Sep 13 2008
Emotional Abuse
I’ve heard from many people that emotional abuse can sometimes be worse than physical abuse. I’ve never been physically abused, so I wouldn’t know in comparing the two, but I have been in emotionally abusing relationships before. The thing that sucks about them is that you don’t realize you are in one until your self-esteem and self-worth is pretty much gone.
Try Googling ‘emotional abuse’ and see what comes up. You’ll find characteristics of being abused and you can apply them to your own relationship to see if it fits.
I found a few characteristics from this site that I thought were interesting:
No matter how much you give, it’s never enough.
Invalidation is to reject, ignore, mock, tease, judge, or diminish someone’s feelings. It is an attempt to control how they feel and for how long they feel it.
You are subjected to constant criticism, and you are constantly berated because you don’t fulfill all this person’s needs.
Aggressive abuse can also take a more indirect form and may even be disguised and “helping.” Criticizing, advising, offering solutions, analyzing, proving, and questioning another person may be a sincere attempt to help. In some instances however, these behaviors may be an attempt to belittle, control, or demean rather than help.
The other person may deny that certain events occurred or that certain things were said. confronts the abuser about an incident of name calling, the abuser may insist, “I never said that,” “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” etc. You know differently.
Withholding is another form of denying. Withholding includes refusing to listen, refusing to communicate, and emotionally withdrawing as punishment. This is sometimes called the “silent treatment.”
When the abuser disallows and overrules any viewpoints, perceptions or feelings which differ from their own.
The abuser seeks to distort or undermine the recipient’s perceptions of their world. Invalidating occurs when the abuser refuses or fails to acknowledge reality. For example, if the recipient tells the person they felt hurt by something the abuser did or said, the abuser might say “You are too sensitive. That shouldn’t hurt you.”
Excessive blaming, and using sarcasm and humiliation.
Blowing your flaws out of proportion and making fun of you in front of others. Over time, this type of abuse erodes your sense of self confidence and self-worth.
If someone makes you feel bad about yourself, then decide if that’s the kind of relationship you want to be in. If you decide to stay, I guarantee that this person will keep going with the abuse until you find yourself feeling lower than low. The best advice I can give is to get out as soon as possible. You may regret it later and be sad about leaving your relationship, but just remember that you will be better off this way. Plus, there are many other guys out there more than willing to treat you like a princess and who will never even think about saying something to make you feel bad.
I can tell you that mental and vebal abuse is worst than the physical abuse. Mental and verbal abuse tries to lower your self-estreme.
I was in a relationship that was mostly verbal abuse, but occasionally physical as well. There are ways to be alerted to abusive personalities. I have the information on my site under signs of abusive personalities. You can copy it and post on this site if you want, I don’t mind. People (men, women and children) need to be informed for their own well being. I wish I had known before my experience with an abusive relationship.
For a long time I didn’t want to believe that the guy I was seeing was emotionally abusive (among other things). I could justify his words or actions so that I didn’t feel so bad about them, but making excuses for his behavior didn’t change anything. It just continued and I had to come up with more creative reasons for his actions. I did it because in my mind a horrible man is better than no man at all.