Emotional Abuse: Are You a Victim?

The term “emotional abuse” can describe many different kinds of behavior. In the therapeutic setting, the story of abuse varies greatly for each individual. Generally, the abuse follows a pattern of parental neglect or consistent criticism, but mistreatment affects everyone differently.

Sometimes, a child faces destructive criticism from a parent and is able to compartmentalize it and realize the fault lies with the parent. Another child might respond with self-loathing and depression, or with outbursts of anger. The way we respond depends on our individual temperament and trauma we’ve experienced in the past.

Individual Temperaments and Emotional Abuse

Newborns have no sense of personal identity. They view themselves as a unit with their mother. Gradually, infants learn that their needs will be met, but not automatically as they were in the womb. The mother-infant relationship develops as the infant learns he is a separate being from his mother, but also that when she leaves his presence, she will always come back.

All of us as humans innately need to be seen, known, and loved. As infants, we wanted our mother’s full attention. As we grew older, we also wanted to be able to escape her attention if it was too overbearing. An engaged mother who also provides space for a child to pull away is helping her child develop a healthy, independent sense of self.

Every other relationship we develop in life will be influenced by our relationship with our first caregiver. An abusive relationship can take even a healthy emotional structure and cause great pain and damage. When someone yells, demeans, or threatens us on a regular basis, we can’t help but be affected by it. Some people will tend to internalize emotional abuse more than others, but it harms everyone it affects.

Defining Emotional Abuse

What is emotional abuse? It is an attempt to control another person through emotion. It may include verbal attacks, criticism, subversive control through following or checking up on someone, belittling, gaslighting, blaming, setting double standards, name-calling, threats, isolation, and more.

Emotional abuse follows a cycle, similar to physical abuse. The abuser’s behavior will get worse and worse, and just when the victim begins to feel that she can’t take it anymore, there will be a “honeymoon period” that will convince her all is well until the next outburst.

When someone deliberately demeans you, devalues you, tries to make you afraid, or punishes you in an effort to control you and keep the upper hand in the relationship, they are being emotionally abusive.

Emotionally abusive is devastating to victims. It shouldn’t be downplayed because there are no punches thrown. Furthermore, emotional abuse is one of the most frequent precursors to physical abuse. If you have experienced or are experiencing emotional abuse, please find a mental health professional to help you make a safety plan and heal the emotional damage you’ve incurred.

Malignant narcissists often perpetuate emotional abuse; they can expertly cut down people’s emotions, keep them off balance, and make them question their sanity. The term “gaslighting” means that the abuser is making you think that you’re the crazy one. They contradict reality to the point where you begin to question your own memory or interpretation of events. Counseling can help you cut through the confusion and identify what’s happening to you.

Effects of Emotional Abuse

Although emotional abuse isn’t physically violent, it can still harm us physically. It causes a stress response as well as anxiety and anger. Over time, increased levels of cortisol can have detrimental health effects.

When a child experiences emotional abuse, they are unable to cognitively process what has happened to them. The neocortex has not developed enough for the child to be able to identify abuse, resist it, and not blame themselves.

This kind of trauma, especially when left unprocessed, can lead to disease-like symptoms including pain and neurological events. Therapeutic movement or long-term psychotherapy with a trained trauma professional can sometimes release the physical effects of trauma and lead to improved symptoms for an abuse survivor.

An emotional abuse survivor often loses the capacity to trust others, enjoy relationships, have good self-esteem, enjoy food, or feel worthy of love. Even if physical abuse never enters the relationship, an abuser can manipulate us into a position where we create defensive structures just to survive. Once these defenses are in place, the victim can have trouble enjoying family, friendships, or work.

After a while, a victim’s life becomes one of quiet desperation. They may often be confused about whether their experience constitutes abuse, especially if the abuser has never been physically violent. To the outside world, their pain may go undetected. Many abusers are publically charming, leading to even more confusion, pain, and isolation for the victim.

A child raised by a cold, distant parent may grow up, become a parent themselves, and struggle with lack of confidence and difficulty with decision-making. He might feel overly responsible for how his children’s lives turn out.

Because emotional abuse significantly damages victims, it’s imperative to get help as soon as possible. A mental health professional can help victims work through their emotional damage and live a healed and thriving life.

Can You Stop Emotional Abuse?

Even people whose abusers caused them severe trauma can have a relationship with them that lasts into adulthood. The abuser might be a parent, sibling, family friend, etc.

When you still have a relationship with the perpetrator, you might have to suppress your emotions of pain, anxiety, grief, or anger, especially if your family would not accept your expression of emotion. This suppression can lead to codependency or enmeshment with the abuser.

This dysfunctional relationship involves a spoken or unspoken expectation for the victim—the victim is expected to conform to the abuser’s emotional needs. This means the emotional damage continues throughout the relationship, especially in the abuser’s presence, even if the overt abuse has stopped.

A victim in this situation probably feels trapped. They might feel responsible to maintain the status quo – to keep the relationship functioning normally. Or if abuse is still happening, they might feel like they can’t stop it without ending the relationship. They might feel they don’t know how to do this.

An emotionally abusive relationship can give you tunnel vision. You become unable to imagine life outside of the dysfunction and destruction.

Emotional abuse is tricky because, even more than physical abuse, it makes the victim question whether it’s really happening. If you’re a child whose parent is emotionally abusing you, even as an adult, you might question whether it’s your responsibility to “just take it” and honor your parent. Denying the trauma becomes silently enduring it.

When one person destroys another emotionally, this does not honor God – even if they try to justify their behavior using Scripture, logic, or another rationale.

As Christians, we are not called to condone sin. If you are an emotional abuse survivor, you do not have to endure the abuse in silence. You can speak up about the injustice. A Christian counselor can help you see through the fog and create a safety plan.

As mental health professionals, we will honor your story. We know that escaping abuse isn’t as easy as it might seem to someone on the outside. Consider the following examples.

Case Study: Taylor

Taylor is 25. She’s been married to Ryan for 4 years, and they have one child. Her mother Kim lives in the same town. She often criticizes Taylor and seeks to control her, even to the point of verbal abuse that makes her daughter cry.

An outsider might say, “Obviously, Taylor should cut her mother out of her life!”

Unfortunately, Taylor’s parents have been helping her financially for several years. Without their help, Taylor and her family might not be able to afford their current home.

Taylor has been having chest pain and heart palpitations. She even went to the doctor, who assured her it was nothing serious. When Kim went on vacation last month, most of Taylor’s symptoms disappeared.

Solving this problem won’t be simple. Taylor and Ryan will have to decide how to balance their financial dependence with Taylor’s need for emotional safety. Before they can put a stop to the abuse, they might have to do something drastic, like move to a smaller home they can afford on their own.

When they’re ready, they can sit down with Kim and set a firm boundary. The abuse has to stop. If not, the relationship will be put on hold, and Kim will not able to see her daughter or grandchild regularly.

A counselor can help cut through the confusion surrounding this issue. He or she can also help you decide on the wisest course of action.

When Taylor confronts Kim, Kim will probably react by downplaying the emotional abuse and acting like a victim herself. She may tell Taylor and Ryan that they are being harsh. But if Taylor allows her mom to steamroll her continually, Kim will never have a reason to change.

Sometimes, with the threat of a broken relationship hanging over them, an emotionally abusive individual may be willing to change.

Or, Kim may leave in anger and accept the broken relationship rather than admitting to what she’s done. At this point, Taylor will have to work on healing her emotional wounds, accepting the reality of her mom’s abuse and the lack of a healthy mother-daughter relationship.

Case Study: Joe

At age 33, Joe has been married for 10 years and has two children. His son is 12 and his daughter is 9. His dad was visiting them recently. At one point, Joe’s dad told the 12-year-old, “You need to toughen up. Tears are for sissies.”

Joe flashed back 20 years to similar comments he’d heard from his dad. He still remembered the expression of contempt on his dad’s face. He took his son aside and told him that tears are okay and he can cry when he needs to.

But with his dad, Joe felt frozen. His father had callously disregarded his feelings numerous times, especially during the tumultuous years of adolescence. Joe hadn’t worked through these painful experiences.

If he had processed his emotional trauma in therapy, Joe might’ve said, “Don’t talk to my son that way. We believe tears are a normal part of sadness, and he is allowed to be sad.”

In response, Joe’s dad would have the freedom to respond, even if it meant breaking the relationship. But protecting someone from emotional abuse, especially if they are a child, is more important than having peace at all costs.

Therapy can help you cultivate your emotional strength and process past trauma, so you can relate to others freely instead of feeling trapped in old patterns.

Healing from Emotional Abuse

There are numerous therapeutic avenues that can lead to emotional healing. Pursue the ones you think will be most helpful for you.

Remember that healing from trauma and abuse can take years. You may experience breakthroughs when you least expect them. You can talk to a counselor about your options for therapy. The following are a few that may help you:

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

In this therapy, a counselor both talks and listens to you as you share your trauma narrative and built-in defense mechanisms. You will gain a better understanding of what happened to you and how it has affected you. Processing your trauma in this setting will help you find internal and relational harmony.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

This approach addresses negative thought patterns. It helps you call out the mental loops you get stuck in. What triggers them? What are specific, positive thoughts you can focus on instead? Over time, you rehearse new thoughts, and this rewires your brain, creating healthier neural pathways.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

EDMR is a physical protocol. First, your therapist will assess your history to see if EDMR could benefit you. Then, he or she will lead you through the therapy, with the goal of reducing your trauma-related stress.

This therapy was used successfully for combat veterans suffering from PTSD. Practitioners then began applying it to civilian cases with traumatic histories and found that it relieved their distress as well.

These three techniques are just examples of approaches that may benefit you. There are other options available as well. Once you’ve decided that you want to get better and you have hope that it is possible, you’ve already made progress! Contact a Christian counselor today to get started on your journey towards emotional health.