What is Emotional Abuse?
The fact that we even have to ask this question is a testament to how insidious and subtle emotional abuse can be.
Make no mistake, emotional abuse is real and can be intensely damaging and traumatic, regardless of how well-hidden the abuse is.
Unfortunately, with emotional abuse, the victim often blames themselves for the problems in the relationship and questions their own mental health.
In creating a definition for emotional abuse, it’s helpful to start with a definition of physical abuse.
Most of us intuitively understand that physical abuse involves a person being physically harmed. This would include any and all purposeful harm to a person’s physical being.
With physical abuse, it’s usually pretty clear who is harming who, and the physical effects are usually able to be observed (although sometimes they are hidden from others).
It follows that emotional abuse is when a person is harmed emotionally. Part of the problem in defining emotional abuse is that when our emotions are harmed, no one can see that our emotions are bruised, bleeding, or otherwise damaged.
A doctor can’t do an examination and determine that your emotions were hit with a blunt instrument leading to permanent damage. If someone, figuratively, pushes your emotions down the stairs, who, besides you, can tell?
You may be emotionally limping along due to repeated emotional abuse, but you may not even recognize it yourself.
The emotional abuser likes to hide in plain sight. They use comments like:
“You’re just being too sensitive.”
“I was just joking, geez, where’s your sense of humor?”
“I’m sorry you took that the wrong way. That’s not what I meant.”
“I’m sorry that upset you, but I can’t help the way you feel.”
“If you weren’t so (depressed, anxious, fill in the blank), you wouldn’t take everything the wrong way.”
When trying to set boundaries with an abuser, they use your vulnerability against you. Something you told them in confidence in the past is leveraged to hurt you in the present or to give them control:
“You said being in that car accident really messed you up, so just let me drive!”
“I realize you had a crappy childhood and that your dad was mean to you, but don’t try to put that on me. I’m not doing anything wrong.”
“Now I see why your last boyfriend and you fought about your house. You really are a mess!”
When dealing with emotional abuse, you feel like you’re in a push/pull scenario. Compliment then cut-down…love bombs, then contempt…put-downs disguised as teasing…and on and on.
Abusers might come home and animatedly tell you about their day, enjoying your attention and empathy. But when you start reciprocating and talking about your day, they suddenly have something else to do. “Let’s talk later,” they say, but later never comes.
Or…they get out their phone and start scrolling while you’re talking. They say they’re listening even when you know they’re not. You’re left feeling inconsequential and unimportant. Once again, if you bring up these feelings, they’ll be sure to note that you’re being too sensitive or seeing things incorrectly…again!
What does emotional abuse look like?
Even once you realize that you are a victim of emotional abuse, it can be really hard to explain it to other people because being able to see subtle abuse requires contextual knowledge. Here’s an example to illustrate.
Janet and Jason, a married couple, go out to a comedy show. On the way home, they share their thoughts about the evening. It turns out that Jason loved the comedian and had a great time.
Janet, on the other hand, tells Jason she found some of the jokes funny but thought much of the humor was derogatory and offensive. She tells Jason she didn’t prefer the comedian’s style. Janet comments that she definitely won’t feel bad if she doesn’t see him again.
A couple of months later, Jason surprises Janet with a birthday present, dinner reservations at a restaurant she really likes and tickets to see that same comedian’s new show.
Janet feels confused. She thanks Jason, while at the same time feeling frustrated because she knows she was clear that she didn’t like the comedian. She really doesn’t want to spend her birthday attending the show.
Janet decides to stay silent and go along with the birthday plans because she knows from past experience, things won’t go well if she addresses the issue. She wants to be grateful for Jason’s thoughtfulness but at the same time it doesn’t strike her as being thoughtful to get tickets for someone to a show they dislike.
Jason and Janet have a good time at the restaurant, but Janet is quiet at the show afterward because, again, she finds many of the jokes offensive.
On the way home, Jason keeps talking about how funny the comedian was and attempts to get Janet to agree that the show was great. Janet’s frustration at having to sit through a show she dislikes, for her birthday present, bubbles over, and she comments “I think you know I didn’t like the show. Going to the show was really for you, not me. You know I don’t like that comedian, but I did enjoy the restaurant.”
Jason blows up and tells Janet how ungrateful she is. He points out that many men he knows don’t even remember their wives’ birthdays and says that Janet should be glad he didn’t forget. He says, “I can’t believe I spent all that money and you’re not even happy.”
The fight continues the entire drive home and later Janet finds herself lying awake in bed, wondering if she is being ungrateful. After all, he did go to the trouble of getting reservations to one of her favorite restaurants and he did spend quite a bit of money on the night out.
Part of her feels like she shouldn’t have said anything and feels guilty that she “started” the fight by mentioning her dislike of the comedian.
Another part of her feels angry and confused because she can remember the conversation where she shared her opinion on the comedian and knows that Jason was very aware of her dislike of that comedy style. (This is cognitive dissonance.)
She wonders how in the world he thought she would like going to the show for her birthday. And yet, through his anger, Jason made it clear she should have been grateful for the gift. She feels like she’s going crazy because nothing adds up or makes sense.
The next day, they go to Jason’s parents for dinner and his mother tells Janet, “I’m sorry I haven’t gotten your birthday present yet. I’ve been really busy, but I do want to get you something you’ll like. Is there anything you’ve been especially wanting?”
Jason pipes up before Janet has a chance to respond with, “Don’t even go there. Janet is super picky about presents. You should just get her a gift card so she can get herself what she wants.”
Jason goes on to tell his parents about his “thoughtful” birthday gift and how Janet didn’t appreciate it. His tone is half-joking, half-teasing, but their argument the night before was hurtful and ugly, and this feels completely inappropriate to Janet.
Once again, Janet doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t want to fight in front of her in-laws and at the same time Jason’s words are hurtful and untrue.
He is twisting the entire situation, but no one sees that because they lack the context that Janet has. Once again she has the feeling that the reality she is experiencing isn’t the reality everyone else is seeing.
She feels disconnected and alone.
The above story exemplifies the way that subtle emotional abuse plays out over and over again.
On the surface, someone who isn’t in an emotionally abusive relationship might look at the situation and say “Oh, that’s not such a big deal. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes. He probably just forgot how much you disliked that comedian. At least he remembered your birthday and wanted to spend time with you.”
And it is exactly these types of comments from well-meaning friends and family that will keep you in the cycle of emotional abuse.
You will question yourself over and over. You will find excuses for their behavior especially because, so often, there is good mixed in with the bad. Truth mixed in with what is false.
They give you a compliment, right before they cut you to the bone. They tell your neighbors you’re a great mother and jokingly point out that you must be because you spend all your time taking care of the kids while leaving your house in complete disarray.
You show up to an event on time, but they tell you, you must have gotten the time wrong because you’re a half hour late, even though you put the time in your phone as they were telling you about the event.
When you try to point that out, they say “Don’t worry about it, you’re always late, I expected it.” And somehow, this is their way of being the “nice” person and letting you “off the hook”.
You find yourself constantly questioning yourself and you start to feel like something is very wrong with you, but you’re not sure what.
How can I tell if it’s emotional abuse?
· The person in question always shifts the blame when you attempt to bring up what is happening. They may feign taking the blame while backhandedly blaming someone or something else.
“I realize what I said was rude, but I wouldn’t feel like I have to say things like that if you would just do what I asked in the first place.”
· Gaslighting is occurring.
Gaslighting is a term to describe when a person tries to convince another person that their reality is false.
This leads to cognitive dissonance which results when trying to hold two contradictory beliefs or ideas at one time.
For instance, you have an argument with your spouse and one of the things they say is, “I want you to quit your job!”
These words come as a shock to you, so you replay them over and over for the next few days, wondering what to do.
When you sit down to talk about the situation again, your spouse says “What are you talking about, I would never tell you to quit your job, we need that money. Stop putting words in my mouth! I said I don’t like your job, I never said anything about quitting.”
· You find yourself constantly questioning what you heard, saw, said, or did within the relationship.
You are being told you misunderstand or misheard something often. You feel like you are going crazy and at the same time this is not happening outside the relationship, such as at work or in relationships with friends and co-workers.
· No matter how hard you try to sit down and rationally figure things out with your partner, these conversations always leave you feeling baffled, confused, like your words are being twisted, and/or the conversation gets re-routed to something other than what was brought up to begin with.
Emotional abusers are masterful at turning and twisting these conversations to deflect and shift blame.
· Your belief in yourself and/or your abilities is being whittled away. These can be subtle and small comments that add up over time to create feelings of low self-worth. Some of these comments may not be harmful in certain relationships and circumstances, but the emotional abuser uses them with a certain tone and with context that make them hurtful.
“Oh, that’s how you’re going to do that? Wow, I’ve never seen it done like that. Maybe you should just do it this way instead. We don’t have time to redo it when your way doesn’t work out.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of that. I really need to make sure it gets done right.”
“You’re still working on that?”
"I didn’t expect you to get the job. Congratulations!"
“It must be nice to not care what people think of you.”
“Does that really seem like a good idea to you?”
“Is that what you’re wearing?”
“Are you really going to eat that?”
“Wow, you’re right, your parents really didn’t teach you how to .”
“I’m so glad I was here to , I would hate to think what would have happened without my help.”
What emotional abuse does to you:
Emotional abuse brings about both physical and emotional symptoms that vary from person to person. These symptoms can range from mild to severe and can affect daily functioning.
· Causes depression
· Fosters anxiety
· Depletes your emotional resources so you lack capacity to deal with everyday demands and responsibilities
· Creates doubt of your worth and abilities
· Leads to social withdrawal and isolation
· Cultivates a sense of not being safe and needing to be hypervigilant
· Causes sleep issues
· Can result in physical complaints such as fatigue, digestive issues, chronic pain, headaches, over or under-eating, etc.
· Can result in difficulty paying attention, inability to make decisions and brain fog.
· Causes feelings of cognitive dissonance (having two very different thoughts or beliefs about something at the same time)
· Results in you feeling like you need to apologize all the time
Are they doing this on purpose? Does it matter?
Even if you come to the conclusion that you are being emotionally abused, this question may cause you to rethink your conclusion because someone can’t be an abuser without it being purposeful…right?
“And my spouse or partner isn’t like an evil genius or anything so this can’t be happening to me or if it is, he/she isn’t purposely doing it so I can’t really hold them accountable…right?”
Wrong.
People are responsible for the results of their actions even if their intent isn’t harmful.
Okay, so yes, some emotional abusers are absolutely aware of what they are doing and they are doing it with the intent to harm.
However, does that make it any less harmful to the victim of the abuse if the abuser doesn’t fully realize how their actions are harming others?
No. It doesn’t.
The harm is still there and if you are the one being abused, the abuser’s intent doesn’t change how harmed you are.
It may change the way you feel about the abuser but it doesn’t change the outcome, and you need to let that sink in.
Let me be uncomfortably blunt…if someone picks up a gun and shoots it and the bullet hits someone and kills them, that person is dead whether the person shooting the gun intended for that to happen or not.
If it was an accident, the person taking the shot may get a lesser sentence than someone shooting to kill.
People may look upon the one as having an unfortunate accident and the other as a murderer, but in the end, the victim is still dead.
With emotional abuse, we aren’t talking about guns, but the example lends itself to understanding that, at the end of the day, your harm is not dependent on someone else’s intent.
It’s important to understand that you have the right to emotional safety every bit as much as someone has the right to physical safety.
Don’t downplay your distress and/or danger.
What can I do?
If you are being harmed emotionally, you need help. Chances are you’ve tried talking and it’s not working.
Emotional abuse has been shown to be even more harmful than physical abuse and has lasting effects. T
he sooner you are able to get away from emotional abuse, the better for your mental health.
Everyone’s circumstances are different and what works for one person may not work for another. If you are being abused, please reach out for help.
Working with a professional therapist, trained to identify and process emotional abuse, can be life-changing and lifesaving.
You deserve safety, support, and connection.
At Mighty Acorn Therapy, you will receive a safe space to process through emotional abuse and gain insight and understanding of what has happened and how it has affected you.
If you find yourself questioning whether your experience is abuse or not, know that participating in counseling can help you to clarify your situation and find your best path forward.
You deserve to be valued and cared for. Be brave, reach out…feel better!
Domestic Violence Resources
Here is an excerpt from crisistextline.org which supports a line you can text, 741741, at any time for help with domestic violence of any kind.
Remember, if you are ever in need of immediate safety intervention, please call 911 for police emergency services.
Emotional Abuse and Domestic Violence
When it happens in an intimate partnership, emotional abuse is domestic violence, as it is one form that domestic violence may take.
Domestic violence refers to a pattern of behavior used by one partner to gain power and control over the other in an intimate relationship.
The abuser may isolate their partner by hiding their car keys, criticize the partner’s friends or family, or guilt their partner into spending all their time with the abuser.
Acting superior, creating chaos in the relationship, or invalidating their partner are other tactics often utilized by abusers in intimate relationships.
Clearly emotional abuse is an integral part of domestic violence, as it is used to manipulate, control, and demean the victim. It can be just as psychologically damaging as physical abuse, leaving the victim feeling powerless and afraid.
National Domestic Violence Hotline
Text “START” to 88788
