Emotional abuse: the unrecognizable virus
We feel as good as our closest relationships makes us feel. In fact the closest relationship is the one you have with yourself. What you (unconsciously) think about yourself impacts all the other relationships. At some point of our lives, each one of us have experienced a not-so-good relation. And those learning bring us closer to our own standards.
One of the not-so-pleasant parts of a relationship is the feeling of being abused. Now that’s a tricky area. Identifying physical abuse is easier because of obvious reasons, but taking action against it can call for a lot of courage, isn’t it? What takes even more courage is to identify the subtle art of emotional abuse.
What is emotional abuse?
When a person tries to gain power over you by constantly testing your boundaries, disregarding your opinions or feelings, attacking your self-image or making you feel guilty most of the time or using other manipulative techniques because they cannot hear NO from you and want to control all your decisions, counts as Emotional abuse.
Emotional abusers are bullies who behave like victims and hence making it very difficult to spot that they are trying to gain control over you by selfish means. Generally, they are self-absorbed and do not think relationship as a two-way deal, it’s their way or no way. The sad thing is that they don’t do all of this purposely, most of the times they have been emotionally abused as a child and hence “unconsciously” picked the same behavior to cater their own needs.
Signs to lookout
Not all these signs are applicable to all emotional abusers, even one or two of these regular behaviors qualify as emotional abuse.
Shaming: They are judgmental beyond healthy limits and find ways to shame you even if you have good news to share.
Guilt trap: They make you feel guilty for any activity that’s not in their favor.
Blame game: They avoid responsibility by blaming every situation (somehow) on you.
Untrue accusation: Their insecurities make them accuse you all the time, even to an extend of making things up like accusing you of flirting or cheating on them.
Passive aggressive: They indirectly show resistance to your independent opinion/action through sarcasm, sneaky comments, bringing-you-down kind of jokes, playing victim, etc. to get their way.
Silent treatment: They punish you for not behaving their way by pulling away their affection and giving a silent treatment purposely. (this is not same as being upset or taking more time for own self to restore, its more ego/anger driven)
Cannot listen: They completely tend to ignore your part of the conversation and even disagree on having a particular conversation/agreement in the past.
Invalidate your feeling: They cannot validate your feelings or affirm to your opinions. Remember, this is not same as disagreement. One can acknowledge how you are feeling but still disagree with valid arguments to convince you.
Codependency
Emotional abusers get more powerful because their counter parties are codependent. It’s more common than you can imagine, I have been codependent more often than what I was conscious about. Bringing awareness to such subtle behavioral tendency can protect you and raise your standard of living.
Codependency is a behavioral condition in a relationship where one person enables another person's addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement. Among the core characteristics of codependency is an excessive reliance on other people for approval and a sense of identity
Especially when a friend, family member or romantic partner is the emotional abuser, takes a lot of courage to confront loved ones. Although courage to stand for yourself is an act of self-love.
Sharing is caring and it's time that we as a society raise more awareness about such sensitive topics. Please feel free to reach out to me by email for any help on emotional intelligence.
