Happy Halloween!
I hope you all have a great holiday. Anybody else have snow on the ground? I don't know why I still live in the north...
Today I'm going to talk about emotional abuse/psychological abuse and what it is exactly. How does it occur? Why is it important? Why is it still considered abuse?
I'm going to start with the last question: Why is it still considered abuse? For some victims of emotional abuse, an obstacle they may encounter is accepting that what they are experiencing is abuse. "I never had a black eye. I never had scratches or bruises. I never had 'proof' that I was being hurt." It is not easy to determine emotional/psychological abuse because you cannot physically look in the mirror and see that you have been abused. This often deters victims from ever reaching out for help.
Emotional abuse consists of many different kinds of abuse, but the one consistent theme is that the abuser is maintaining that same power and control in the relationship as any other abusive relationship. The ways in which they do this differs. Abusers can believe to be dominant, and demand superiority. They may be very open about their beliefs that they are superior, and use emotional tactics to enforce that power. They could belittle their partner through insults, demands, control of social life, control of finances, yelling/shouting, etc. If there is no equality in the relationship, it could be deemed abusive. Both partners need to establish their own roles in the relationship, and these roles must be divided equally so that they work together in their relationship. If each partner is contributing equally in the relationship then they will be mutually satisfied. In an abusive relationship, one partner has the upper-hand. The abuser feels entitled and deserving of their stance in the relationship; they feel as though their partner must obey to their needs. Typically, this kind of abuser is a misogynist, or someone who dislikes/mistreats/mistrusts/hates women.
Other kinds of emotional abuse are not so overt. Sometimes, and this is another reason why it is so difficult to determine/accept, emotional abuse is very covert. In other words, the abuse is well-disguised or concealed. In this covert type of emotional abuse, the abuser uses manipulation, lies, victim-blaming, the cycle of violence, degrading/demeaning/belittlement of their partner, attack of partner's self esteem, and more.
Manipulation plays into abuse when the abuser twists words and/or situations to work out in their favor in order to maintain their power. An emotional abuser uses lies to hurt their partner; they could lie to hide feelings or they could be cheating on their partner. Even the smallest lies cause the victim to feel unimportant in the relationship because they have betrayed the foundation of trust.
What is victim-blaming? Victim-blaming is an emotional tactic where abusers will blame the abuse on the victim. Instead of taking responsibility, they somehow make the victims feel like it was their fault for the abuse. For example, the abuser cheats on their partner but tells her that if she hadn't had a girls night that night then he wouldn't have gone to the party and cheated. Another example would be if the abuser insults what their partner is wearing and says that they are embarrassing to them and hurting their feelings by wearing something that would offend them. Clearly in both of these situations, the victim has done nothing wrong but the abuser somehow turns the blame on them.
The cycle of violence occurs in physical abuse as well; the typical cycle is honeymoon, tension, explosion. The honeymoon stage is when everything feels good and it feels as though nothing can go wrong. The tension stage is when the lies build up, or the insults occur. The explosion stage is when the fights break out and the victim-blaming occurs; sometimes this can result in a break-up. It is important to note that it is a cycle, so once the explosion occurs, it does go back to honeymoon. This means that from the time of the explosion, the abuser will act on bringing the relationship back to the honeymoon stage by whatever insincere means. They will apologize, take responsibility, buy gifts for the partner, or "try to make it up to them".
An abuser attacks their partner's self esteem by belittling/demeaning/degrading and insulting their partner. Their abuser purposefully does this to maintain their power and make their partner feel dependent and weak.
This is why emotional abuse is so hard to come to grips with because it is so hard to see. Everyone knows when someone is mean, but when it is combined with the cycle involving the honeymoon stage, victim-blaming so that the victim cannot even realize that the abuser was in the wrong, and coercive manipulation, it is very hard for the victim to see that they are a victim. This is why it is especially important to help victims of emotional abuse, because it may come to a point where the victim feels worthless. Emotional abuse is extremely scarring, even if there are no physical scars to see.
I hope you all have a safe and fun Halloween today. Don't forget that as Domestic Violence Awareness Month comes to an end, we still carry with us the support and awareness every day of the year. So never forget to do your part and stop the hurt.
Copyright © 2011 Cara Mackler
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