Not all abuse leaves a bruise - Speak Out!

This post is part of the Speak Out campaign, aiming to raise awareness of, and encourage women to speak out against, domestic violence/abuse. 

For this post, I wanted to write about my psychological abuse.  I wanted to tell you what I experienced, specifically, so that you could recognise it in your lives, if it happened.

It is easy enough to find examples of emotional abuse by asking Professor Google.  (In fact, I found an excellent discussion paper on the subject and have reproduced a section of it here.  I really would encourage you to read it.)

Yet, as I tried to describe what happened to me, I found myself going round and round in circles.  I would scribble down a sentence, cross it out, then start again.  My handwriting became more and more illegible - chicken scratchings in the dust.  This really was a reflection of what the abuse felt like.  A slow spiral into insanity.

It is really hard for me to pinpoint the actual behaviours that constituted the abuse.  There were so many little things that in and of themselves, seemed to mean nothing.  Yet, put them all together, over a period of eighteen years, and you can see a continuous effort to undermine my sense of self, my judgement, my dreams and my values.

When we became parents, this became more pronounced and my sense of unease grew steadily.  It wasn't so much what he did, but what he didn't do, what he withheld.  There was less and less emotional support, communication and honesty.  It no longer felt like a partnership.  He would pretend to listen, he would say what needed to be said and then he'd proceed to do whatever the hell he wanted.

And then there was the way he talked to me and talked about me to others that created a perception that I was mentally unstable and needed to be supported by him and couldn't possibly get by without him.

When the lies began surfacing, I seriously doubted my sanity.  And they kept coming and kept being uncovered.  This lasted around 18 months.  It was an agonising time of not knowing what was real and what wasn't.

Why?  Because nothing made sense.  Things seemed to be one thing, but were another.  The web of lies went back for God knows how many years.  What I thought was my reality, turned out to be nothing but a carefully manufactured facade.

I found it telling that, shortly after we separated, three totally unrelated people mentioned the words "emotional abuse" to me within the space of about two weeks.  My GP, my social worker and my meditation teacher.  It was almost as if I carried an aura of it around me.

I denied it.  If anything, I felt I was the one doing all the things on the lists given to me.  It took those 18 months for me to see the truth.  My truth.

My truth was that the man I married wasn't who I thought he was.  He had built up a persona, using my vulnerabilities, my hidden damage to give me what I wanted.  So that I saw what I wanted to see and what he wanted me to see.

You might think - "Surely, no-one is that clever!"

I don't know if it's a matter of cleverness.  We all have an ability to "read" others.  If we know them well enough, we know what pushes their buttons, we know what they yearn for.

What distinguishes people like my ex is the ruthlessness and the lack of empathy and consideration of others' feelings, that enables them to use such knowledge for their own benefit.  They will do and say anything to "look good".  They will slime their way out of any situation, having you believe that you are completely at fault and a bitch for not believing their story.

After a while, you truly start to doubt your sanity and just believe everything they say, despite evidence to the contrary, because it's easier that way.

These people are very difficult to spot and diagnose.  They can fool psychiatrists and other health professionals.  Only a specifically trained forensic psychologist or psychiatrist can diagnose their condition.

Similarly, it is difficult to diagnose such abuse in the victim.  After all, I've been in therapy since about 1999.  All that time I was with my ex.  All that time, he slowly wove his web around me.  All that time, I did not really like to talk about our relationship.

Why?  I now think that deep down I knew it wasn't right.  I was ashamed of it.  I was ashamed of putting up with what I put up with.  I was ashamed of my own behaviour and the humiliation I experienced.  Until, finally, one doctor, treating me for depression and anxiety, began to see that there was something more I wasn't telling her.

Here are some signs of emotional abuse as described by Melanie Tonia Evans:

• Agitation - fear, grief, nervous anxiety, ‘walking on broken glass’, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, paranoia, dread and anger.

• Appetite - loss or increase of.

• Loss of creativity and joy - Depression, no interest in personal goals, loss of enthusiasm, loss of zest for life, possible loss of will to live.

• Inhibited self expression - loss of interest in appearance, not comfortable in public, wishing members of the opposite sex didn’t exist, fear of what you say and do around people, agoraphobia, social disinterest, fear of body image, decreased libido.

• Self-destructive behaviour - abuse of alcohol or drugs, promiscuity, feeling ‘addicted’ to abusive partner, suicidal thoughts or attempts.

• Isolation - rarely see family or friends, mostly stay home, not allowed to go out on own, panicking if held back at work or running late for home. 

• Decreased coping skills - loss of decision-making ability, feel despair, rage or panic, being overwhelmed, bursting into tears, feeling numb. 

• Physical problems - adrenaline rushes, lowered immune systems, continual body aches, exhaustion, hyper-vigilance, hormone imbalances, migraines, backache, having accidents etc. 

• Sleeping patterns - insomnia or over-sleeping. 

• Focus on abusive partner - obsessing over what he’s thinking, feeling and doing, and formulating how you can employ tactics to reduce the abuse. 

• Confusion - no longer knowing what to believe, doubting the reality of your life and environment. 

• Loss of faith in self - letting yourself down by continually forgiving and allowing abusive behaviour, losing boundary function, false hope, other people losing faith in you, inability to provide yourself with safety and stability. 

• Irrational behaviour - trying to control the uncontrollable, hysteria, feeling and acting manically, ‘losing your mind.’

Regular readers and those of you who interact with me on social media will notice that I still experience most, if not all, of these symptoms.  Neither I, nor my psychologist, know how long they will last.  There is a lot of damage to heal.  Apparently there is no time limit on grief, on pain, on healing....

As long as I keep moving forward, no matter how slowly, maybe one day I will feel well again.

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