What keeps abuse victims in the abusive relationships that oppress them so severely?
Confusion: Why has this happened? I must have caused it.
Helplessness: How do I get out? There’s no way out so I must deserve to stay.
Loneliness: No one will ever understand because surely this has never happened to anyone but me. I’m all alone. It’s my shameful secret.
Shame: I can’t tell people how I’m being treated; it’s embarrassing, shameful; something must be wrong with me….
Many of us, especially women, have probably seen at least one Lifetime movie and they’re almost all centered around a single female who’s usually suffered prior emotional abuse in a previous relationship, who meets “Prince Charming” and he turns out to be even worse than the husband she’s recovering from. The stories are often a bit contrived and always predictable, but there is some value in them. There’s truth in the manipulation that occurs in movies of this genre.
It’s been quite awhile since I’ve indulged in a Lifetime movie. They’re hard to watch now. I see myself in them in the corners of the details of these women’s lives. This particular movie “Intimate Stranger”, was about a divorced, single mother who has a very jealous ex-husband. After years of devoting herself to work and her son, she meets a kind, handsome, dashing man who sweeps her off her feet…
Last week, I touched on emotional abuse and pointed you to an article for more information. As I mentioned, verbal and emotional abuse are often erroneously categorized as “not real abuse.” Friends, it’s real. The words are real. The pain from being the target of lies, manipulation, and verbal battering is real.
It’s usually quite subtle at first. It might be a backhanded comment. You know the kind: “Those jeans don’t make you look too fat” or “at least dinner isn’t burnt this time.” Thanks? You’re left a little confused: was that a compliment or an insult? There’s usually a dig in every comment, a veiled threat or insult. The self doubt starts to set in…
If someone you love–including yourself–is being emotionally abused, you’ll find it mirrored here:
Abuse comes in several forms: emotional, physical, sexual, verbal. Often emotional and verbal abuse get erroneously played down. People sometimes falsely assume that it can’t be “that bad” and isn’t dangerous, but that couldn’t be more wrong. Emotional abuse is dangerous and it’s just as damaging as physical abuse. When I was in an emotionally abusive marriage, the words hurt more than any punch I could have suffered. In fact,
I remember saying at one point “I’d rather you’d just hit me. It’d hurt less.”