Emotional Abuse ~ that bad??

this might not be a good thing to read...

i don't get it? i've seen some posts here where people describe emotional abuse as being a really really bad form of abuse...

i wrote some about my possible abuse - Loving the Abuser

i think sexual and physical abuse is way worse...

no one ever really talks about emotional abuse as being bad....there aren't after school specials about being yelled at....nobody tells you as a kid that if some one says mean things to you tell someone (unless its a bully at on the playground)....if it's so bad how come no body seems to pay it much attention...

my T asked if i was victimized in my session with him last week...i said no...i can't make a connection between maybe being emotionally abused and being a victim....

i assumed he was talking about sexual or physical abuse

people are sexually victimized...physically victimized...

geez then aren't we all just walking talking victims...

i don't mean to sound snotty...just trying to figure some stuff out...

gostryter........ emotional abuse is not about just "being yelled at". its about the breaking down of self esteem. my dad was a big-time emotional abuser, though he'd never have known or admitted it. he'd get mad and say things like "no one is ever gonna want to marry you, who'd put up with you?" and when a family friend told me i was "getting to be prettier than my sister" my dad said "oh, he's just trying to make you feel good". he also told me regularly that i was crazy. by contrast he once told my sister "you're not exactly a rocket scientist". my dad's been dead 10 years now and i still think i'm ugly (no matter how many people tell me different), and i still can't have a normal relationship because i don't respect myself. "who'd want me? who'd put up with me? i'll never be as pretty as my sister, anyway." and my sister still thinks she's stupid (she's not), and feels she has to prove her intelligence to everyone while still being "the pretty one".

what i'm getting at is that, for me at least, that emotional abuse has stuck with me in a big way. my dad also didn't protect me from the neighbor who sexually abused me. my father never laid a hand on me (other than some hair-pulling if he was super pissed off), but i am angrier with him than i am with the "real" abuser. i'm a mess at 34 and a lot of that has to do with my dad and the things he said to me when i was a kid, and him not protecting me. and he said alot of positive things too, told me i was beautiful, told me i was smart. those aren't the things that stuck though. what stuck was "you're crazy and you're not as pretty as your sister and no one will ever want to marry you". i don't know why. it just did.

don't know if i've answered your question at all but wanted to tell you the way it is for me.

i'm sorry for you pain bellaviolet...

i guess i just don't want to accept it yet...

some of the things my mom said to me...

i was self centered & selfish & obnoxious
said i ruin things for her
said i love you but i don't like you
called me the name of a fat kid she knew
used to ask how many ax handles wide my butt was
said i f*cked you up
said i don't care what you think
said you can't do things right
said if i lost weight i could get a boyfriend/husband
called me bad words
compared me to my popular cousin
compared me to her friends smart boys
dismissed my feelings
said my sister and i had a perfect life compared to her childhood

but is this that bad?

she also said i was beautiful and smart and could do what ever i wanted to in life

i don't mean to sound stupid - i get that the negative stuff had an impact on how i saw myself...but i don't have to believe that stuff...

most of the time i rolled my eyes at her and called her a ****** to her face... i had quite a little attitude as teen especially - she never made me cry! instead i made her cry...

sorry for being hard headed...

I think that most (if not all) of us go though a phase when we aren't sure that whatever hurt us really counts. You know what impact that has had on your life. It's real, and it hurts, and you keep re-victimizing yourself too. We can tell you until we all get blue in the face, but the answers have to come from within. Are you okay? Did you turn out fine? Would you feel okay about treating your own child the way that you were treated? How do you do with managing relationships? Emotions?

I'm sorry if the answers to those questions are a bit brutal. I think that if you are asking the question you asked, you must be getting close to being ready for the answer. Emotional abuse is a negative form of brainwashing, and it can paralyze. It's really hard to heal from, because it is like a worm or a virus that burrows deeper the more you try to get it out. It teaches you that you are not competent enough to understand yourself and your abilities and your own emotions. All of that is a lie though. Really, you are more capable and likeable and loveable and smart and beautiful than anyone has told you, and than you know. You can do what you want to do with your life, and you are worth it.

Rap

I think emotional abuse CAN be worse, but not always. I'm a victim of both forms, and I must say the emotional abuse is much worse - however, the emotional abuse lasted over a long period time (from birth till now, actually); whereas the physical abuse was only around three to ten years of age.

Anyway, just a few insults and instances of emotional abuse can probably be coped with and overcome easily. However, when throughout one's whole life, they're told that they're worthless and unwanted, it takes more help than I can even imagine. Emotional abuse leads to feelings of self-lothing, which can lead to suicide or major depression. People end up not loving themselves in any form, and it just gets out of hand.

(((((((((((((bellaviolet, rap, charles))))))))))))))

thank you for taking the time to post

geez....with the questions Rap! No i'm not ok. No i didn't turn out fine. No i wouldn't treat my dog much less my kid that way. I don't have any relationships to manage. What emotions? ok...i'm getting the point....

i talked a little about my mom today w/ T.... i feel SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO guilty.... and i didn't really say that much.... excpet that she's a bit odd, gets angry, she suffers from depression and she drinks...then he had to ask if she was an alcoholic...yes....STAB right through my heart....feel like i'm betraying her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

<font color="purple">ok so i just reread my post before i post...lol... i didn't say that much ...i really didn't...geez....what i said really wasn't that much....awe hell.... </font>

bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, ungrateful daughter!!!!!!!!!

ok....so maybe the emotional stuff is a little bad....

gostryter, i know just how you feel........ i still feel guilty alot of the time for talking about the things my dad said/did......... yep, like a terrible, ungrateful daughter. everyone loved my father, he was smart, funny, charming.... he told me he loved me every day. half the town showed up at his funeral. the girls from the bank and the allstate office were all in tears (i couldn't find any tears for him, although i wanted to). people from his church who knew him just to say hello showed up at our house. my siblings (including my sister, to whom he also did long-term emotional damage), cousins, everyone still talks about him like he should be canonized. only one brother will even listen to me and admit that dad wasn't perfect. i guess thats why it took me so long to admit that he did and said some very hurtful and bad things. but its not a betrayal. it's a way to start the healing. thats what my brother says anyway (i'm chicken to go to a t, so i talk to my brother) and i think he's probably right. even though i still feel guilty alot, i also feel a sense of release, like after all these years of carrying this stuff around with me, and stifling the hurt and anger, i'm finally getting it off my chest and allowing myself to feel it. i hope you'll be able to feel that someday. admitting your mom has made mistakes or has hurt you doesn't mean you don't love her...... i still love my dad very much. but i think sometimes we need to air the stuff, to vocalize it, in order to heal the wounds.

i think its probably a big step that you were able to talk to your t about it at all....... hope you're well.......

by the way - rapunzel, excellent posting.......

((((((((( gostryter ))))))))))))

Most parents don't set out to emotionally abuse their children. They have problems themselves. Maybe you have felt responsible for protecting your mom and keeping her secrets. That is often part of it too. Dysfunctional families teach us that we have to not talk about what happens, keep our feelings to ourselves (or change what we feel to match what they say we should feel), and always put ourselves last and take care of others, etc. These are the things that maintain the pattern. If you want to break the pattern, you have to admit what happened and call it what it is. It's not betrayal, even though it feels like it. It is okay to heal. You are not obligated to keep maintaining dysfunctional patterns.

TC,
Rap

(((((((((((((bellaviolet & rap))))))))))))))))))

thank you for sharing your thoughts with me....

leave it to me to post a response and it end up being another aspect of the 'abuse'

......i'm not writing anymore!!!

i don't know how i'm gonna ever really face this...

thank you for trying to help me...

It's really hard stuff. Don't give up though. I hope I haven't said anything that I shouldn't. I've been there too, and I know it's a shock. I still struggle with the fact that my family was really like that, even after knowing that my brother died from this (suicide). That wasn't what anybody wanted to happen, and my family still doesn't realize how those patterns contributed. They aren't bad people. But the damage is still real.