One can have difficulty in recognizing abuse as it isn’t always black and white. For example, there is no argument in the case of rape, beating someone or locking them up in the house. That is straight forward wrong without argument. Shaking your fist or whistling at a girl can enter a grey area that can be rationalized either way. A lot of what is available online about emotional abuse focusses only on the extreme behaviors. I’ve tried to be more comprehensive in my descriptions below to try cover a fuller range of this abuse. This will help you see how to recognize emotional abuse more easily; or at least the early signs in your relationship if a ‘frog is being cooked’.
Step 1
To start, read the list of abusive behaviors below. You might have to read them a few times, with some time between each reading. One or more of the items might make you feel uncomfortable. Let it just sit in the back of your mind. Come back to it later and read it again. Slowly your subconscious will start to make sense of what the exact behavior is that is bothering you. If you could recognize it straight away this form of abuse wouldn’t be such a huge issue. Some problem behaviors will work its way to your conscious mind fairly quickly while others could take a long time; months or years. Emotionally abusive relationships generally consist of a few abusive techniques; it will take time to learn about all of them.
10 aspects of emotional abuse that you may notice in your relationship
- Isolation: you are coached (encouraged/whined at) about who you are allowed to talk to, conditions on your involvement with certain people, and what you can say. The severe form of this is that you are forbidden to go certain places, see certain people, have access to money or your visits or calls are restricted (In a parent child relationship they may institute certain boundaries here to protect their child, in that case it is most definitely not abuse. It would be abusive not to put those boundaries in place.)
- Deception: abusers are great at putting other people down and making themselves out to be heroes. You’ll hear endless stories about how bad other people have been to them, how great they are doing in their life and the only reason it isn’t showing is because someone is working against them. This ultimately leads to gaslighting (more on that below).
- Withholding: This could be withholding needed information, displays of affection or even refusing to participate in mutual problem solving. Stonewalling, the silent treatment, or refusing to talk to or spend time with the victim all fit in here. They may insist on maintaining a spirit of tension in the relationship, much longer than what is reasonably required for working through normal negative emotions. You’ll feel like you’re walking on eggshells and they are very touchy, easily taking offense. You should be able to feel comfortable in your home and in approaching anyone in the home without fear of their reaction or constantly apologizing beyond reason.
- Verbal abuse: This includes name calling, sarcasm, demeaning statements or humor at other’s expense. Trivialization is a kind of emotional abuse where the abuser makes light of the victim’s efforts. You could have worked really hard on something and they make fun of it, or make comments that it shouldn’t have taken you so long, or that they could have done it better.
- Criticism: The rationale here is that the abuser is just trying to help the victim to be better, but what it actually does is chip away at the victim’s sense of worth. The term ‘constructive criticism’ is overused far too much whereas praise and gratitude are rare.
- Manipulation: This is always present in emotional abuse and is often difficult to identify. I’ve dedicated a whole page to this technique
- Intimidation: Making threats, ultimatums, venting anger, passive aggressiveness, angry looks.
- Gaslighting: Gaslighting results in the victim being confused and questioning their understanding or their point of view. The abuser creates this confusion by subtly or relentlessly getting the victim to query their version of events. The talking goes in circles until the victim becomes confused and unsure and begins to rely on the abuser’s version of events which is always suited to only their needs. This usually takes a long time to recognize. I have heard many similar cases where others recognized it by realizing they were always confused. You feel that you are an intelligent person, but now suddenly you spend a lot of your time trying to figure out what should be simple things. This occurs especially when you have been around the abusive person for a lot of uninterrupted time. This is because your brain has a way of working through the confusion in your subconscious, but if there isn’t enough time between interactions your brain can’t keep up with sorting through the nonsense.
- Circling: You enter the conversation with the intent of discussing something that hurt you, and you leave the conversation having been the one to apologize. Each time you try to draw attention to the matter at hand, the abuser changes the subject, usually to either something you did wrong, related or unrelated, or to a sob story that makes you feel sorry for them. The argument seems to get bigger and bigger with more and more issues dragged in until you don’t know what you’re talking about anymore. You tend to leave the discussion thinking, ‘what just happened??’
- Neglect: You may feel hurt or just need to discuss something of varying importance to which the abuser responds with defensiveness, taking offence, blaming you for always making things a big deal, or that this is ‘just one more thing that they can’t get right’. Your concerns are sidestepped with excuses, lies and circling and instead of feeling validated and helped, you are left feeling guilty and are required to validate and support the abuser in their distress.
Step 2
Pay attention to what your friends and family tell you. It’s good that people don’t get involved in your relationships, but they may pick up on abuse before you do. It is important that they share their concerns. Hopefully the behavior is more light grey than black and you’ll be able to bring it up constructively with the individual and forgive and forget.
If you recognize emotional abuse…
Do not run to your ‘abuser’ with every little thing screaming emotional abuse! Firstly, if they are an abuser, it is not going to make any difference AND you have just given them ammo to use against you! Secondly, if they are not an abuser you are going to hurt them, and calling out abuse continuously is abuse in itself. If you recognize any of these signs, first try and deal with them constructively, and seek professional advice, before making any further moves or decisions.
The more you know about emotional abuse the more likely you are going to be able to:
- Recognize it
- Do something about it
And most importantly:
- Stop doing it yourself
Extra resources
Looking to read more about how to recognize emotional abuse? This Christian based article, the invisible heartbreaker, is a fantastic summary of emotional abuse and how to deal with it. I strongly encourage you to implement the suggestions in determining the extent of the problem and what to do. Also, this article is an academic comprehensive source in defining abuse. It describes all forms of abuse. Read the first section on emotional abuse, and any other ones that you think you might be experiencing.
Next post: How do I recognize manipulation?
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