What makes emotional abuse so hard to identify, is its covert nature. It can often be misinterpreted as joking and often the perpetrator, when confronted, tells the victim they’re just being “too sensitive”. To understand emotional abuse, one must know what it means.
What is emotional abuse?
Emotional abuse is using emotions in a way to control someone else, undermining their feeling of independence and self-worth. These can be shaming, blaming, degrading, embarrassing, and other manipulative tactics. An emotionally abusive relationship also ends up tearing down your self-esteem, due to the constant criticizing.
People tend to think emotionally abusive relationships happen more often in a romantic context, but this is not always the case. Any relationship can be emotionally abusive, from friendships to coworkers or even between family members.
Someone who experiences emotional abuse is, more often than not, unaware of it. Like I mentioned before, it has a very covert nature, meaning that it is done in a very subtle way. Often the person inflicting the abuse will be very charming to others outside of the relationship, or when other people are present. This can make you feel like no one believes you when you try to tell someone what is going on behind closed doors. You can even start to question your own perceptions, doubting yourself.
Even though you can’t see it the way you see physical abuse, emotional abuse can be just as damaging and destructive. It often goes hand in hand with other kinds of abuse, such as financial, sexual, or physical. Regardless of whether it happens on its own or is accompanied by other types of abuse, emotional abuse is still a form of abuse and just as serious as any other kind!