EMOTIONAL ABUSE: I SEE MYSELF
This commentary was published in The Fargo Forum on Sunday December 2, 2007.
My wife and I spoke about emotional abuse to approximately 85 students at the North Dakota State College of Science recently.
Millions of women (and some men) live with repeated verbal assaults, humiliation, sexual coercion, and other forms of psychological abuse, often accompanied by economic exploitation. I’ve worked in organizations for 40 years as a leader and consultant, and I’ve never been in an organization that didn’t have abuse as part of its dark side.
Yet few of the students had heard the term “emotional abuse.” It remains one of a community’s dirty, dark secrets. The community needs to illuminate its shadows.
We defined emotional abuse as the chronic use of words and acts (including body language) that devalue and frighten another person for the purpose of control. Emotional abusers rule the lives of victims through the power of words and actions and the constant implicit threat of physical assault.
Consummate name-callers, abusers criticize constantly—nothing is ever good enough. They yell, scream, and drive the victim’s friends away to isolate her. They eavesdrop on phone conversations, censor mail, and expect instant responses to pages, cell phone calls, and instant messages. They control with lies, confusion, and contradictions; they make a person feel crazy. One abuser said to a victim: “I had to keep you down. I was afraid you would outshine me.”
Victims of emotional abuse live in fear and repeatedly alter thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to avoid further abuse. They lose themselves. Emotional abuse, like brain washing, systematically wears away at the victim’s self-confidence, sense of self-worth, and trust in their own perceptions. Whether abused by constant berating and belittling, by intimidation, or under the guise of “guidance, teaching, or advice,” the results remain the same: the victim of the abuse loses all sense of self and lives in confusion. The scars of emotional abuse may be far deeper and more lasting than physical wounds.
After our presentation, a man talked to me. He said, “I see myself in the traits of abusers.” What did he see?
Abusers tend to have explosive tempers triggered by minor frustrations and arguments when their egos are threatened,
They are possessive and jealous: “I own you. Where were you? Who were you with? What did you do?”
Abusers tend to think too highly of themselves: arrogant, entitled, superior, and selfish—everything is always about them, and they always come first.
Abusers have a great capacity for self-deception: they play the victim, always have an excuse and deniability for their acts. They blame others for what goes wrong in their lives. They deny and distort their behavior and cannot give an accurate picture of themselves or of their partner.
They manipulate: they lie always, can be charming in public, and can convince others of their innocence--family, friends, judges, and lawyers get fooled by them everyday—you must look at their behavior over time to see their patterns.
Emotional abusers learn their behavior, and the man who could see himself in the traits of the abuser spoke for many men who have learned to abuse their power to control others in brutal ways—at home, at work, and in the community.
The rest of us—too often indifferent—need to stand up for our mothers, daughters, sisters, neighbors, co-workers, and friends who are victims and hold abusers accountable for their behavior; they victimize each of us. We must take sides. Neutrality helps only the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the abuser, never the innocent. Indifference to disrespect is a community’s greatest sin.
Young women must be educated about the dynamics of emotional abuse so they can avoid the suffering abusers inflict. Men must be encouraged to stand up to their peers who abuse others and those men who see themselves in the traits of abusers must be directed to resources that can help them change destructive patterns of behavior with women.
(Heuerman is a former Secret Service agent, senior executive at the Star Tribune newspaper, and organizational consultant.)
posted by Tom @ 2:37 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
The sad thing is children learn this behavior and turn into the "bullies" of the school systems. My youngest son was on the receiving end of abuse starting in the 6th grade and regardless of the meetings and phone calls I initiated, it was hopeless. The administrations seemed concerned and established anti-bully policies but were unable/unwilling to follow through. When my son tried to defend himself, he received the same punishment as the bully. He learned to stuff his frustration and interalized his emotions. I have a challenge in getting him to open up to me to talk about what's on his mind, beyond the banter at the dinner table.
This is one of many areas of concern I have with the public school system.
This is a very intelligent and articulate observation on the dynamics of and logistics around emotional abuse.
As founder and director of one of the few organizations devoted specifically to the identification and support of victims and survivors of emotional abuse, I'd like to add that abuse is not gender-determined. There are men who are victimized and women who are offenders, as well as the other way around. I know. My mother was an abuser. She was my first abuser; she abused everyone in my family. We were all emotionally battered, and all emotionally wounded, and all emotionally scarred by her abuse. ------- I am recovering. During my recovery process I began to be able to recognize and help others, and have been doing so now for two years. I founded HEAL: Healing Emotionally Abused Lives. Right now, we have many participants throughout Connecticut, and will be nationwide in a couple of years. You can find us at www.emotionalheal.org, or by calling 203-305-2137. Thank you for the great essay and the spotlight on emotional abuse.
Ilene Wolf, M.S.
Dir., HEAL
I just left an emotionally abusive, 12 year marriage. I'm lucky because I have a good career and friends/family who saw through my husband's lying, and I had the finances to flee and leave all of my possessions behind. (My husband's family and friends think I'm completely crazy and lying about him). If you leave, let people know. There is power in the truth. My employer and former employer rallied behind me, and my new little, empty rental house is fully furnished, complete with towels, cleaning supplies - everything - in only four days! You need the help of many people to get this done. And, it feels great to let the dark 'secret' out - like I'm deflating his main weapon - the fact that no one knew.
What amazed me most was the number of women who have been through this. A terribly sad commentary of our women's 'liberated' culture.
I've used the word 'brainwashing' many times when describing our relationship. My children, thankfully, were the anchor of my sanity. Through them, the thoughts I chalked up to losing my mind, were validated by the situations they described as children. It wasn't until we were all away for a week that I learned the extent of my husband's abuse had been directed to my children! I listened in horror that I had allowed this to happen, and continue to apologize. While his abuse was covert to me, it was overt to the children, whose ages range from 23 to 13. We weren't allowed to speak in the house about him, and when work took him out of town we were just relieved he was gone, and lived freely. For some reason, it never occurred to any of this to use this time for talking about such an obvious situation. Occasionally we sometimes whispered about the more serious issues, but it was always tense - if we heard his footsteps our conversation ended abruptly. We were all scared.
I'm writing to address the sinister nature of abusers who do nothing illegal or outwardly immoral with their methods of abuse. Rolling his eyes, sighing, silent treatments, jealousy, spending too much money, and lying are difficult things to prove in court or for no contact orders. Everything from how I dressed in the morning, to what kind of mood I was when I came home (too happy, medium happy, quiet, sad) were all contrived to keep him content. My children were severely depressed and I couldn't figure out why! The hell we paid were his sulking and silence, and angry outbursts.
Strangely, I hid knives all about the house for years, fearing he would some day attack me. And yet, the concious part of me ignored this strange behavior and I went about my regular routine. In a real sense I became two people, which I think is also an under-reported trait of the abused. On the way home to and from work I cried (for no reason) and when I got home I was fine. I began to be terrified of my husband, even though he never made a direct threat or hit me. It was as if my subconcious was screaming to my concious mind to defend myself, but for years I didn't listen, because the effect of abuse is to destroy intuition in the abused.
Threats were insinuated, such as "I planned to kill my ex wife" then he would later tell me how he reminded me of her. He put his hands around my neck since he said my neck looked sore by the way I sat. (In 12 years I only had one back massage from him.)
The recovery takes a lot of self work, which may be why many women return to their abusive husbands - it's routine. Journaling helps a great deal, since I have many many discoveries about the consistency of his lying (trying to make himself look good to impress others), and how many lies were present even on our first date. Counseling is effective, but the greatest tool has been the validation of my children's experiences. Without that I would have thought this was all in my head.
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