Emotional abuse is the systematic diminishment of another. It may be intentional or subconscious (or both), but it is always a
course of conduct, not a single event. It is designed to reduce a child's self-concept to the point where the victim considers
himself unworthy--unworthy of respect, unworthy of friendship, unworthy of the natural birthright of all children: love and
protection.
Emotional abuse can be as deliberate as a gunshot: "You're fat. You're stupid. You're ugly."
Emotional abuse can be as random as the fallout from a nuclear explosion. In matrimonial battles, for example, the children all
too often become the battlefield. I remember a young boy, barely into his teens, absently rubbing the fresh scars on his wrists.
"It was the only way to make them all happy," he said. His mother and father were locked in a bitter divorce battle, and each
was demanding total loyalty and commitment from the child.
Emotional abuse can be active. Vicious belittling: "You'll never be the success your brother was." Deliberate humiliation:
"You're so stupid, I'm ashamed you're my son."
It can also be passive, the emotional equivalent of child neglect--a sin of omission, true, but one no less destructive.
And it may be a combination of the two, which increases the negative effects geometrically.
Emotional abuse can be verbal or behavioral, active or passive, frequent or occasional. Regardless, it is often as painful as
physical assault. And, with rare exceptions, the pain lasts much longer. A parent's love is so important to a child that
withholding it can cause a "failure to thrive" condition similar to that of children who have been denied adequate nutrition.
Even the natural solace of siblings is denied to those victims of emotional abuse who have been designated as the family's
"target child." The other children are quick to imitate their parents. Instead of learning the qualities every child will need as an
adult--empathy, nurturing and protectiveness--they learn the viciousness of a pecking order. And so the cycle continues.
But whether as a deliberate target or an innocent bystander, the emotionally abused child inevitably struggles to "explain" the
conduct of his abusers--and ends up struggling for survival in a quicksand of self-blame.
Emotional abuse is both the most pervasive and the least understood form of child maltreatment. Its victims are often
dismissed simply because their wounds are not visible. In an era in which fresh disclosures of unspeakable child abuse are
everyday fare, the pain and torment of those who experienced "only" emotional abuse is often trivialized. We understand and
accept that victims of physical or sexual abuse need both time and specialized treatment to heal. But when it comes to
emotional abuse, we are more likely to believe the victims will "just get over it" when they become adults.
That assumption is dangerously wrong. Emotional abuse scars the heart and damages the soul. Like cancer, it does its most
deadly work internally. And, like cancer, it can metastasize if untreated.
When it comes to damage, there is no real difference between physical, sexual and emotional abuse. All that distinguishes one
from the other is the abuser's choice of weapons. I remember a woman, a grandmother whose abusers had long since died,
telling me that time had not conquered her pain. "It wasn't just the incest," she said quietly. "It was that he didn't love me. If he loved me, he couldn't have done that to me."
But emotional abuse is unique because it is designed to make the victim feel guilty. Emotional abuse is repetitive and
eventually cumulative behavior--very easy to imitate--and some victims later perpetuate the cycle with their own children.
Although most victims courageously reject that response, their lives often are marked by a deep, pervasive sadness, a
severely damaged self- concept and an inability to truly engage and bond with others.
Emotionally abused children grow up with significantly altered perceptions, so that they "see" behaviors--their own and
others'--through a filter of distortion. Many emotionally abused children engage in a lifelong drive for the approval (which they
translate as "love") of others. So eager are they for love--and so convinced that they don't deserve it--that they are prime
candidates for abuse within intimate relationships.
The emotionally abused child can be heard inside every battered woman who insists: "It was my fault, really. I just seem to
provoke him somehow."
And the almost-inevitable failure of adult relationships reinforces that sense of unworthiness, compounding the felony,
reverberating throughout the victim's life.
Emotional abuse conditions the child to expect abuse in later life. Emotional abuse is a time bomb, but its effects are rarely
visible, because the emotionally abused tend to implode, turning the anger against themselves. And when someone is
outwardly successful in most areas of life, who looks within to see the hidden wounds?
Members of a therapy group may range widely in age, social class, ethnicity and occupation, but all display some form of
self-destructive conduct: obesity, drug addiction, anorexia, bulimia, alcoholism, domestic violence, child abuse, attempted
suicide, self-mutilation, depression and fits of rage. What brought them into treatment was their symptoms. But until they
address the one thing they have in common--a childhood of emotional abuse---true recovery is impossible.
One of the goals of any child-protective effort is to "break the cycle" of abuse. We should not delude ourselves that we are
winning this battle simply because so few victims of emotional abuse become abusers themselves. Some emotionally abused
children are programmed to fail so effectively that a part of their own personality "self-parents" by belittling and humiliating
themselves.
The pain does not stop with adulthood. Indeed, for some, it worsens. I remember a young woman, an accomplished
professional, charming and friendly, well-liked by all who knew her. She told me she would never have children. "I'd always
be afraid I would act like THEM," she said.
Unlike other forms of child abuse, emotional abuse is rarely denied by those who practice it. In fact, many actively defend
their psychological brutality, asserting that a childhood of emotional abuse helped their children to "toughen up." It is not
enough for us to renounce the perverted notion that beating children produces good citizens--we must also renounce the lie
that emotional abuse is good for children because it prepares them for a hard life in a tough world. I've met some individuals
who were prepared for a hard life that way--I met them while they were DOING life.
The primary weapon of emotional abusers is the deliberate infliction of guilt. They use guilt the same way a loan shark uses
money: They don't want the "debt" paid off, because they live quite happily on the "interest."
Because emotional abuse comes in so many forms (and so many disguises), recognition is the key to effective response. For
example, when allegations of child sexual abuse surface, it is a particularly hideous form of emotional abuse to pressure the
victim to recant, saying he or she is "hurting the family" by telling the truth. And precisely the same holds true when a child is
pressured to sustain a lie by a "loving" parent.
Emotional abuse requires no physical conduct whatsoever. In one extraordinary case, a jury in Florida recognized the lethal
potential of emotional abuse by finding a mother guilty of child abuse in connection with the suicide of her 17-year-old
daughter, whom she had forced to work as a nude dancer (and had lived off her earnings).
Another rarely understood form of emotional abuse makes victims responsible for their own abuse by demanding that they
"understand" the perpetrator. Telling a 12-year-old girl that she was an "enabler" of her own incest is emotional abuse at its
most repulsive.
A particularly pernicious myth is that "healing requires forgiveness" of the abuser. For the victim of emotional abuse, the most
viable form of help is SELF-help--and a victim handicapped by the need to "forgive" the abuser is a handicapped helper
indeed. The most damaging mistake an emotional-abuse victim can make is to invest in the "rehabilitation" of the abuser. Too
often this becomes still another wish that didn't come true--and emotionally abused children will conclude that they deserve
no better result.
The costs of emotional abuse cannot be measured by visible scars, but each victim loses some percentage of capacity. And
that capacity remains lost so long as the victim is stuck in the cycle of "understanding" and "forgiveness." The abuser has no
"right" to forgiveness--such blessings can only be earned. And although the damage was done with words, true forgiveness
can only be earned with deeds.
For those with an idealized notion of "family," the task of refusing to accept the blame for their own victimization is even more
difficult. For such searchers, the key to freedom is always truth--the real truth, not the distorted, self-serving version served
up by the abuser.
Emotional abuse threatens to become a national illness. The popularity of nasty, mean-spirited, personal-attack cruelty that
passes for "entertainment" is but one example. If society is in the midst of moral and spiritual erosion, a "family" bedrocked on
the emotional abuse of its children will not hold the line. And the tide shows no immediate signs of turning.
Effective treatment of emotional abusers depends on the motivation for the original conduct, insight into the roots of such
conduct and the genuine desire to alter that conduct. For some abusers, seeing what they are doing to their child--or, better
yet, FEELING what they forced their child to feel--is enough to make them halt. Other abusers need help with strategies to
deal with their own stress so that it doesn't overload onto their children.
But for some emotional abusers, rehabilitation is not possible. For such people, manipulation is a way of life. They coldly and
deliberately set up a "family" system in which the child can never manage to "earn" the parent's love. In such situations, any
emphasis on "healing the whole family" is doomed to failure.
If you are a victim of emotional abuse, there can be no self-help until you learn to SELF-REFERENCE. That means
developing your own standards, deciding for yourself what "goodness" really is. Adopting the abuser's calculated
labels--"You're crazy. You're ungrateful. It didn't happen the way you say"--only continues the cycle.
Adult survivors of emotional child abuse have only two life-choices: learn to self-reference or remain a victim. When your
self-concept has been shredded, when you have been deeply injured and made to feel the injury was all your fault, when you
look for approval to those who can not or will not provide it--you play the role assigned to you by your abusers.
It's time to stop playing that role, time to write your own script. Victims of emotional abuse carry the cure in their own hearts
and souls. Salvation means learning self-respect, earning the respect of others and making that respect the absolutely
irreducible minimum requirement for all intimate relationships. For the emotionally abused child, healing does come down to
"forgiveness"--forgiving yourself.
How you forgive yourself is as individual as you are. But knowing you deserve to be loved and respected and empowering
yourself with a commitment to try is half the battle. Much more.
And it is never too soon--or too late--to start.
JanG