The experience of put downs, criticisms or whatever form emotional abuse takes, not only wears down self-esteem but also impacts the nervous system. Memories of the abuse can elicit negative feelings, tense physical sensations along with negative thoughts about yourself long after the abuse has occurred.
These emotionally abusive behaviors are meant to terrorize and control another person and keep them in the abusive relationship. Living in this constant state of stress or experiencing extremely frightening events, such as being threatened, can lead to symptoms of trauma.
We now understand that emotional abuse can cause a subcategory of the mental health condition PTSD, known as complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD). It's actually one of the most severe forms of PTSD. Emotional abuse can cause both long- and short-term effects on mental (and physical) health.
In fact, according to one study, severe emotional abuse can be as damaging as physical abuse and contribute to depression and low self-esteem. The study also suggested that emotional abuse may contribute to the development of chronic conditions such as fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.
Emotional abuse can lead to C-PTSD, a type of PTSD that involves ongoing trauma. C-PTSD shows many of the same symptoms as PTSD, although its symptoms and causes can differ. Treatment should be tailored to the situation to address the ongoing trauma the person experienced from emotional abuse.
What are the effects of emotional or verbal abuse? Staying in an emotionally or verbally abusive relationship can have long-lasting effects on your physical and mental health, including leading to chronic pain, depression, or anxiety.
Emotional and psychological abuse can have severe short- and long-term effects. This type of abuse can affect both your physical and your mental health. You may experience feelings of confusion, anxiety, shame, guilt, frequent crying, over-compliance, powerlessness, and more.
The feeling of being powerful and in control gives some abusers immense pleasure. Abusers may also derive pleasure from seeing you suffer. Narcissists, psychopaths, and sadists may be drawn to emotional abuse because of the pleasure they take in having power over others or seeing them suffer (Brogaard, 2020).
Because the truth is, abusers — especially narcissists — know exactly what they're doing. And they do it on purpose. Unfortunately, the collective response to someone being abusive is to first err on the side of innocence and make excuses for the abuser, since to consider the alternative is at first unimaginable.
Hypervigilance is often a response to trauma, childhood abuse, assault, or surviving an accident or natural disaster. For those hypervigilant due to abuse, they may be especially vigilant with the needs of others, constantly going out of their way and out of their comfort zone in an attempt to keep them happy.
According to the Mayo Clinic, it is common for victims of domestic violence to at least partially blame themselves for the situation. This is often due to the way that domestic abuse eats away at the person's confidence and self-esteem. They may even blame themselves for what is happening in the relationship.
The 5 cycles of emotional abuse, as listed in Sarakay Smullens' “Five Cycles of Emotional Abuse: Codification and Treatment of an Invisible Malignancy” are enmeshment, extreme overprotection and overindulgence, complete neglect, rage, and rejection/abandonment.
Examples include intimidation, coercion, ridiculing, harassment, treating an adult like a child, isolating an adult from family, friends, or regular activity, use of silence to control behavior, and yelling or swearing which results in mental distress. Signs of emotional abuse.
Emotional abuse may be unintentional, where the person doesn't realize they are hurting someone else, according to Engel. And, “some people are reenacting patterns of being in a relationship that they learn from their parents or their caregivers,” adds Heidi Kar, Ph.
It tends to get worse over time, can turn physical at any moment – even years into the relationship – and, when coupled with progressively more controlling-isolating-coercive-threatening behavior, it can become a lethality risk.
Emotional abuse can be harder to notice as it can be subtle and covert, with many people not realizing they are being emotionally abused at all. An isolated incident doesn't necessarily qualify as abuse, but a pattern of behavior over time usually does.
Long-term effects of emotional abuse may include but aren't limited to PTSD, depression, anxiety, chronic pain, feelings of guilt and shame, and trouble trusting others or entering new relationships.
The cycle of abuse often goes through four main stages: tension, incident, reconciliation, and calm. Abusive behaviors may escalate from cycle to cycle, although this isn't always the case.
Emotional abuse includes non-physical behaviors that are meant to control, isolate, or frighten you. This may present in romantic relationships as threats, insults, constant monitoring, excessive jealousy, manipulation, humiliation, intimidation, dismissiveness, among others.