Emotional abuse can be just as harmful as other forms of abuse. In fact, it can even be fatal. Severe emotional, mental and/or psychological abuse has been compared to the psychological torture tactics used by various military interrogators on enemy prisoners of war.
The effects of prolonged emotional abuse can have devastating physiological effects on a victim, and will almost always have lasting ill effects on the victim's mind, due to the infliction of multiple psychiatric injuries. In extreme and/or prolonged cases of emotional, mental and psychological abuse, it can eveninduce suicide.
In relationships where physical abuse is absent or minimal, many victims may think that they are not experiencing domestic violence. Unfortunately this is often not true.A lot of victims of domestic violence might never experience physical abuse, but they are not necessarily the lucky ones.
Emotional abuse can be just as harmful and even fatal. Severe emotional, mental and/or psychological abuse has been compared to the psychological torture tactics used in the interrogation of prisoners of war. In some cases, it can induce suicide.
I think that emotional abuse is the core issue in any form of abuse. Most victims would never tolerate from a stranger the abuse that they endure from a family member or significant other. That is the power of the perpetrator.
Personally, I have experienced emotional, physical, mental, sexual, financial and verbal abuse as well as social isolation, and I think that the emotional abuse is much worse than the physical violence. Blood and bruises are tangible things. They are there, you can see them. No-one can deny it. Other people can see them too, people who will support you and give you hope if you let them.
The emotional hold that the perpetrator has over their victim is invisible, both to them and everyone else, and it can be hard to wake up to it because it never happens straight away, they suck you in first and then slowly the mental manipulation creeps in and they change you.
Mental/emotional abuse is never obvious, and the injuries it inflicts can be invisible, both to the victims and to others, and can take much longer to heal than a few fractured bones. Indeed some bury so deep that they never do. Because it is so hard to recognize, emotional abuse is also very easy to deny. Words can be twisted and distorted to justify and excuse, and of course the things that are said to hurt and manipulate you are only said behind closed doors.
It can be hard to remember exactly what was said when your world feels like it is caving in, and the abuser will jump on this uncertainty to highlight your insanity and to once again shift the focus away from his own appalling behavior, which makes one feel unsure about what really happened, compounding one’s confusion and distress, and deterring one from objecting or trying to reason the next time it happens.
I'm sure you can see why many people who have experienced emotional abuse describe it as "crazy making stuff". It most certainly is!
Made Crazy or Suffering Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?
In reality, the common description of emotional abuse as "crazy making" is actually quite appropriate. Long term exposure to repeated emotional and mental abuse can result inComplex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is, as the name suggests, a more complex form ofPTSD.
Both disorders are experienced as a result of a psychiatric injury (in layman's terms a type of brain damage), but where PTSD is usually the result of one major psychiatric injury, and can usually be recovered from in a relatively short period of time with the right support, Complex PTSD, is the result of many psychiatric injuries, both minor and major, that are inflicted over a long period of time. The symptoms are also more complex, and so is the treatment, so the name is really quite suitable.
The sad thing about Complex PTSD is that recovery can take on average, 5 years, and can only begin once the victim is removed from the situation that caused it, and given the right support and treatment.
http://safe-at-last.hubpages.com/hub/Signs-of-Domestic-Violence-Emotional-Abuse
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