Abuse

 A difficult but an equally relevant topic. Difficult because we all may know someone who has been through one or the other form of abuse, yet find it extremely hard to speak about it. 

Abuse is when someone causes us harm, injury, hurt or distress. It can take soo many forms starting from disrespect, from physical to verbal to sexual; the list is endless. 

Let's look at some of the common forms of abuse; which I am sure we are all aware of : 

a) Physical : Causing any kind of injury on the body intentionally. Kicking, slapping, shoving, beating, choking and more are all examples of physical abuse that we may have recognised or noticed around us and road rage is one such example of the same. 

b) Emotional : Now this one is difficult to discern by the victim as well as by the outsider. It actually is causing any kind of emotional or body pain intentionally. 

Let's look at its definition :

c) Sexual : Think we have read, heard, witnessed in movies, documentaries etc. It is any unwanted sexual contact and the examples are kissing, unwanted touching, rape etc 

Out of these three, emotional abuse is most hard to recognise because it's subtle, indirect, confusing to the victim, no proof of any bodily harm and no witnesses. Convenient .. isn't it ??

The thought behind writing this blog is to create awareness on "Emotional Abuse"  which as per me is equally lethal as the other two. So, let's dive straight into it ... What say ? 

     

  Signs of  emotional / verbal /           psychological abuse looks like :

Inshort, emotional abuse is controlling and manipulating with emotionally abusive tactics. Ever seen someone giving a silent treatment to the other due to supposedly uncharted behaviour by that individual, or behaving as if their needs, opinions, desires or wants don't matter or seen a parent humiliating or constantly criticising a child for things they have or haven't done are  examples of emotionally abusive behaviour. 

Remember this hard hitting statement from the movie "Darlings" after the husband has physically and verbally assaulted the wife "Pyaar nahi karta, toh maarta kyun? Tum pyaar nahi karti, toh sehti kyun?”

Surprised .... Don't be, because it's happening closer than you think because some movies after all do depict reality. 

The Effect of Emotional Abuse:

When so much is happening, there are bound to be impacts on the body and on the mind and they are quite serious in nature:

 

While all are equally important, I feel a declining or decreasing sense of self confidence, self worth and self belief are most important. Because that essentially means that you are forever dependent on a person or situation outside of yourself to give you that sense of worth or confidence for the rest of your life and ofcourse that increases the risk of mental illness which is terribly exhausting in itself. Which really means that everything is connected. 

The scars from mental cruelty can be as deep and long-lasting as wounds from punches or slaps but are often not as obvious. In fact, even among women who have experienced violence from a partner, half or more report that the man’s emotional abuse is what is causing them the greatest harm.” ― Lundy Bancroft

"An abuser can seem emotionally needy. You can get caught in a trap of catering to him, trying to fill a bottomless pit. But he’s not so much needy as entitled, so no matter how much you give him, it will never be enough. He will just keep coming up with more demands because he believes his needs are your responsibility, until you feel drained down to nothing" - Lundy Bancroft.

Food for thought ??

I sure hope it is