3 years now. Aside from the abuse may husband has chosen to do, the worst part is that no one really understands. My Mother and my Aunt are the only people in my family who validate my experience of this. My friends are supportive though, so that helps a lot. I have submitted an article on this topic a few weeks ago to a journal. I didn’t say any of it was my own experience though. Keep up your writing.
I will
Thanks for commenting! What do you do to deal with or change the situation you are in?
Oh, that was at Carolyn B.
I think mental rape is a fine thing to call it. It’s horrible because it exploits the effects of childhood abuse and chains people up more in their own heads, invisibly.
Charis: Thanks! I am working on it all the time
I think this was explained very well. I’m trying to figure out what exactly it is in my current friendship that doesn’t feel right, since I severed ties with my abusive parent almost 6 months ago. I’m 26 years old now. The part I idenified with as part of my healing was to have my boundaries and needs respected and met if not by others, with myself. I know that this takes time especially after years of abuse, to learn to love yourself not intellictually but actually express it outwardly.
Thanks Gina! I don’t know if you read this blog regularly, but I put together a list of sort of red flags of emotional abuse recently: http://eft.fabglitter.org/blog/?p=65
the emotional abuse cheat sheet!
I severed ties with an abusive parent several years ago so I know it is hard and very brave! It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. My experience was that he was very helpful in the process, because he has consistently refused to respect my boundaries or respect that I don’t want to have a relationship with him – and without that, I might have gone back on it and given in. But instead I keep getting these reminders that he is unwilling and unable to show up for a healthy relationship in any way!
Hi how are you? Thanks for the heads up, I don’t get to check this Blog too often.
Hi how are you? Thanks for the heads up, I don’t get to check this Blog too often. Yes, it is tough. Like you said though, when they keep trying to step on those boundaries it makes it a whole lot easier. The tough part I suppose is to give up any hopes, wishes that they are going to recover and mourn the parents you didnt have.
That is so true. And I think that opens the door up for us to get the support we want from other people instead!
im a 16 year old who is emotionaly abused…. life is really lonely… my mom doesnt seem to want to help me get away from my over protective dad… i hate everything… the other day i got cought on my cell phone…as a punishment… my dad threw everything away…EVERYTHING…..my room is now as hollow and empty as i am….
that is out of control!!! it is, however, really awesome that you can recognize it as abuse. i think that maybe, as more people talk openly about abuse, it’ll be easier for people to rebel against their abuse instead of the old way where people often hid in denial and defended their abusers at all costs. you’re the wave of the future
feel free to email me privately if you want to talk about it. you might also enjoy this list I made of different “tricks” and tactics that emotional abusers use, which I think can make it easier to predict and deflect their attacks.
well… it’s been a while since ive blogged, its hard for me to get on the computer because im not reallly allowed on one… but i do get a change at school…. but things are really boring at home… i miss my music!! also, my big brother moved back in with my family… that is a first… my brother moved out at age 16 to get away from my dad.. he went to a vocation school and lived there for a wile… he resecntly got in trouble for hassing so he was kicked out of theprogram… so… now he lives with me… is funny because my dad has an extra room that he uses for him music and he doesnt want to give it up for him only son!!!…. my brother puts all his stuff in my room and sleeps on the coach…. its almost funny if it wasnt so serou…. but yeah… my parents want me to go to the same school my brother did… but really, i want to stay in putblic school…. im a sophmore, and cant wait to be a senoir and go to prom and all of that fun stuff… i hope i make it there… you see the schoo that my dad wants me to go to doesnt have prom or reallly any type of dance… not to mention on collage is going to want me…. its a really bad school… well that concludes my blog for today….
I didn’t read the very last part, but just about everything you said was true. However there is a sentence I completely disagree with:
“Both partners usually have unresolved emotional issues, or there would be no relationship”
I was in an emotionally abuse relationship that ended almost a year ago. I did not have “emotional issues” before I started dating the guy. For me it was like this:
I really liked the guy and had known him and secretly liked him before we dated. He had just gotten out of a relationship, and I figured that was the reason for his unusual behavior. I was fourteen when we started dating. About a month into the relationship, I turned fifteen. I was too young to realize this wasn’t a result of a break up; this was his “true” personality. I should be too young, still.
I made the mistake of telling him something…the way my mind works is different than most peoples’. I’m a strong person, but it’s easy to really hurt me with how my mind behaves. And so, things went downhill after that.
He finally broke up with me so he could hurt me. This was our second breakup. The relationship had left me so beaten and torn up on the inside that when he told me he wanted to get back together, I refused, explaining that the relationship wasn’t working out. Then I made another mistake; I decided to stay friends with him, because even before he was abusing me, it was like the Evanescence song: “I need to be with you to live, to breathe, you’re taking over me.”
The abuse was worse when we weren’t dating…he told me about how he wanted his chick friend to forgive him “for….reasons”. It didn’t take much to realize he liked her-or was pretending to-and when I said “You like her, don’t you?” his response was “Only a little. It’s not really worth talking about. I like her about as much as I like you.” A pretty minor comment compared to some, but that’s one of the worst things for me to hear because of how my mind works. That was one of two comments that left me in a wreck for an entire week. The girl who never cried for herself was crying 2-3 times a day. I still remember what I ate the entire three days; a yogurt a day, just so I could take my medication. On the third day, I forced myself to start eating again, starting with a small piece of pizza.
When I next talked to him, I told him the friendship wasn’t working out and I needed some space. Naturally, he was all “Oh, I hurt you. I always push people away. This is why nobody likes me.” This is the upside to how my mind works; I’m not easy to break. Even when I felt so helpless and alone that it felt like there was no way to end this hell, I still knew I could make decissions. After all, it had been my decision to stay friends. No matter how stripped down I felt, I knew I had some control over the situation, even if it was only a little bit. After seven months of abuse, I was finally out.
I have to say that I was /lucky/ that someone close to me attempted suicide the summer before this went down. Because of it, I have very strong feelings against suicide and never considered it as an option to end the pain, even at my worst point in time.
That was eleven months ago. I am now sixteen years old. I dated one person and even while together, we still acted more like friends than a couple. I’ll admit I definitely have emotional issues. My self-esteem was never very high, but I wouldn’t say I had low self-esteem going into the relationship. Almost a year later, I don’t like myself much at all and my self-esteem has only improved a little since the relationship ended. I hide my low self-esteem by using my one talent I know I have; playing piano. People compliment me for it and it makes me feel like I’m a fully-functioning person.
I also have major trust issues. An open person by nature, I constantly stop myself from telling other people my feelings. My friends know what my ex put me through to an extent, but none of them know what it’s done to me and none of them know he was abusive. I recently realized; the guy never even liked me. That whole entire time, he was playing with my feelings because he knew I didn’t think I could make it without him there. I was nothing more to him. This has deepened my trust issues quite severely.
I am not writing this out to complain…I’m not writting this for attention. I’m writting this because it is helping me come to terms with those seven months and the impact they had on me. I’ll admit, there have been other things-smaller things-that have helped push me to this, but it is 90% the abuse I suffered. I also wanted to give warning to other people who are in a potentially abusive situation:
IT’S NOT WORTH IT. GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE WHILE YOU CAN. IT ONLY GETS HARDER.
(PS: Sorry this was such a long comment ^^;;)
Quick note of my last post: I didn’t not realize this was abuse until less than a month ago, when I started giving it a lot of thought again. I realized only two days ago that the asshole never liked me.
It’s lonely, because I want to date, but I don’t trust anyone enough to date and I don’t trust myself, either. I’ll let my guard down in the end. I realize it was a year ago and if I’m that beat up over it still, I should get some help…posting these comments has made me aware that I need to talk to someone.
Kathryne,
i dont know if resopniding to your comment is what you expected to get… but i know how hard it is to be a 16year old and heart broken…. because of the stress of my parents… im am a very “clingy” person… when i first fell in love, i fell hard… i rmemeber it started out as a fatty crush, then an obsestion… before i knew it, he liked me to…. we didnt date for long…. it was only 3 day infact… but the point is, it made me realize i did love him… i ended up giving “it” up to him, and well, at the time, he had a girl friend and all i was was sex… we did it twice before i realized, i didnt really want to do it in the first place…
he has had a violent past with me, so when he told me to take off my pants, out of my own fear that he will do it anyways i did…i loved him so much…
that was almost two years ago, and i still cant look at him at school, i cant stand that he stole my inicence… even though it was mainly my fault…. so… also remeber crying every day, at least twice on how much i wanted him back… it took to not talk to him at all to finly realize that he was a mistake… well let me know your input…
monica
Monica,
I’ve always been an outcast (semi-gothic and gamer-geek girl are the more common stereotypes of me) so I’ve never been put in a position
of sex before. Quite honestly, I can’t really relate enough to add much input…sorry. But what I can say is that I think it’s natural to not be able to look at him.
I can understand crying though. I have a hard time crying for myself, but almost every night during those seven months with my ex I wished I could cry myself to sleep. If him and me went to the same school, I wouldn’t be able to look at him, for the simple fact of our history.
I can see ways that it is both your fault and your ex’s for what happened. If he’d been violent in the past towards you, I’m not going to tell you that you should have stood up for yourself. Not because you shouldn’t have, but because who knows what might’ve happened if you refused? Usually, guys are stronger than girls-it’s a fact-so he probably would’ve overpowered you if he wanted to go that far. I would say it’s his fault in that sense. However, from what I gathered from your reply, violence doesn’t seem like it was a major threat the first time and you should’ve slowed down and thought “We’re only fourteen!”, especially if you knew he had been violent with you before.
I, too, am a clingy person. I always have been, but I just plainly avoid acting like it, especially to whoever I’m clinging too. It was good I acted non-clingy because I think that if my ex had known, a lot more damage could’ve happened.
I can’t really think of a good way to wrap this up….so, yeah. Those are the few thoughts I have on your blog. Feel free to respond.
~Kathryne
Kathryene,
well you are very right about alot of things….. i should have stood up for my self, but i guess at the time, i didnt completely know how to make a stand for how i feel… my whole life may parents told me how i should feel and what to do… so when it came down to someone i loved telling what to do…. i guess i didnt know how to say know… but ive really changed since then… even though it was only a year ago… but still at age 15 is still really young…. i gues i didnt know how to prove my love to him…. well… i keep my distance… but the thing is now, i find it hard to trust guys… i cant reallly tell who is real and who isnt… i havent done that with anyone else, and dont really plan to….in fact, i want to wait….dont get me wrong, i did have a few close callls… but i havent done it again…
about being a glothic… i was like that back in the day… i use to be a punkr/rocker… i loved my friends… i hated being strereo typed as “emo” but in a way, i was very emotional… i think im a rebel…. a least in my family… im the only “punker” in my whole family…. most of them are into rap.. but i dont really like it… its okay, but there is nothing like getting my anger out by blasting some Guns N Roses, or disterbed…. but yeah
i replied to your psot to let you know that your not alone… i have been hurt liike you, and every other person out there…
one of the reasons why i wriet on this blog is so that way i dont feel alone… life is hard when your parents put you threw abuse,… i like to think that no matter how hard it gets, i can make it threw… even in love….
Monica,
Apparently my last comment didn’t send through originally. I guess if you’re family situation was like that, you may not be able to handle a scenario like that…I know how hard it can be to trust guys. (Though my friend who’s studying to become a psychologist says I’m doing very well). I’ve had a couple close calls, as well (not sex related though). It’s hard to be open but at the same time, it’s hard not to be. And right now, it’s like I want to trust people but I don’t want to at the same time.
Yes, gothic. I’m not going to claim I’m not emotional. However, I do keep most of it to myself. Clothing wise, I can see it. Think Amy Lee (Evanescence) meets Misa Amane (the anime series, Death Note) meets emo. I like it!
My family hates rap, thank god. My sister was into Eminem, but she left six years ago (there’s nine years in between us). As for getting your anger out, I found shouting Linkin Park lyrics worked nicely for me =p
It’s nice to know you’re not alone, even though it’s bad that people have to be put through any form of abuse. You seem strong and I think that you’ll be fine. Only three more years to go and then you can go to college! Keep up the hard work! ^-^
~Kathryne
I have been married to the same man for over 20 + years. It does get progressively worse. I have not been emotionally strong enough to leave. I always go back. I think it my fault that I have had the courage to leave or move in. I think I am damaged goods. He recently went to jail and I started having panic attacks and extreme anxiety. I have nightmares. I believe its PTSD..what a bleeping life.
I’ve been in a relationship for 13 years now I don’t know if I’m suffing emotional abuse or not. I get told alot that I’m usless and that I don’t do things the right way eg . . . You should pull the towels ou tof the clean washing first fucking usless. If I don’t do things the way he likes them done he’ll get pissed off and say mean things just uot of ear shot. He’ll rush around the house and push me out of the way. With the kids he thinks im not very organized and should do things his way. I love him but feel usless and in the way im begining to feel sad alot to.
I bet! That certainly sounds like emotional abuse to me… like Carol said up there, it gets progressively worse. Swearing at you, calling names (“fucking useless,”) judging you personally, especially basing personal judgments on something as meaningless and small as chores – and pushing certainly moves it into physical abuse.
The worst part is that it’s so easy to minimize these things. We get with these people because we have low self-esteem and don’t believe that we deserve better – usually have never experienced better – we’re used to this kind of treatment! So it’s so easy to write it off first as “normal” and “but I love him” and then as “I deserve it.” And then it gets worse and worse.
Actually, the worst part is probably that your kids have to live with it – with seeing someone put their mother down over and over, and probably with being judged and criticized themselves all the time. It’s terrible to grow up with the sense that you have to earn your parent’s love and approval and that that may be impossible – as you probably know!
I strongly strongly recommend checking out Codependents Anonymous or a similar 12-step program… write back if you’d like more information or need help finding one!
Here’s the missing link though: this is not just a progressive disease for him! it also progressively wears you down more and more! While usually people in abusive relationships start out with low self-esteem, it gets so much lower after years and years of recurring or constant abuse. So you are blaming yourself for not being able to leave, but the thing is, being in the relationship is sapping your emotional energy – of course you don’t have the emotional energy it takes to leave!! It’s like quicksand.
You don’t have to worry about leaving… start with baby steps! Get into therapy or (better yet) a twelve-step program like Codependents Anonymous, Al-Anon, COSA, et cetera. They have online and phone meetings but face-to-face is even better if you can find one in your area. Write back if you need help finding one!!
Well I’m back posting after doing a google search! It’s been now over 2 years that I severed ties with my Father who not only was emotionally abusive but every other abuse that came along with that. Acceptance and forgiveness are the hardest aspects to grasp. It was weird because I had a dream the other night that we were on the phone (my Dad and I) and I said to him “Dad I forgive you but that doesn’t mean we can have a relationship together – I know you have gone through alot in your childhood” etc… and in the dream he just listened, wasn’t defensive or blaming. The hardest aspect of emotional abuse to grasp is the hidden aspects of it and how personal they are. It was a few weekends ago that I realized that my Brother was also being emotionally hurtful to me – just these outlashes and he is my younger brother. It’s hard especially when you understand the dynamic and how much acceptence you need in this situation. I know that I need support and I need people – no doubt about that, It’s been over 5 years that I have been in a committed relationship and I suppose I just want to make sure when I am in one it’s a healthy one. I realize that emotional abuse isn’t about you, its the way they feel and how important it is to heal our emotions so we are healthy people and don’t seek out and continue the cycles. I was just about to write my father a letter today just expressing myself but then I think… there is no point… this is the end and with abusive people they often are so destroyed in their souls where they will do anything in their power to tear you down… and, I feel compassioante towards that but more towards myself where I realize I just need to give all that validation to myself… and I won’t accomplish anything by expressing myself to someone who hurt me so badly. I just needed to get this out – thanks for listening.
PS. IT’S BEEN 5 YEARS THAT I AM NOT IN A COMMITTED RELATIONSHIP!! OPPS
I feel devastated by my ex, his angry outbursts, rage, manipulation silent treatments and disgust for me and women have left me feeling as violated as a woman can be. I keep going back over the things he did to me. Everyone always told me I was lovely and I believed I was. I’ve had breathing problems, back problems and look about 10 years older. I feel like I’ve been to prision and kicked around. Often I have to ly down I’m so overcome by what he put me through. I’m fine sometimes and then others it fills me like an illness. I’ve been suffering still 1 year afterwards and an scared of men now. My heart was once so open free and full of love, I loved every little thing I loved everybody. Please someone help me.
I too have been affected by emotional & verbal abuse and have written a book on the subject. “Why is He So Mean To Me?” on http://www.hurtbylove.com
Abuse comes in all forms and I want to help women who are going through this horrible ordeal.
Cindy
Its heartwarming to find other out here in the same boat, and people trying to help.. but theirs always a but please take a look at my story on my site, and follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/helpmestopher
Also i added you onto my links list..i hope you dont mind!
Excellent — one should never dismiss the devastation of emotional abuse. It does escalate and it will likely become physical. It did in my case.
Through teaching alot about family violence I recognized alot of ignorance about psychological abuse, “He doesn’t hit me, so it doesn’t seem like abuse”, and others don’t realize the profound damage words and other forms of psychological abuse can do. I have written a book of poetry to try to educate others about the impact psychological abuse has in domestic relationships. Check it out. Victim/survivors have also liked it. It is at beyond-the-mirror.org