‘I love water, but I cannot swim. What a tragic way of saying, “I love you, but I cannot survive you.” -Anonymous.
It took me a while to recognize emotional abuse. I mean, I’ve watched movies and books and I’ve yelled at the women to leave…to get out and then get out some more. But when it was happening to me, I couldn’t recognize it. I couldn’t pick it out in a line-up. The difference between physical and emotional abuse is that your body is conditioned to know pain. If somebody or something hurts you, you feel it…on your skin. You can feel a punch on your jaw, you can feel a hot stove. The physical presentations of abuse are easy to recognize even if they’re from someone you love. Emotional abuse, however, is trickier. When someone hits you, you blame them for the pain. The cause and effect is so easy to point out. You never say, ‘I should have moved out of the way’. But emotional abuse, especially if the abuser is someone you love, when it’s emotional abuse, you blame yourself. You feel guilty, you apologize. You promise you won’t do it again. You think about what you could have done differently. But in your gut, in the very depths of who you are, you know that it isn’t your fault. I’ll spare you the details of what happened, mostly because it’s not something I’m proud of. But I want us to unpack emotional abuse. I want it to stop here. With me and you. I want it to end with us.
Emotional abuse is a pattern of behavior that involves the use of words, actions, or omissions to control or manipulate another person, causing psychological harm. It often manifests in criticism, intimidation, isolation, gaslighting, and other tactics that erode a person’s self-worth and sense of identity. Let that sit for a second. Emotional abuse isn’t loud. It doesn’t break your plates. It doesn’t leave purple bruises. It is a quiet conversation in the car after a dinner party asking you whether you actually saw them together. It is a Sunday afternoon in the kitchen telling you that you should have chosen that career like your cousin did. Emotional abuse is that bedtime phone call, threatening to leave if you don’t drop it. I guess that’s why you don’t recognize it. I would go as far as to say, even the people who abuse you emotionally might not know that they are doing it. Most of them are master manipulators though. And no one ever believes emotional abuse. ‘I was just angry’, ‘I was just upset’, ‘She didn’t mean it like that’, ‘You’re just blowing it out of proportion’ These are some of the responses you get when you bring it up.
Here are some forms of emotional abuse that you should be able to recognize:
- Verbal abuse: This involves the use of harsh words, insults, name-calling, and constant criticism. This one is easy to point out. You have probably been harsh to someone at least once in your life. But there is a difference between heightened emotional response and abuse. Abuse is intentional. It’s personal. It’s someone taking everything they know about you, arming it, and throwing it back at you. It’s constant criticism about every decision you make. It’s insulting and dismissive.
- Gaslighting: This is a manipulative tactic where the abuser makes you question your own sanity or perception of reality. And if you’ve never experienced gaslighting, you might be wondering how someone could make you question your own sanity. It is completely possible. Gaslighting shifts blame, making you blame yourself for something you had nothing to do with. It makes you want to apologize. Gaslighting makes you change your own memories to fit their version of events.
- Isolation: This involves cutting you off from friends, family, or other support systems. This is really common actually. You need a support system. Isolation from that support system, from your friends and family is an attempt to control your reality. It limits your exposure and makes you dependent on the abuser’s version of events.
- Financial abuse: Controlling access to money or preventing financial independence. This one is pretty common too. Especially between parents and children or romantic relationships. This is where someone controls your access to money, especially your own. It could also show up as someone monitoring your spending habits or restricting your spending.
- Emotional neglect: Withholding affection, support, or validation. In co-dependent relationships, withholding affection and validation as a form of punishment for not acting a certain way is a form of emotional abuse.
If you have ever been a victim of emotional abuse, leave. Find a way to leave. It is not always easy and trust me when I say this. It is not always as black and white as I might make it sound. You might depend on the very people you’re supposed to leave. But if it is a pattern of behavior, if someone is holding you hostage emotionally, then maybe you should get out. I mention this in my article letting go, https://www.ontwentysomething.com/letting-go/ .If you’ve read ‘It Ends with Us’ by Colleen Hoover https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Colleen-Hoover/408567071 or watched the series on Netflix called ‘Maid’, then you know what I mean by get out. I wanted to bring awareness to this issue that is often overlooked by everyone. You can’t report emotional abuse the way you do physical. Educate your friends and your siblings and everyone you care about in your life about this.
And I want you to remember that it is not your fault. You are not to blame. Maybe you can’t leave the person or people who are responsible. Maybe you don’t have a choice but to stay with your abuser. But I want you to recognize emotional abuse when it happens and I want you to know that it is not your fault. If you can do that, then you’re off to a great start.