Emotional Abuse (why people stay)

[Lola]

What is Emotional Abuse?

Abuse is any behavior that is designed to control and subjugate another human being through the use of fear, humiliation, intimidation, guilt, coercion, manipulation etc. Emotional abuse is any kind of abuse that is emotional rather than physical in nature. It can include anything from verbal abuse and constant criticism to more subtle tactics, such as repeated disapproval or even the refusal to ever be pleased.


Emotional abuse is like brain washing in that it systematically wears away at the victim's self-confidence, sense of self-worth, trust in their own perceptions, and self-concept. Whether it is done by constant berating and belittling, by intimidation, or under the guise of "guidance," "teaching", or "advice," the results are similar. Eventually, the recipient of the abuse loses all sense of self and remnants of personal value.

Emotional abuse cuts to the very core of a person, creating scars that may be far deeper and more lasting that physical ones. In fact there is research to this effect. With emotional abuse, the insults, insinuations, criticism and accusations slowly eat away at the victim's self-esteem until she is incapable of judging the situation realistically. She has become so beaten down emotionally that she blames herself for the abuse. Her self-esteem is so low that she clings to the abuser.

Emotional abuse victims can become so convinced that they are worthless that they believe that no one else could want them. They stay in abusive situations because they believe they have nowhere else to go. Their ultimate fear is being all alone.


Emotional R ape

Emotional r ape can be defined as: Emotional abuse characterized by patterned and purposeful behavior which purpose is to undermine and control the victim.

It is an attack on the victim's personality rather than their body.

The term "emotional r ape" implies a horrific crime, and that is exactly what the victim is going through. Experts agree that emotional r ape is far more complex than verbal abuse.

Emotional r ape is, quite simply, a systematic destruction of someone's personality.


Awareness is the first line of defense for many hazards. For this reason, it is important that people become more educated about issues of psychological and emotional abuse.

There are several forms of psychological abuse; Brainwashing, emotional blackmailing, emotional exploitation, emotional r ape, and verbal insults and abuse.


Emotional r ape aims to undermine the victim's self-respect and self-image leaving that person vulnerable to abuse. The victim starts developing a sense of dependence on the abuser, and thus feels incapable of escaping the emotional abuse circle.


Emotional r ape is the exploitation of a person's higher emotions through manipulation and/or deception.


recommend the book by Michael Fox Ph.D. "The Emotional R ape Syndrome: How to Survive and Avoid It"

[Mariana]

Excellent post! Very interesting info on emotional rape. It's perhaps the first time I hear about it. Thanks so much for the information and the recommended book.

[Lola]

Mariana

I thought it would be good to flag this topic up again to the top here.

Lola

[Mariana]

On one of Dr. Carver's articles, I remember reading that one of the reasons why people stay in an abusive relationship is because of the fact that they have "invested" a lot in that relationship. He speaks about emotional investment, financial investment, social investment, etc. This got me thinking and reminded me of when I was unable to quit college because of the social investment and the amount of time I had invested already in that program.

I studied dentistry for 3 years. Everyone in my family is a dentist. My father, my grandfather, my cousins, my uncle, etc. And they are all renowned professionals, so that place and extra burden on me. I felt I "had to" stay and graduate as a dentist too, lest I disappointed the whole family, that was the social investment... what would people say if I dropped out?

And the other was the time I had already invested studying dentistry for 3 years.

Truth be told, the dental school was a torture for me, I hated it with all my heart, I forced myself to keep going and doing the "right thing", etc. The only course I loved was neurphisiology, which was the only course everybody else hated at school. One day, I had this kind of nervous breakdown before and started crying at home, and I told myself... what the heck am I doing? Who am I studying something I hate for? It sure wasn't for me. So I dropped out, everyone in my family hated me for doing that, I got the usual sermons on how silly I was and what a major embarrassment for the family and all that jazz, etc...

But it turned that I did the right thing. I quit the dental school, I also quit my unhappy marriage..., later on, I took my kids and moved to a different town, and started living my life, not the life everyone else expected me to live.

When we have too much pressure (family, society, etc.) it can be hard to quit a relationship, a job, a school program, etc. Sometimes our family, friends, or boss have prety high expectations about us and we don't want to fail them... But none of them keep in mind what our true best interests are. If we don't have our best self-interests at heart, others won't do it.

[Lola]

You are so right, Mariana. It is a dreadful thing to put pressure like that on a young person, just for the sake of appearances. A lot of that went on over here too, more so in past generations. A lot of belittling, covert bullying, (because that is what it is), not loving the child/young person for him/herself, but only because s/he would make the family "look good". Very sad.

All the best
Lola




Sometimes our family, friends, or boss have prety high expectations about us and we don't want to fail them... But none of them keep in mind what our true best interests are. If we don't have our best self-interests at heart, others won't do it.

[Mariana]

Yes, it's like.. it's all about meeting the family's selfish social needs rather than meeting their children's emotional needs, in the first place. At least in my family, they thought they were having their children's best interest at heart by teaching them to become the kind of person that would fit the establishment (I sounded a bit like The Beatles here.) My grandparents were the same, just like you said about past generations. I too agree it's covert bullying.

[Lola]

http://www.doveproject.org/index.htm
This real life project is based in Texas.
Excerpt:

""Long after the bruises have healed, the wounds from the emotional abuse fester and cause pain and anguish.

Emotional abuse robs you of your soul. You lose who you were a little piece at a time. These are stages that most abuse victims go through while healing from an abusive relationship or in the case of children, having lived in a home where abuse occurred.

While going through these stages, remember to treat yourself gently and well. You've been through an ordeal and your life has meaning and value. You have things yet to accomplish.

The Grief Stage
The first stage that we go through oddly enough is grief. Grieving for the relationship that could have been and never was. It's the grieving of the loss of the dream. Growing old together.

It's a tough stage to get through. You're most prone at this stage to go back to the abuser. The typical abuser is most likely at this stage to try to 'hoover' you back. They will say things like, "I'll do anything you want" and then they will list things that you've always wanted and it's always very touching because then you know- that they even remembered these things at all because when you were with the abuser, they never remembered anything important to you.""

[Mariana]

Soemthing important to bear in mind about the grief satge is that the pain we feel can prevent us from making "cold but convenient" decisions. You once mentioned that even bright men and women may get trapped in an abusive relationship. This is basically because our IQ (intelligence) is one thing and our emotions and feelings are a different thing.

I know of (at least in my family there are many) very intelligent, bright minded and renonwed professionals and still they are either victims or abusers and tend to get involved in abusive and dysfunctional relationships, despite of having a high IQ. The might have Einstein's IQ but emotionally they are "blocked".

This does not mean they are emotionally impaired or silly. It means that genuine feelings and emotions are -sometimes- beyond our control and can be really intense.

When we feel hurt or frustrated, decieved, betrayed, mistreated, etc. it's hard for us to make the most convenient decision, regardless of how smart we are. Emotions affect our ability to make emotionally-free decisions... if that is ever possible to do.

So, emotions on one hand and real life possibilities (income, housing, support network, etc.) on the other hand, plus all we have invested in a relationship can me it hard for a person to "just leave" an abuser.

And, last, but not least, the abuser will not want us to leave, he needs a victim in his life, so he or she will do whatever it takes to keep the victim by his or her side, unless they no longer want to participate in that relationship or have found a new victim and will discard us like an old toy.

Grieving is very hard. No one wants to feel so deeply hurt inside. Some people actually get stuck in this stage and are unable to move on and take action for their own benefit.

[pjay]

mariana said...."they may have einsteins IQ, but emotionally they are blocked."

you know, one day i heard a comedian telling jokes about marriage. & he said something like.....OK...here's the smartest guy in the universe, albert einstein, right ?.....& even he couldn't keep his marriage together........so Duhhhh!!!!!
what makes me think i can ?????????????? LOL

good points in what you are saying !

[Lola]

I think even non-abusive marriages can break up for a variety of other reasons. It is no reflection on the spouses. There are spouses who break up by mutual agreement, because the marriage no longer holds anything for either of them, or because maybe they are not truly suited. I feel this is a mature approach, rather than desperately trying to keep something together just because....

Abusive marriages/partnerships, or those were one partner is disordered, well that is an entirely different matter.

Neither IQ nor EQ are of much use because the degree of confusion and anguish is such that the abused person does not even know who s/he is. The abuser has made sure of that.

Lola

[pjay]

to what degree then (if any), does a successful marriage reflect on how well adapted to conflict resolution both parties may be ?

[Mariana]

Hi Psus,

I think a good relationship (marriage, business, friendship) involves people who are flexible enough to deal with their every day circumstances in a positive and adult way. Sometimes we can handle matters better than others. Awareness also plays a key role in relationships, especially self-awareness. When we understand our emotions and other people's emotions and we understand where we all come from and where we are standing at, then we sort of quit complaining endenlessly and we sit to discuss and solve our differences.

Getting along, "to me", means overcoming getting stuck in a ranting point. There was a time (for quite a few years) where I would just sit and complain on how unfair it was to have been a victim of abuse. I fell into a deep depressive state and it too me ages to get out of it. (Unfortunately, nobody helped) - Now, when I got rid of my depression something different happened... All of a sudden I realized that it was way boring and a big loss of time to keep crying over spilled milk. I realized I was not helping myself by complaining how awful and unfair it was to be a victim of emotional abuse. I was not helping myself to rebuild my smashed self exteem.

And yes, it is totally unfair to be the victim of an abuser, but the damage was done, and no one was going to come and rescue me and help me heal, so I shook it off, and moved on. And my relationships wih the rest of the world changed a lot, especially at home. My children were the ones who benefitted the most. Now, it was a whole bunch of years in the dark. It was many many years that I spent ranting about the past. I wish I had been able to overcome that faster, but I had my time.

When we are hurt, we tend to set relationships in a not very positive way, because we bring to the table wo we are, we are genuinely hurt and we put a lot of that in our relationships too.

Again, yes it is unfair and it does hurt a lot to be a victim of abuse, but just like abusers will not help us heal, many others around us will not do so either. So, in order to develop positive relationships, we need to start helping ourselves heal inside.

When we get better inside, we tend to involve with people who are better too. The more we learn about abuse and abusers, the less chances we have to get involved with another abuser.

[Lola]

Hello Psus:

Well, I suppose a successful marriage is one where, to start out with, one of the spouses does not have a personality disorder, or an abusive personality.
In such a case it is not even a case of conflict. It is simply a no-win situation from day one.

As for normal marriages, where the spouses are sane people, such marriages will of course have their ups and downs. They would be odd if they didn't.
I have some best friends who have been married for must be 43 or 44 years. The husband is fond of saying: "The spade work starts after the honeymoon." Or he will wryly say: "Sometimes in our house we have vision, but no sound." LOL.

But the secret is (and is the secret of any successful marriage IMO), that they do not live in each other's pockets. Interdependent, but independent. Each of them has his/her own work, friends, interests, and of course, the couple also have joint interests, and hobbies which they enjoy together. They go on holiday together, and sometimes she may go away for a short break with her friends, or he may.

I am quite sure they had rows, as all couples do, in the course of their long marriage, they may even have got round to chucking a couple of ornaments at each other,...I don't know. But that is not serious.

Serious is when one spouse (partner) absolutely "needs" the other to make him or her happy.
Serious is when one spouse needs to control (where are you going? where have you been? who was that you were talking to?). In any case this is abuse and you can be certain it will lead to conflict. Keep abusing someone and eventually they will turn on you.

Where the spouses are psychologically stable, the disagreements which will arise in their life can be sorted out. Everyone can have a bad day or days, get ratty, maybe feel under the weather, get mad over something.
Unfortunately, many people marry or seek a partner out of "neediness", and the career abuser is right there and sees her (him) coming down the road! A recipe for disaster.

I know several other couples like the one I described. Another couple: she was nineteen when they married, and he probably not a lot older. Now they are well into their 60s, and going strong. You just get the sense with these couples of some kind of invisible thread between them. But, like the other couple, and other such couples that I know, all of them did a lot of their own thing, as well as doing things with their spouses.

Lola