Emotional Abuse

As far as my research goes, there is no universally accepted definition of the term emotional abuse. And why not?

My guesses are:

• "Emotional" is harder to define on its own when viewed in comparison with other words like "physical", "verbal", and "child", to name a few. Physical is obviously anything relating to the body - so physical abuse is maltreatment of another person's body. Verbal simply means speech - so a verbally-abused person was attacked with harmful spoken words. But emotional? That's harder to pinpoint. After all, the way human beings experience emotions vary in intensity across the board, so maybe what I might feel is abusive towards my emotions might not be so offensive to you.
• Emotional abuse is still a sensitive subject in our society, almost taboo to discuss. It gets the least attention, most people don't really understand it, and most people underestimate its damage potential. Very few people come forward publicly declaring their experience with emotional abuse, which leaves a limited pool of samples for psychologists to study.

I've targeted my blog towards emotional abuse specifically because there's close to nothing out there in terms in personal experiences, and because I know firsthand that it's real. I don't mean to discredit physical, sexual, verbal abuse, etc. here, those experiences and opinions from those viewpoints are welcome, too - but my emphasis will be on emotional abuse. What I've learned as I began to research the subject is that emotional abuse seems to be the only type that umbrellas all of the rest. It's usually the case that a victim of physical abuse, sexual abuse, and the rest was also a victim of emotional abuse by the same abuser.

From www.deal.org, the clearest definition that I got was:

"Emotional abuse is commonly defined as the systematic tearing down of another human being. Like most forms of violence, emotional abuse is based on power and control over another person. It is probably the least understood of abuses, although it is the most prevalent and most destructive. The victim comes to see him or herself as unworthy of love, affection and respect. "

Some of the hallmarks of emotional abuse include:

-Rejecting: refusing to acknowledge a person's presence, value or worth
-Degrading: insulting, ridiculing, name-calling, imitating, yelling, swearing, publicly humiliating, and labelling a person as stupid
-Ignoring
-Terrorizing: inducing terror or fear in a person, coercing by intimidation, threatening, stalking
-Isolating: physical confinement, limiting freedom, restricting normal contact with other people
-Corrupting/Exploiting: forcing someone to accept ideas and behaviours, using someone for profit

-Bullying

By this definition, it would seem like emotional abuse is so prevalent in our society that it's nothing to cry about anymore. Teachers get away with abusing their elementary school students everyday, employers berate their minions, relatives assault you and your family with snide comments at Thanksgiving dinner and by Tuesday the reunion's over until the next dreaded holiday...right?

Yes, I think emotional abuse is everywhere these days, all over the scale from mild to debilitating level. But one of the words I chose to hilight in the definition was "systematic". Emotional abuse, when it's at its most damaging, is constant and consistent by the abuser. That is the kind of abuse that robs countless numbers of people of a happy, normal functional existence in society daily.

If you're not really sold on the truth yet, try to find just one person you know who hasn't gone through any of the above.