Sticks and stones -- break your bones; but words CAN REALLY hurt you

by Gopher 15 Replies latest social current

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  Maverick

  I have always thought that emotional harm and pain could be just as, if not more, detrimental as physical injury. At least with physical damage, you can see whether or not the injury is healing. Emotional injuries are much harder to gage. I have found from reading other people's posts on this board, emotional wounds I thought had healed came back with a pain nearly as great as when they were inflicted on me orginally! I wonder how much of our behavior and personalities are affected by the open sores in our hearts? Maverick
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  Gopher

  emotional harm and pain could be just as, if not more, detrimental as physical injury.

  Exactly right, Maverick. There's an old saying "time heals all wounds". Well, not really. Sometimes time isn't enough.
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  blondie

  Actually what gets broken here is trust which is hard to rebuild. It takes proof that the person has really changed which takes time and a real changeover in personality of the offender. If trust has ben given and broken more than once, it may never be rebuilt.

  Blondie
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  Loris

  I used to say that sometimes I wished that my ex would have hit me. It seemed that the barrage of verbal abuse went deeper and hurt much longer than a punch would have. It seems like the pain of the words lasts forever. It is good to know that emotional abuse is just as damaging. It puts a clinical spin on an old intuition. Thanks for posting this. I did not see the other posts. I can now show this to a friend who is in a relationship that is emotionally abusive. She is in the trap of 'It can't be all bad. He doesn't beat me'

  Loris
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  Gopher

  Lori,

  It is so true that you can overcome a bruise faster than you might overcome hurtful, demeaning behavior directed at you.

  Maybe your friend will see that IT IS that bad and that life is too short to spin your wheels in an emotionally damaging relationship.
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  simplesally

  I can see why it was posted so many times. Words hurt. Emotional scars effect some of us daily or come up at unexpected times whereas physical scars leave little remembrance of the pain associated with the hurt. Oftentimes you forget about the physical injury until you look at the scar or someone notices it.
  
  I know that when my daughter starts growing up, I hope I handle the name calling days better than giving her a little rhyme to chant.