Healing the Wounds of Emotional Abuse
When we hear of abuse within families, what comes to mind are beatings, burns, and other forms of physical cruelty impossible to believe that one human being could do to another.
When we list ways that sounds can cause damage, loud music, especially blared through headsets, is at the top. Hearing loss is increasingly being seen in younger people.
But there is another form of abuse that requires no direct contact, not even dangerous decibels, but can be equally damaging and that is verbal/emotional abuse. What is said to or about a child can damage his view of himself and poison his beliefs about the world for a lifetime. What he comes to believe can affect others as learned behaviors are repeated. No one ever wins.
We have all witnessed emotional abuse or may have experienced it in some way at some time in our lives. It is the parent who snarls in a child’s face and calls him derogatory names, curses, or criticizes him at every turn. It is the partner or supervisor who finds nothing to praise, but points out every flaw, real or imagined in the other person, and discounts any idea or feeling the other person expresses.
Emotional abuse can even be as subtle as failing to give someone our full and caring attention when they need to talk. The abuser may mouth the words, “I’m listening,” but the way in which the words are spoken and the body language that accompanies them says otherwise. Before the partner or child has had a chance to express himself, the emotional abuser lobs criticisms -- “How could you be so stupid?” or, “You shouldn’t feel that way!”
These are forms of abuse and they do not leave a physical mark. Instead the bruising is to the psyche and the effects are lifelong.
What makes a person an emotional abuser?
Most often, says Ted
Lindberg, program director with Family & Children Services, an
emotional abuser is repeating what he or she has learned.
Authority figures in his life routinely used put-downs and
emotional isolation, directed at the person who is weaker and
less powerful, often children. Emotional abuse is particularly
devastating to children as they are forming self-perceptions and
look to parents and adult authority figures for their sense of
themselves. The repeated negative messages of these adults
become their beliefs about themselves.
“Extensive research into the behaviors of emotionally abusive people and those affected by abusers reveals why positive change is so critical,” said Lindberg. “The person holding the power often blames personal mistakes or insecurities on those with less power, withholds or distorts information, and dominates using fear and intimidation. Attempts on the part of the other person to think, to feel, to express an opinion are stifled. Meanwhile, the person being abused is under constant stress. Unresolved, such stress can lead to depression, rage, self-injury, even destruction of self or others.”
Community-based programs offered by Family & Children Services may target other issues as their priority, such as strengthening the skills of a very young parent, coping with the challenges of a family member’s chronic disabilities, or creating a stable living situation for families with multiple difficulties. But often, issues of emotional and/or physical abuse surface as an agency social worker learns more about the family dynamics. The overall goal is the same as the professional guides the family -- to help people lead healthier lives including having healthier relationships.
To break entrenched patterns of behavior takes commitment, says Linda Wright, a clinical social worker in The Counseling Center at Family & Children Services’ Battle Creek office. “The abuser must come to understand how he or she once felt as the victim so he or she can realize how others feel now,” she said. “Then the abuser can choose to stop being a victim and stop making victims of other people,” she said. There are constructive, healthy ways to discipline a child, to give advice, to listen with an open heart and a closed mouth, and to vent one’s own frustrations.”
She added, “Sincere choices can turn things around -- being more self aware, working off angry energy through physical exercise, speaking calmly, and in an assertive rather than aggressive manner, and deliberately seeking words of praise instead of criticism. Everyone benefits.”
