What Does Mental Abuse Look Like? Emotional Abusive Behavior

Not all mental abuse is just yelling & name-calling. It can be much more manipulative than that to obtain the control the abuser needs to meet their needs & desires. Let's chat about some examples of mental abuse, in case you or someone you know is going through this without even realizing it.

Show Notes:

• Mental & emotional abuse is the one of the easiest ways for someone to abuse you without you even really knowing. It’s the easy manipulation & coercion & mindset shifts that can be done while under the guise of doing what is best for you. Which is all crap, but it’s what happens.
• This is a lot of what I grew up dealing with in regards to my father. He was the master manipulator, which meant I also became a good manipulator. Monkey see, monkey do. But his treatment of me was the source of a ton of my pain.
• But my main point in today’s episode is to put out a ton of examples of what mental & emotional abuse can look like, within & outside of relationships, but this is a whole lot easier for the abuser when it’s a seemingly good relationship. And the importance of knowing what mental abuse can look like is having the ability to identify it when it’s happening to you or someone else. Because it’s more than just screaming & yelling at someone & trying to put them down with insults. It can look so helpful & acceptable to someone that is experiencing it when it’s really not.
• Let’s start with a brief idea of what mental abuse is: abuse that involves wanting to control how the other person thinks & acts with behaviors that deliberately scares, isolates, shames, or shifts you into the mindset that is desired by the abuser.
• On a basic level, abusers want to tell you who you are & how they know what is best for you. And in this mindset, they want to make sure to destroy any self-worth you have because you can't have any feelings of worth for them to mold you into who they want you to be. They also don’t want you to be happy with who you are because being content is not the ideal outcome.
• Let’s run through several different examples to be aware & knowledgeable of:
• Invalidating your emotions. Making it seem like how you feel doesn’t matter.
• Making you feel responsible for their emotions.
• Using you to benefit them only.
• Blame you for things that aren’t your fault.
• Extreme dismissiveness. Both in tone & body language such as eye-rolling, sighing & smirking to demean.
• Gas lighting. Making you believe something that isn’t true or that makes you think you’re crazy.
• Forcefully breaking down your boundaries & making you do things you don’t want to do.
• Withhold love & affection to control your behavior.

Thank you again for listening & I hope this episode was helpful.

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