Conference turris::womannotes-v2

    D!,
    
    J.Parent's definition of emotional abuse is right on.
    
    And abuse doesn't have to be extreme to still be abuse.  I think all of
    us has experienced it at one time or another.  And I think it is what a
    person does to cope with it or stop it that makes a difference.  
    
    I don't believe that my family and friends were intentionally abusive
    when I was a child (and even now that I'm an adult), but that doesn't
    change the fact that they *were* abusive.
    
    I would cry and then hear "stop crying" "you shouldn't be crying" "big
    girls don't cry" "crying is for babies".  That translated to me that 
    what I was/am feeling wasn't real and that I was/am a weak individual.
    And this is only one example.  I listened to the same pattern occur
    with my younger brother and I hear it occur with my niece and nephew.
    
    It's a hell of a thing for a child to learn not to trust their own 
    feelings.  That sort of thing is not outgrown.
    
    Carol

    
    	You are correct about the "human-ness" of relationships.
    	We all are members of a species that seems to think of
    	itself as rather highly developed and sophisticated. Maybe
    	we are, but with that comes the capacity to use that
    	development to cause harm and damage to others.  It is up
    	to us as individuals to make certain that we DON'T do that.
    	I have seen such damage done as it makes me feel sick inside
    	to even discuss the subject.  If you manage to survive it,
    	you come out of it strong and (unfortunately but necessarily)
    	harder than you ever were before.  There are a lot of gentle,
    	scarred souls out there wrapped up in rock solid exteriors.
    	If you don't survive it...I don't even want to think about it.
    
    	Lets just hope that enough of us in the world try to promote
    	positive-ness to balance it out.  If everyone were to assume
    	responsibility for their own behaviour and were considerate
    	and didn't find the need to be sticking pins in others to gratify
    	some need of their own, we might not have this problem. But,
    	facts are facts.  We don't live in a perfect place and we all
    	just gotta keep doing what we can to get to that higher plane
    	of development.           

    Lately I have I been pouring my soul out in notes so I might as well
    keep on. I can explain emotional abuse, I know it very well.

    Before I start, let me say that my husband was not a monster. But
    when he drank he became ugly. I don't know why that happened, it
    just did. I have a slight (sometimes not so slight) phobia about
    cars. I have been in therapy for this twice when it got to the point
    where I had trouble getting into a car because of the fear. It
    started after I stopped working at the hospital, for some reason I
    felt that as long as I worked at the ER some magic protected me and
    when that magic was gone the horror of what I saw in the ER would
    now be able to happen to me.

    Ray came home one night after he'd been drinking and told me to get
    ready to go out. I wanted to drive but he insisted that he was OK
    and a few drinks didn't affect him. We got into the car and left.

    He began driving very fast and I started to freak out. I mean that
    literally. I was terrified and begged him to slow down. I could feel
    the dashboard comming up and starting to go through my body. His
    response was to start swinging the car from lane to lane and telling
    me if I wanted to be scared he'd show me something to worry about. I
    went insane. I was screaming and crying in absolute terror. He then
    spun the car around, drove back home, pulled me out and left.

    For three days I couldn't speak above a whisper, my voice was almost
    completely gone. He never mentioned the evening and what had
    happened. I was so ashamed, I told the people at work I had a
    bad cold. That's what emotional abuse is all about. liesl

    When the relationship is going sour, you're feeling a bit unsure
    (*a bit*!) and he starts asking for things, clothes, little
    jobs, when you do those things, he just laughs and says I must have
    been hearing things, he didn't ask for anything...when he wakes you
    up in the middle of the night, then pretends he's asleep....when
    he constantly tells you, either alone, or in front of friends, you are
    a failure as a woman, wife, mother - then that's emotional abuse.
    
    ...dale
        

    RE: 0
    
     Just from reading your note it seems to me that you have a good
    understanding of emotional abuse. In anger, a lot of people do say
    things that they don't really mean but a person that gives nothing out
    but abuse has a real problem. Sometimes it's not easy to see how abusive
    a person is really. Being in Love seems to make a person be better than
    what they really are. But sooner or later abuse of any kind exposes
    itself and the person behind it.
    
     As for your P.S. I have no good answer. Justice is not swift like it
    should be.
    
    Ben

Leisl, that sounds like emotional abuse that even I would define as such...

but...in general

If everyone who claims to have been emotionally abused was, then why is it
that they all say things like "I never realized it until I took this seminar
on emotional abuse..."?  Everyone I have talked to be this says they
*just* realized it.  Why?  Abuse as described in the past couple of notes
doesn't seem like it would be so hard to recognize that it would takes years
and years.  It seems like emotional abuse is "in vogue", like it is 
becoming the rage to "just now" discover that you were emotionally abused.

If *everyone* is abusive, why do they call it abuse?  the word brings to
mind some sort of *exceptional* problem of an individual relationship, rather
than general problem with relationships in a society.  It seems to me with the
def'ns of abuse I have heard from some of the "I just realized..." people
that everyone I have ever met could claim to have been emotional abused, 
including me.  Where's the line?

Still confused,
D!

RE:  .-1

I'll take a stab at your question.  I think the key word is
systematic.  I'm sure we all have been real jerks occasionally but
have never engaged in constant and systematic abuse.  As to why the
lightbulb comes on, I'll guess from similar experiences that it is:

  o  Something is described "objectively" and the hearer identifies
with what is being said and no longer considering it some fluke thing
that just happened to them.

  o  A convenient label is given to some phenomonon so that it is now
easy to describe in just a few words.

  o  Some insight has been gained in retrospect so that the behavior
pattern or situation can be easily seen thru the lenses the of the
insight and the theory or description of the insight.

john

    I can identify with the "just figuring out" about systematic verbal
    abuse.  I was friends with a certain person for many years, and was
    very used to the way he spoke.  For some reason I never felt
    particularly good when I was with him.  Then after a long absence
    and some reading up on the art of verbal self-defense, I happened
    to meet up with him again.  This time I noticed the subtle put
    downs and the setting up of his superority woven into his speech.
    
    This was the way he'd been speaking to me for years, but until
    I had the chance to listen to it with a new ear, I didn't realize
    why I had come to dread speaking with him.  I don't think he does
    it intentionally, or even realizes he does it.  I'm not sure that this 
    particular case counts as abuse, but I can certainly identify
    with people who suddenly become aware of an "abuser" who sounds perfectly
    civil, but is slowly cutting away at them verbally.
    
    			Bb

    
    Another reason that some might not pick up on abuse is that the
    abusive situation is all that they have experienced.  In other words,
    they view the situation as "normal".
    
    When they are removed from the situation and placed in a different
    environment, one where abuse is not present, then they can look back
    and see how bad things were before.
    
    
    Lisa

    
    re: .9
    
    I wish I read your response before I put in .10.  Your situation
    is almost the same as what I went through.
    
    I was dating someone for for almost five years before we went our 
    separate ways.  It was my first serious relationship and I thought
    that all relationships would be the same as the one I was in.
    It wasn't until I started dating my current "buddy" (for lack of a term
    I like better) that I realized why I was unhappy a lot during the
    end of the first relationship.  I was subtely being told that if I
    had a major difference in opinion about something (i.e. music, hobbies
    the way something should look or be done etc.) that it was a "problem"
    and if I worked hard enough at it I could overcome it and see the 
    light.  Since we had very few ideas in common, I always felt like my
    opinion was wrong or "bad".  I'm just starting to realize that I can
    be different and that there are people out there with these "bad" ideas
    that are like mine.
    
    And like Barbara, I could see what had been going on much better after
    a period apart.  
    
    Lisa

    I think that .10 made an important point.  As far as emotional abuse
    within the family goes, the victim usually thinks that the situation is
    normal as it is all that they have experienced.  As one's family forms
    alot of one's self-image, the victim is generally left basically
    "crippled" - nobody ever believed in them, so how could they believe in
    themself?  They can't do anything right - isn't that what their
    parents have been telling them all along?

    It's a lousy situation to be in, and it's a bit of a revelation to
    realize that they aren't really as bad as they were always told they
    were.  It's the lucky person who does figure this out.  Many others
    continue through life feeling bad about themselves, continuing the
    patterns that their parents taught them (e.g. that alcohol is an answer
    to one's problems), and then passing the problems on to their kids.

    This is another key to the puzzle - emotional victims often (usually?)
    become emotional abusers.  When people feel terrible about themselves,
    they look for anything within their power to make themselves feel
    better.  Rather than feel mad/unhappy/ashamed of themselves, it's
    easier to direct all of the above at someone else (preferably someone
    you have control over - like a child).  

    This is transference, and it's why they were victims in the first
    place.  You practice what you know, and the child often goes on to
    emulate the parent.  Some form of therapy is usually the only way to
    break out of this - to figure out that the anger/unhappiness/shame is
    not because you are an inately bad person, but because someone has
    used you as their emotional punching bag for the past n years.

    The same can happen within a relationship.  If one person is really
    tied into another, they often have alot of control over the other
    person.  It's sad when someone loves another so much that they let that
    person dictate whether they are good or bad.  I guess that when you
    love someone you think that they couldn't possibly want to hurt you, or
    that they must see you more clearly than you see yourself.  I can
    understand being so wrapped up in someone, and in trying to make the
    relationship work (if I could just be more XXX, he'd love me and be
    nicer to me.  It's all my fault).

    It's amazing what perspective can show you when you get yourself out of
    the vicious cycle.

    Sarah

    
    
    	RE.7
    
    	Maybe this can help your question of "I just Realized"...
	See when a person has had some thing devastating or constant
    	abuse exspecially a child your subconscious will protect you
    	and bury that terrible feeling you got from that experience
    	deap inside you.  When a person is abused you learn to survive
    	any way you can and you keep using those feelings you learned
	because they become easy for you and familiar to you. 
    
    	Sooner or later this damage that was done will come out in many
    	different ways.  Example is, the damage that was done to me
    	made me "Terrified" of the dark and also terrified to sleep
    	next to the door.  I had awful nightmares every night, always
    	tired, couldn't eat etc, etc...  After I couldn't stand it anymore
    	I went to person that would help me understand the fears that
   	I had and now I know what happened.  Some people have to Know
    	earlier than others and some never do because they just don't
    	have that power inside them to heal.  It is a VERY frightening
    	thing to learn something that you are completely unaware of.
    	Often this power that pushes you to want to know comes when
    	you are more at peace with your self and happy.  Then your
    	subconscious tells you you are READY to deal with this...

    
    	Hope this helped explain things more clearly for you!
    
    	Zina

Lisa and Barbara (.9 and .11)

I don't mean to pick on you two, but your note helped me clarify what it is
about this topic that confused me.

Bb, when I read your note, my first thought was "Personality conflict".  It
didn't sound like you were abused, it just sounded like you two didn't get
along - or rather, you found his personality not compatible with your own.
Similarly, when I read Lisa's note, my frist thought was "Bad relationship".
It sounded like a relationship deteriorating because of incompatibility.
Especially when you said something about "at the end of our relationship."
But abuse?  I'd have to know more...

What really bothers me about this prevalence of calling some interaction
"emotional abuse" is that someone lookinng back on a relationship that went
sour can easily find intances (many, I am sure - who can't?) of the type of
invalidation people have described here.  Is it that is was emotional abuse?
Or did the relationship go bad, and during the deterioration, you didn't get
along?  

Actually "abuse" brings to mind a one-sidedness.  In most relationships where I
have seen people not getting along, each person is responsible for the 
continuation of a cycle - one person does things and says things to hurt the
other, who in turn, because he or she feels hurt, retaliates.  And so on.  This
is a bad thing, that I have seen time and time again, but I wouldn't call it
"abuse".

I have seen a couple notes sayig the dividing line is "systematic".  But the
deterioration of a relationship is also systematic.  If you and your partner
aren't getting along any more, during the time when that starts and when you
realize it and get out, you might be mean to eachother.  Probably often enough
to clasify as sytematic.  Can it be abuse if it happens both ways?

D!

    
    re - D!
    
    I agree with Lisa and Barbara's assessments.
    
    To expand, you ask why people are just now beginning to realize that
    they were emotionally abused, especially when, they way the abuse is
    described, it can be completely apparent to someone else.
    
    The phrase "can't see the forest for the trees" comes to mind for me.
    
    The people who emotionally abused me are people who *love* me, *like*
    me, and *care* for me.  These are people who tell me they would rather
    *die* tnan hurt me.  And, when they did hurt me, they thought they did
    it *because* they cared.  I accepted it *because* I *believed* they
    cared - and I was a bad person who *deserved* the emotional flogging.
    
    After all, how could I believe that someone who cares about could hurt 
    me, intentionally or unintentionally, unless I *deserved* it?
    
    It wasn't until I became more receptive to my therapy that I realized
    things could be different for me - that I didn't have to accept the
    emotional flogging as *my* fault.
    
    And, I don't think it's as much "I didn't realize I was being abused"
    as it is "I didn't ACCEPT that I was being abused."
    
    As I said earlier, abuse doesn't have to be extreme to still be abuse.
    
    "If *everyone* is abusive, why do they call it abuse?"  Because, D!, it
    altered the way I perceived myself - I became a terrible and worthless 
    individual instead of a bright, inquisitive, and loveable little girl.
    
    With more education and understanding, perhaps someday the abuse will
    not be in everyone.
    
    Carol

    
    re: last two
    
    I entered my replies more to illustrate how people can not realize that
    they are being treated poorly than to complain about being abused myself.
    
    I never really considered myself as being abused, certainly my ex-SO
    did not purposely put me down, he probably didn't realize he was doing
    it.  I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that we were just
    completely different people, maybe if our interests were not so 
    polarized, this wouldn't have happened.  
    
    I just never realized how incompatible we really were until I started
    seeing Andy, who has a lot in common with me.  It took this new
    relationship, which is much better for me, to see all that was bad
    with the old one.  I think that this has really helped me because
    now that I can see what was wrong in the past, I can prevent that from
    happening in the future.
    
    Lisa

    
    
    	RE.17
    
    	Who's complaining????  I thought these people and myself
    	were just giving examples for the original noter.  To tell
    	you the truth I'm a little insulted.  Thats the last thing
    	I want is sympathy, I just want to help from my experiences.
    
    	Zina

    I don't think Lisa meant "complaining" in the sense of "o woe is me",
    Zina, but rather in the sense of "reporting", as in medical
    terminology.
    
    						=maggie

    I didn't mean to offend anyone, I guess "complain" was a bad choice of
    words.  Maybe the sentence should have read,
    
    "I entered my replies more to illustrate how people can not realize
    that they are being treated poorly than to make a statement about being
    abused myself."
    
    Anyway, I'm just trying to get a general idea across.
    I hope this clears things up a bit.
    
    Lisa

    
    
    	I'm sorry I spouted off so quick, bad day I guess...:-(
    
    	Thanks for clearing that up for me though.
    
    	Zina  :-)

    I know that I have chosen a relationship with an abusive man in the
    past. I was convinced that he pointed out my failings because he 
    cared and I did believe that I was bad and he was just wonderful 
    for sicking it out with me.
    My childhood experiances had me convinsed that I would be lucky to find
    someone who would love me because I was so difficult to love.
    
    I eventually came to believe that I was to aweful to be in any
    relationship so I left the relationship.
    Eventually a man came along who made me relise that I am a cherishable
    human being and a good mother and now I am trying to take care of some
    of the emotional wounds that haven't quite healed. A resent insident
    with my daughter and my father has caused many unpleasent memories to
    come back to the conscience level of my memory.
    
    It never dawned on me that people could treat each other with 
    loving kindness and still tell them that you cant behave this way.
    Discipline does not mean you must break the spirit. And people can
    disagree and  "Value the differences". This is a concept that I am
    still trying to make habit so that I dont *feel* wrong every time
    I dont believe along the same lines as those people I love.
    janet