“Broken bones will heal but the hurtful words, memories and awful visceral sensations can last a lifetime.”
It sets in slowly… like fog creeping up in the grass, just out of our field of vision and stealthily slithers, winding its way into the entire space that surrounds you, until it permeates all that you are and occupy… Psychological abuse is incredibly damaging and it changes who you are. It changes your brain, your perceptions, your Central Nervous System, and right down to our genes that are passed on to our children (epigenetics.) IT. IS. EVERYWHERE…
The most destructive and pervasive form of domestic abuse is not physical, like many people would think, but psychological, which includes verbal and emotional abuse. Physical abuse can heal over time in most cases but it is the intimate assault of your feelings, thoughts, belief systems, values, morals and perceptions that really de-stabilize and tear at a person’s mental health and overall well-being. It is very damaging to a person’s psyche which has been shown to cause long term health issues as well. Psychological abuse is designed to destabilize you, keep you off balance and control and maintain power over you. Over time it is detrimental to the victim’s personal growth and autonomy. The effects of verbal and emotional abuse are like splinters or shards of glass we get stuck in our fingers, if not treated, they will continue to fester, become inflamed and infected and cause further problems. Think of it this way~ Abuse and traumatic events are seen as “foreign bodies” to our system, just like a bacteria or virus, and responds accordingly.
Tactics of verbal and emotional abuse can include, lying, bullying, coercion, intimidating, humiliating, demeaning, criticizing, ignoring, neglecting, a pattern of scaring or starting the victim, angry and violent outbursts, aggressive and intimidating postures, verbal threats, gaslighting (a form of psychological manipulation), and attempts to undermine the victim’s sanity, status, footing and power and equality in the relationship. It tears at the very fabric of who we are.
Our brain and bodies react the same way during verbal and emotional assaults as it does during a physical assault, which means that victims go into “fight/ flight or freeze” mode and starts releasing hormones such as adrenaline and norepinephrine to prepare the body for “fighting, fleeing or freezing” the assault but in the cases of chronic abuse, the response to threat continues in the body even when the actual threat has past. According to Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk, in his best selling book, “The Body Keeps The Score; Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma”, states that, “Being traumatized (by physical, emotional, verbal or any other type of abuse), means continuing to organize your life as if the trauma were still going on- unchanged and immutable-as every new encounter or event is contaminated by the past. After trauma the world is experienced with a different nervous system. The survivor’s energy now becomes focused on suppressing inner chaos, at the expense of spontaneous involvement in their life. These attempts to maintain control over unbearable physiological reactions can result in a whole range of physical symptoms, including FIBROMYALGIA, CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME, and auto-immune diseases.”
Here are some examples of psychological abuse from my relationship with my ex-husband;
- When I would go grocery shopping, I would go to Walmart most of the time. It was the closest, the cheapest, and I was trying to be price conscious. Being the closest store was a huge deal because I spent most of my time bedridden with severe body pain from Systemic Lupus and Fibromyalgia. After I would return from shopping or just going to pick the groceries up, I would often get yelled at and reprimanded like I was a child because “I spent too much money” or for not telling him I was going shopping for groceries . I would also get criticized about what I bought. This happened all the time. I always bought healthy and nutritious food. I would spend between about $100 and maybe $150 for almost 2 weeks worth of food for a family of 4, the last several years of our marriage. We lived in a nice home and had pretty good income. Now here’s the kicker…He would go shopping and by almost all JUNK FOOD...I’m talking Ding Dongs, Twinkies, Ho-Ho’s, donuts, cakes, pies, chocolate covered wafers, candy, chocolate bars and a lot of those little round blobs of pink marshmallows covered in pink shredded coconut, and just about the entire Hostess end cap, with very little healthy food sprinkled in between. I never heard him yell at or reprimand himself for his choices! Apparently the same standards did not apply to him. We both contributed to our monthly income. The moral of this story is that it didn’t matter what I did or did not do, he was going to find fault with it and nail me for this perceived transgression. I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t. TO THIS VERY DAY…When I have to spend money, at the grocery store or otherwise, my heart races and I feel that awful surge of adrenaline, and that old familiar feeling of dread and apprehension. It’s like my brain and body forget that I won’t have to go home to that drama anymore.
- If I didn’t feel well (because of my illnesses) and didn’t want to have sex when my ex-husband did, which was just about every single night and during the day literally, many times he would try to bully me into it by threatening to cheat on me and a few times he threatened that he was going to call a former mistress of his, and a few times, he actually did. I can remember one time when he was standing over me as I laid in my bed in pretty severe pain. He was literally texting and trying to call her as I was looking up at him. If this isn’t emotional and psychological abuse, I. DON’T. KNOW. WHAT. IS…
I hope this helps in the understanding of how emotional/psychological abuse affects its victims and why it is so destructive. If you or someone you know needs help, please look at my “Resources List” for what to do and resources that can help you!
Also, please check out my other articles on emotional abuse and ways to identify it.
Thank you and best of luck to you!!!
IT IS NEVER YOUR FAULT THAT YOU ARE BEING ABUSED
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER…ARM YOURSELF