The Emotionally Abusive Relationship_How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing

by Beverly Engel

  Other people who have become abusive compare themselves with others and end up feeling superior. This gives them permission to mistreat and disrespect others, particularly their partner.

  The next time you find yourself comparing yourself with someone, try telling yourself that he or she is just different from you, without placing a judgment value on how she is different. Even if the other person seems to have more than you do or is more accomplished, remind yourself that it doesn't mean she is better than you are or has more worth than you. In fact, many people probably admire you for your attributes. Bolster your own self-esteem by turning your attention to your own good qualities. Also, realize that when we envy someone we are usually seeing an incomplete picture. While this person may seem to have it all, no one has everything. In the end it does all balance out. Instead of envying what others have, decide what you want out of life and focus on achieving it.

  5. Accept that you and others are both good and bad. Some who were emotionally abused in childhood tried to become all good in an attempt to win their parents' approval and love. Even though this probably didn't work very well, it may have helped them escape the radar screen of their parents' criticism or abuse. As adults, they continued doing what they were told and not making waves in the belief that this is the way to avoid abuse. Unfortunately, for many, their "good girl" or "good boy" act may have actually set them up for abuse as adults. Others who were abused as a child came to believe that they were all bad-as their parents led them to believe. Since they felt it was hopeless to try to be good, they chose to become like their abusers.

  Whether you view yourself as all good or all bad, in order to raise your self-esteem and break the cycle of abuse, you must come to understand that we all have both good qualities and bad qualities. No one is a total failure, and no one is a total success. Gently but firmly stop expecting perfection from yourself and others.

  6. Begin to nurture yourself. Those who were neglected and abused as children did not receive the nurturing they needed in order to grow up with high self-esteem. Some grew up expecting their romantic partners to give them the nurturing they hungered for, only to be disappointed. But our partners are not our parents, no matter how much we try to make them into parents. No one can make up for the deprivation you experienced, and no one should be expected to. You are the only one who can give yourself the nurturing you need. The more you nurture yourself, the more you will be healed from the devastating damage caused by the emotional abuse to your mind, body, and spirit. Caring for yourself and treating yourself with tenderness will contribute greatly to your positive feelings about yourself and will in turn help raise your self-esteem.

  Continue to Identify and Honor Your Feelings

  A major part of the damage caused by childhood abuse of any kind is that it causes us to disown our emotions, to push them down until we are no longer aware of them or have lost control of them. Many survivors of childhood abuse live in a state of emotional bankruptcy, "sleepwalking" through life and depriving themselves of any emotionality. Even those who become emotional volcanoes-spewing out their pain and anger at everyone in their path-are often numb to their real feelings of pain, fear, and shame.

  By splitting off from your emotional and physical feelings, you may manage to avoid a great deal of pain, but you do so at a great price. You can't cut off your feelings of pain, fear, shame, and anger without also sacrificing your ability to feel such emotions as joy and love. And without access to your emotions, there is a major part of yourself that is hidden from you. This lack of awareness has been one of the factors that has contributed to your either becoming abusive or to your being abused.

  An effective way to reclaim all your emotions (pain, anger, fear, guilt, shame, joy, and love) is to begin to pay close attention to your body. Your body experiences a different set of physical sensations for every emotion that you experience. For example, when you are angry, your shoulders may tighten and you may clench your jaw. When you are frightened, you may lift your shoulders and your stomach may tighten or feel all jittery inside. When you feel ashamed, you may feel as if a heavy burden has been placed on your shoulders. Paying close attention to the way your body reacts to emotions will be a major step in reclaiming an important part of yourself.

  Both abusers and survivors need to continue to find constructive ways of releasing their anger-the survivor so that he or she will not continue to swallow his or her anger and turn it on himself or herself, the abuser so he or she will not continue to take his or her anger out on his or her partner. Refer to chapter 6 for specific strategies for coping with and releasing anger in constructive ways.

  Strategies for the Abused Partner

  Those who have been emotionally abused will suffer from many battle scars, even though these scars may be invisible to the human eye. The long-term effects of emotional abuse can include:

  •A distrust in your perceptions

  •A tendency to be fearful or on guard

  •Self-consciousness or fear of how you are coming across

  •An inability to be spontaneous

  •A distrust of people and in future relationships

  •Anger that bursts out unexpectedly

  •Sensitivity to anyone trying to control you

  Once you are no longer being continually damaged by emotional abuse, many of these long-term effects will diminish in time. Your trust in your perceptions and your spontaneity will gradually return and your tendency to be on guard and self-consciousness will fade. But you will find that your trust in others will not return as readily. If you have chosen to stay with your partner, it may take quite some time before you are able to trust that she will not resume her abusive ways. If you have ended an abusive relationship, it will take quite some time before you are able to trust another person.

  This distrust is actually a very healthy reaction. Just because your partner has admitted he has been abusive and has been working on the issues that caused his behavior does not mean that he will not sometimes backslide and return to his old ways of coping. And if you have ended an emotionally abusive relationship, the last thing you need to do is to begin a new relationship right away. Instead, you need to work on your own issues to make sure you don't choose an abusive partner once again. When you do begin to date again, you need to take it slow and get to know the person before getting involved. Allow your distrust to act as a reminder of what you have endured and a warning against making the same mistakes again.

  It will also take some time before your anger subsides. Although it can be quite disconcerting to have anger burst out of you unexpectedly, this symptom of emotional abuse is quite natural and actually quite healing. You stored up a lot of anger all those months or years that you were being emotionally abused, and all that repressed and suppressed anger now needs to come out of you. You will need to find appropriate ways to release your anger such as writing a letter to your abusers that you may or may not choose to send, yelling into a pillow, or stomping on aluminum cans. You'll find that if someone tries to control you or if someone (including your current partner) begins to emotionally abuse you in any of the ways we've discussed in this book, your anger will be especially powerful. Instead of being embarrassed or concerned about your anger, begin to view it as a powerful affirmation that you will no longer tolerate such behavior from others.

  Your anger can motivate you to take better care of yourself, to pursue goals and dreams you put aside or came to believe you were incapable of. If you can channel your righteous anger, it can inspire you to help other victims of abuse or to ensure that your own children are never abused. If, on the other hand, you use your anger to punish your partner or potential partners or if you turn it against yourself instead of releasing it in positive ways, your anger can destroy you.

  If you've chosen to stay with your partner, and he has apologized for past abuse and has stopped abusing you currently, it is unfair to continue punishing him. If you've ended your relationship, other men or women who app
roach you or date you are not responsible for what your previous partner did and therefore don't deserve your anger. If you find that you have difficulty separating the present from the past or if the acting out of your anger is becoming dangerous to yourself or others, I recommend you seek professional help.

  Give Yourself Permission to Feel

  All through the recovery process as a survivor of emotional abuse, you will need to focus on identifying, trusting, and expressing your feelings. This is especially important because victims of emotional abuse are often told that they are overly sensitive or that their reactions and feelings are inappropriate. The emotions survivors will undoubtedly feel as a result of the abuse include:

  •Shame-at not being loved, at having accepted humiliation, at what you have submitted to and undergone.

  •Fear-when someone reminds you of a past abuser, when you catch yourself being abusive, when you enter a new relationship.

  •Grief-concerning the loss of identity and self-esteem, concerning the loss of love you once felt toward your partner, the amount of time lost in an abusive relationship, or at the realization that you were not loved.

  •Anger-at the abuser for damaging your self-esteem and for making you doubt your perceptions; anger at your original abuser for modeling abusive relationships, for causing you to have such low self-esteem, for setting you up for further abuse.

  Self-Care

  Many people stay stuck in the past because they refuse to let go and move on. They desperately want to get what they didn't get as a child, and they keep searching for someone to be the good parent they long for. But no one else can fill up the empty spaces inside you, and no one can make up for what you missed as a child. You will now need to give to yourself what you missed-you will need to become your own "good enough" parent.

  You began this work by following my suggestions on how to raise your self-esteem. The following suggestions will help you still further in the process. Self-care includes:

  •Putting your own needs first at times

  •Valuing and respecting yourself, including your feelings and your needs

  •Praising yourself

  •Nurturing yourself (e.g., give yourself the gift of a massage or manicure as often as possible)

  Asking for what you want and saying no to what you don't want

  •Recognizing that you have choices and rights

  •Expressing your feelings, needs, and opinions

  EXERCISE: Your Childhood Wish List

  1.List all the things you wish you had received in childhood but did not. This list tells you the things that you now need to do for yourself.

  2.Begin today to meet some of these needs. When you have successfully met one, cross it off your list and focus on the next item. Don't get overwhelmed and feel that you have to do everything on the list at once. Take your time and relish the little steps-whether you're able to cross one item off the list a week or one item a month, you're starting to take care of your own needs, and that's what matters most.

  Becoming your own good parent, giving yourself the nurturing and caring that you are still so much in need of, is an important part of completing your unfinished business. Once you have done so you will feel less resentful of those in your childhood who deprived or abused you, and you will be less needy and dependent in your relationships.

  Recovery for the Abusive Partner

  You, too, will need to begin to identify and honor your feelings. While anger, pain, fear, and grief are all important emotions for you to focus on, next to anger, shame is probably the emotion you need to work on the most. Because you were likely rejected and criticized as a child and blamed for whatever went wrong in your family, you developed a great deal of personal shame. Those who were heavily shamed as children react by building a wall or defense system that is so strong that the feelings or reactions of others cannot get through. This wall or defense system is the primary reason many people who become emotionally abusive do not have empathy for others. It's almost as if they cannot afford to pay attention to the feelings of others because there is such potential for them to become overwhelmed with shame when they do.

  Part of your unfinished business is to begin to put the unhealthy shame and blame where it belongs-on your original abusers instead of on people in your current life, most particularly your mate. The next time you have a shame attack because someone criticized you, made fun of you, questioned your choices, or blamed you for doing something you didn't do, instead of turning around and putting your shame on those closest to you, connect your shame with how you felt as a child and remember who it was that made you feel that way. Then find constructive ways to express your righteous anger toward those who deserve it.

  Stop Taking Things So Personally

  Partly due to the tremendous amount of criticism you likely experienced as child, you are probably hypersensitive when it comes to criticism and judgments from others. If your partner merely makes a suggestion that you should buy some new clothes you may interpret it as her saying that you are a slob. If she makes a comment about how tired you look, instead of hearing it as an expression of concern, you may hear it as her telling you you look old.

  If you continue to assume that every innocent comment means that there is something wrong with you or that you are being criticized, you will either continue to adamantly defend yourself against a nonexistent attack (and become abusive in the process) or to continue to feel completely worthless. Try taking things at face value instead of assuming that there is hidden meaning in every comment. If someone says something that causes you to doubt yourself or to doubt her intention, ask her to clarify what she meant.

  Face Your Fears

  Instead of covering up your fear of abandonment or rejection with bravado or with attacks, begin to acknowledge your fears. Everyone experiences fear-it is a very human quality. Pretending you are not afraid only serves to disconnect you from your true self.

  Stop Mind Reading

  Since you feel so convinced that you are inadequate, flawed, worthless, or bad, you probably assume that others view you in the same way. This belief can cause you to have a tendency to mind read-to assume you know what others are thinking. The truth is, your partner and others probably don't perceive you as half as inadequate or flawed as you do. In fact, you've probably been able to fool them quite well with your bravado and the false mask of confidence you project. And the truth is, your partner is probably far more loving and patient with you than you are with yourself.

  Judging you is not the foremost priority on everyone else's mind. In fact, in most cases, when you are assuming that others are thinking bad thoughts about you, they are probably not thinking about you at all. If you have been abusive to your partner, believe me, she is far too busy trying to survive and to avoid your wrath to focus on judging you. And others are far too busy with their own lives.

  For Both PartnersFinding the Right Therapist

  Throughout the book I've encouraged you to seek professional help, whether you are an abusive partner or the partner who has been abused. The following information will help you to find the right kind of help for your particular needs.

  I recommend that you be very clear from the very beginning (even with your first phone call) that you would like to work with someone who is familiar with the effects of emotional abuse and has experience working with those who were emotionally abused as a child. Depending upon your personal history, you may also want to ask if the therapist has experience working with others types of childhood abuse, including physical and sexual abuse. If you have been the victim of adult emotional abuse, tell the therapist this and ask if he or she has worked with other survivors. If you have been the abusive partner, ask if the therapist has experience working with abusers. A competent therapist should have no problems answering your questions and providing you with his or her qualifications.

  If you believe you might be suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder or Narcissistic Personality Disorder, I rec
ommend that you ask potential therapists if they have experience treating these disorders. It requires special training and education to work with these disorders effectively, and there are several recommended treatment modalities that work most effectively. The most effective short-term treatment is called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or Dialectic Behavior Therapy (DBT). To locate a clinician who specializes in DBT, contact the following for referrals:

  •Behavioral Technology Transfer Group, (206) 675-8558

  •For long-term intrapsychic psychotherapy nationwide, contact The Masterson Institute for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, (212) 935-1414

  As you continue to recover from the wounds of your emotionally abusive childhood, you will discover the great joy of having overcome one of the most difficult obstacles to achieving a healthy relationship. If you are fortunate enough to travel this road with your partner, the two of you can be each other's greatest allies. If you travel the road alone, you'll find that your next relationship will be far healthier than your previous ones. Although recovery will be an ongoing process, this does not mean that you won't be rewarded for your efforts all along the way.

  Today I can proudly say that I am no longer an emotional abuser nor am I a victim, and I consider this to be one of my greatest accomplishments. I am certain that if you continue the recovery process, someday you can say the same thing.

  I would appreciate hearing how this book has affected you. I am also available for lectures and workshops. You can e-mail me at Beverly@beverlyengel.com or write to P.O.Box 6412, Los Osos, CA, 93412-6412.

  Unattributed quotes are from interviews conducted by the author.

  CHAPTER 2: PATTERNS OF ABUSE

  Patricia Evans, The Verbally Abusive Relationship (Avon, Mass.: Adams Media, 1992).

  Susan Forward, Emotional Blackmail (New York: HarperCollins, 1998).

  CHAPTER 4: PATTERNS THAT BEGIN IN CHILDHOOD