All abusive relations are not of the same type. An abusive relationship does not mean only physical abuse and bruises on the body; instead, abuse could be verbal. A verbal abuse might not show a visible mark. But, it always leaves a long-term blemish effect on the mind-destroying the person from within. These kinds of abusive marks are difficult to understand and to talk about for the victim.
A person who has been a victim of mental or verbal abuse might show some signs through their behavior as it changes with time. They tend to become more quiet, isolated, and in a more controlled manner. This emotional abuse could be in the form of threats, actions, or statements that could have a set pattern or a regularity in the behavior. At times it’s easier to detect abusive signs in others but difficult to recognize if it’s happening with yourself.
How Do You Recognize the Signs of Emotional Abuse?
Calling Names: Rather than calling you by your name, they call “idiot” or “a loser” or by words which is awful to hear.
Yelling: Screaming, yelling, and shouting are done to provoke you and make you feel small and disgusted.
Publicly Embarrassing: Purposely, they pick fights on you, expose you to personal talks or secrets so that they can use it to make fun of you.
Character Assassination: They would try to show you degrading by saying things like you are always late, you spoil things a lot, you mess up everything, you can’t do one thing properly, etc.
Making Fun of Your Appearance: They very well know that you are stepping out for something special, and they would comment on your hair, on your dressing sense to intimidate you.
Some Unrealistic Signs of Emotional Abuse
- They try to make unrealistic demands from you despite knowing that it is out of your reach.
- They expect you to give them the highest value, keep everything aside, and fulfill their needs first.
- Instead of explaining, they like criticizing you for your mistakes or not completing a given task as per their standards.
- Expecting you to remember all the particulars like date and time about things when you were upset about.
- They play with your mind by showing their dissatisfaction no matter how hard you try to do things as per them.
Emotional abuse is a way to control the other person. They can use emotions like embarrassing, criticizing, blaming and shaming publicly, and manipulating. Any such kind of words or statements that would break a person’s self-esteem and hit their mental health is a part of emotional abuse. This is most commonly witnessed in a married relationship or dating. However, it can also happen in any kind of relationship, which could be in friendship, family relatives, parents, or co-workers.
When to Step Out?
If you want to come out of an abusive relationship but don’t know when is the right time, then start comparing it with your other relationship or previous relationship. And ask yourself what do you want in the future. Look around at different relationships and see if you have those things missing in yours, and that’s when you realize that you have to step out of it now.
