Examples of Emotional Abuse: Recognizing Maltreatment from Loved Ones

There is no doubt that the world we live in feels like a curious mixture of good and bad. Our world has beauty in it, both natural and created by people, but it also has a lot in it that brings tears to one’s eyes. Families are generally a good thing; they are the first place we learn what belonging means, and that’s beautiful. However, families can also be hotbeds of dysfunction, and they can be places of deep and lasting sorrow, especially when emotional abuse is involved.

What then do you do when your own family, or the closest relationships in which you find yourself are not the way they’re supposed to be? An unhealthy relationship can affect everyone who’s involved. This makes identifying emotional abuse and learning how to address it important for your welfare and the well-being of your relationships.

Naming Emotional Abuse

Relationships are made up of complicated networks of everyday interactions. People in relationships exchange texts, trade words, share their thoughts and wishes, make themselves vulnerable, etc. A relationship can be deemed emotionally abusive when the relationship carries a consistent pattern of bullying behaviors and destructive words that undermine the dignity, mental health, and self-worth of another.

The type of behavior that counts as emotional abuse is the deliberate and regular use of actions and words to manipulate, frighten, weaken, or hurt another person. This happens in a variety of ways, but the result is often that one’s thoughts and actions become confused, distorted, or influenced in ways that cause them harm.

What does it do to you?

When a person experiences emotional abuse, it can have many negative effects on their health. The effects of emotional abuse are as impactful as what happens when a person is physically abused. The challenge with emotional abuse is that it doesn’t leave physical scars, marks, or wounds. Rather, the damage is done internally, leaving a person feeling worthless, filled with deep self-doubt, and experiencing self-hatred.

Emotional abuse can also lead to health problems such as anxiety, depression, insomnia, stomach ulcers, and heart palpitations. Apart from these problems, the abuse can erode your sense of self, distorting how you see yourself and the world around you. It eats away at your self-esteem, and it can make you feel trapped in the relationship without a viable means of escape.

One of the many damaging results of emotional abuse is that it can break a person, wounding them to the point where they cannot endure the relationship, but they also don’t feel strong or courageous enough to leave. One’s internal dialogue can echo the abuser, leading to being harshly self-critical, believing you’re not good enough, and becoming more isolated from others as a result.

Examples of Emotional Abuse

By now, it should be clear that emotional abuse is quite damaging. However, one of the challenges when it comes to emotional abuse is identifying it. That’s because it’s often quite subtle, and the person who’s been exposed to it can come to think of it as normal when that’s the last thing it is. One can also minimize the abuser’s behavior and start to think that the abuse isn’t that bad.

We’ve all been created in the image of God, and we’re all deserving of respect, dignity, and kindness because of this (Psalm 8; Genesis 1:26-28; Psalm 139:1-18). You must realize this since it is an important step in stopping and undoing the cycle of emotional abuse. Some examples of emotional abuse include the following.

Manipulation This is when a person uses another’s fears, vulnerabilities, and emotions against them to control them. Manipulation could include behaviors like gaslighting, making you feel guilty, using your compassion against you, or punishing you by withholding affection or attention. All these are behaviors intended to make you act or do things you don’t want to do or wouldn’t ordinarily do.

Threats and intimidation This includes a person acting aggressively, shouting or cursing at you, waving a weapon around, or otherwise acting in ways that frighten you and make you back down. They may threaten to harm you or themselves, or they may threaten to abandon you. Other threats include threatening to make a false accusation against you if you don’t comply.

Constant criticism Criticism can take many forms, including nitpicking at supposed or real flaws, calling you names, humiliating you in public or private, making jokes at your expense, and so on.

Being dismissed Emotional abuse can also take the form of being undermined and dismissed. It can include being told that your opinions and thoughts don’t matter or make sense, being talked down to, being treated like you’re always wrong and the other person is always right, and having the things you say consistently doubted or disbelieved.

Financial abuse This can also function as a form of control, but is primarily focused on money. It includes withholding resources, being excluded from financial decisions, or being prevented from getting a job to be economically independent.

Forcing isolation We are deeply relational beings, and our healthy connections to others help us thrive. When a loved one enforces social isolation on you, it can be a form of emotional abuse. It could be stopping you from seeing friends, going to school, taking away your phone or laptop, leaving you unattended when you need assistance, or preventing you from doing hobbies and activities you enjoy.

Not respecting appropriate boundaries This could include not respecting one’s privacy, not allowing you to express your culture or religious beliefs, preventing you from expressing your opinion or choices, demanding to see your devices or have access to every area of your life, and so on.

Creating chaos A person can create chaos by behaving unpredictably and erratically, so that you don’t know how to respond or react to them. They might shout at you one moment, then smile the next. This can make the relationship feel unsafe, and you’ll find yourself tiptoeing on eggshells whenever they’re around.

Making unreasonable demands Placing unrealistic demands on another person can be a form of emotional abuse. It includes behaviors like demanding you’re together all the time, never saying thank you, and being dissatisfied with whatever the level of effort you put in, being critical about you completing tasks to their standards, or expecting you to meet their needs ahead of everything else.

Blame–shifting Each person ought to be responsible for their own actions, and shifting blame onto another person can be a form of emotional abuse. This includes blaming a child for one’s current financial situation, pointing out another person’s flaws to deflect from an issue, and so on.

Emotional abuse can take many forms, and this list is just an example of some of them.

How to Cope With and Address Emotional Abuse

When emotional abuse happens, it can leave you feeling disoriented and uncertain about yourself. You might even doubt your own experiences, but it’s important to pay attention to how these experiences made you feel. Did you feel respected, like you were given a fair hearing, like you were being forced into something, or that your opinion mattered? These and other questions can help you discern if emotional abuse has taken place.

There are a few things you can do if you’ve experienced emotional abuse, and they include the following.

Recognize or acknowledge the abuse It’s important that you name abuse for what it is, and that you stop denying it or minimizing it. Recognize that you can’t fix an abusive person, and it’s ultimately not up to you to change them.

Commit to moving forward This requires that you pledge yourself to put an end to the abuse and to make tangible changes in your life that will lead to healing and growth beyond the abuse.

Be kind to yourself Treat yourself with kindness, flexibility, and patience. The voice of the abuser is likely loud inside your head, but that critical voice needs to be turned around. Don’t blame yourself or begin to believe the lie that there’s something wrong with you and that the abusive situation is somehow your fault.

Seek support This support could be from loved ones who can walk with you, others who have experienced emotional abuse, or from a professional, like a counselor. A counselor can help you understand the relationship better. Emotional abuse can rob you of perspective, but counseling can help restore some perspective, enabling you to see the relationship more clearly for what it was.

In addition, your counselor can also help you by providing you with the tools and skills you need that will help you overcome the abuse and find healing. Reach out and talk with a counselor who can help you identify and find healing from an emotionally abusive relationship.