Emotional Abuse
1092 Words
Now this one is kinda of tricky. Emotional Abuse is harder to detect than the others because there's no physical damage to the person unless inflicted by themselves. Emotional or Mental Abuse deals with the brain. The abuser hones in on anything that the recipient feels insecure about and slowly chips away at their self esteem. Much like Sam and Betty. Sam emotionally abused Betty in the beginning to "Break" her. Emotional abuse is a slow and subtle process. As the case with other forms of abuse people ask, "Why didn't they leave?" Because the abuser makes the recipient feel like they are not worth anyone else's love or devotion. They belittle their victim by insulting what ever they are insecure about. Say Betty was insecure about her weight. Sam would call her fat or make comments about her weight. Then turn around and say she was the most beautiful girl in the world. When it's good it's good. But when it's bad.... well, let's just say couples in which one is emotionally abused, they fight constantly. Emotional abuse is a dangerous blurred line because the relationship has the potential to turn violent. Abusers have the tendency to escalate in order to keep control over their victim. In an emotionally abusive relationship nothing is ever good enough. You constantly seek validation though you never or rarely receive it. They abuser builds up their partner only to tear them down. Most often the victim of abuse was abused early on in their life as a young child. Sometimes they may seek it because they were conditioned to function under stressful abusive situations. The only way to break this cycle is to surround yourself with positive people and cut ties with any toxic family or friends. It will hurt and it will suck, but it does get better. This whole time I've been writing it wasn't just someone blabbering on about something they don't know. I've lived all of this. The next thing I'm going to do is tell you my story. Tell you my life and how I've coped then healed from my suffering. You know bits and pieces but this is how all of that started. Just like you, I'm a survivor of abuse. When I was born, I had a normal upbringing. I had three siblings, two older and one younger. My mother and father were married though they separated when I was about four or five. It wasn't ugly per say but the custody situation was. My mother kept us in the dark as much as possible to protect us from their feud. She did everything she could to provide for us. She worked three to four jobs at any given time to make sure we wanted for nothing. I started having health problems early so you can imagine my mothers stress. As time went on she met a woman who we will call Netty. Netty was nice at first but soon changed. She beat us, starved us, did anything she could to hurt us. At this time my mother was the only one working. Work kept her away for most of the day so Netty was free to abuse us as she wished. In order to prevent us from telling our mother she trained us to fear our mothers presence. Our mother equaled pain. Or at least that's how I felt. The one time I broke the rule I was beaten. I avoided my mom because if I went to her I was going to get it even worse. We were given odd diets as punishment. As a result my sister still to this day doesn't eat beans. If we snuck food or gave it too who ever was being punished we were beaten. We spent our youth in pain and afraid of our mothers partner. They fought constantly and we prayed every fight would be the fight our mother left. Finally she did. For years I resented her for the pain we suffered only to realize it was the years of conditioning to associate her with pain. I treated my mother poorly during this time. I said and did whatever I knew would cause her pain. The one that hurt her the most was when I threatened to take my own life. I truly didn't want to be alive anymore. The antidepressants only heightened those feelings. Even after getting with her current partner we were all on high alert. Now I want to stop here and point out that Netty was also Emotionally abusing my mother to a certain degree. And Netty made sure we could never let our mother know about the abuse we suffered. It took a long time for us to feel safe with my mothers new partner. We loved her partner but we were broken. As I grew my hatred only grew stronger. I was suffocating under my own feelings. Boyfriends and girlfriends were only temporary consolations. I hurt anyone and everyone who entered my life all because I associated love to pain. When I met my Boyfriend, I hurt him the worst. The more love and affection he showed me the more I pushed him away. Soon the look in his eyes changed. The twinkle in his eyes was was fading. I told he was free to leave, and he did. I had no one to blame but my self. We reconnected several times only to drift apart but we remained good friends. Between those times I was abused several more times. I was emotionally abused by my ex. I walked away. I was the hardest this I had ever done. The next abuse was s****l. My partner at the time r***d me when I asked him to stop having s*x because he was hurting me. Then his best friend constantly molested me. After that my life returned to normal. My current boyfriend (Now fiancé) and I had gotten back together and have been together ever since. Since then he's helped me heal. I healed with the love and support of my family but also because I talked about my abuse. The more I talk about it the less it hurts. The more I talk about it the less power my abusers have over me. I've taken the power in my life back. If you have anything you would like to add to this book then comment on this book and I will reply back as soon at possible. I would love you input and it would be helpful with developing other chapters.
- Writer
