Emotional Abuse
The Abuse No One Talks About
What exactly is emotional abuse?
People are familiar with physical abuse where the victim is physically harmed by the abuser and sexual abuse where the victim is sexually harmed by the abuser, but few are familiar with emotional and/or verbal abuse and some that have heard of the term do not think this is a serious form of abuse. Abuse, in any form, is designed to control and victimize a person. Abuse can be through the use of fear, humiliation, intimidation, guilt, coercion, manipulation and other actions whether physical or verbal.
Emotional abuse can include: verbal attacks, profanity directed towards the victim, critical remarks with a mean spirit, being non-supportive of something which is meaningful to the victim, berating, belittling, criticizing, name calling, screaming, insults, insinuations, accusations, intimidating looks, threats, etc.
On the surface, this may seem like mean behavior, but no big deal, after all, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." Unfortunately, it really is not as simple as someone being mean to another person. And it is also not someone just having a rare bad day who might take it out on someone, but will often apologize afterwards. The difference between that and when it becomes abusive is when someone becomes emotionally fragile due to the abuse.
Emotional abuse methodically erodes a person's self-confidence, self-worth, and trust in their own judgement. It can be much worse than physical abuse in that it although it does not leave scars or bruises one can see, the psychological harm lasts longer. Often, emotional abuse is a pre-cursor to physical abuse. Both women and men can be victims of this type of abuse.
Emotional abuse victims often believe they are worthless due to the psychological toll this form of abuse takes. They feel unworthy of love and will often stay in abusive situations because they have nowhere else to go, no one takes it seriously, and their legal options are limited.