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Emotional abuse. To say that it doesn’t affect us in somewhat, shape or form would be the biggest lie we could tell and if this was the world of Pinocchio, our noses would be so long that, well, they would be long.
The group on the call last night had some amazing conversation and it’s my hope that in the coming weeks and months that YOU become part of the conversation as we rotate topics each week. But back to last night’s call.
We first had to define what emotional abuse is and here is what we found.
Emotional abuse is an attempt to control. The perpetrator of emotional abuse uses emotion as his/her weapon of choice.
We also discovered that men who were abused are more likely to become abusers, either physically or mentally.
It’s also interesting to find out through study after study that often times these same people don’t realize that they’re inflicting emotional abuse on others and it has to be pointed out to them.
That’s one thing that we as a society are woefully bad at and that’s stepping in when we see others being emotionally abused.
So men who were abused tend to become abusers themselves and to me, one of the most interesting facts I took away from our call last night is that women who are abused are more likely to be abused again later in life.
As someone who has dealt with emotional abuse most of his life, something I don’t fully blame others for as I grew up autistic in a time before autism was known about in school age kids and then later adults.
Were they right in telling me I was stupid, weird, lazy and that I reminded them of Forrest Gump?
No. But not knowing that I was high functioning autistic with Asperger’s until I was forty-six, at least in my mind, negates a little of the blame.
I guess what I’m saying is that had these people known about my autism, I don’t know that all of the insults and taunts would have been hurled.
But that’s water under the bridge. It’s in the past and time to focus on the present and future.
The bottom line is this. If you’re in an abusive relationship, you don’t have to stay. There are ways out. You can call numerous national and local hotlines and, as mentioned earlier, if you see someone being emotionally abused, stand up for them.
You have no clue what message you’ll be sending to them just by your standing up. You’ll show them that you care and that is the best start anyone can have.
If you’re in an abusive relationship, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233 or TTY 1−800−787−3224. You can also go online and chat at www.thehotline.org.
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Photo credit: Photo Courtesy Unsplash
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