Is Verbal Abuse Really Abuse?

Is Verbal Abuse Really Abuse?

The words verbal abuse has permeated society. Many are said to be affected in relationships from employee to employer, child to parent, student to teacher, sibling to sibling, and from one intimate partner to the other. Verbal abuse is said to affect millions of women and children all over the world. Are these so called victims perpetuating a farce to get their counter parts in trouble? Is the fact that verbal abuse causes no physical scars indicative of the fact that it doesn't scar at all? Many victims are unaware that they are even being verbally abused in the relationship. Why do these think that their situations are revolting when they hear about verbal abuse when they have otherwise lived there for years? In almost every case the abuser is known to others to be an giving person whom no one would expect this behavior from. Because no one ever sees this behavior, could it actually just be her imagination? How do you prosecute a person who is verbally abusive? Do you charged by each word the said or how dramatic the "abused" paints the picture? These questions lead us to ask the question is verbal abuse really abuse?

Abuse is the intentional harm, injury or misuse of a person or thing. (The Abuse Site.com) The four types of abuse are physical, sexual, psychological and economic. (MCADSV 4) Even though most abusers will say that they are not intentionally infliction "verbal abuse" on their partner, they would agree that what they do is in some way a punishment for something the partner has done. Most abuse is either physical or psychological. To understand more clearly, the abuse we are examining is psychological because occurs when one's feelings, thoughts, preferences, desires, needs, appearance or friendships are trivialized or made to appear inconsequential relative to the abuser's. (Direnfeld) Consequently, the victim is attacked verbally and is highly affected psychologically and emotionally with invisible but sometimes irreparable scars.

Verbal abuses would fall under the umbrella of psychological, emotional or mental abuse. Psychological and emotional abuse includes a lot of verbal abuse as well as many other controlling behaviors like monitors her time, unfairly accuses her, isolates her, angry outburst, controls money, humiliates, threatens, informs her of how she feelsm and make choices for her (Direnfeld). So an abuser uses verbal tactics to attacks and impairs the victim psychologically and emotionally. Verbal abuse is not only the hardest to recognize and it's affects last the rest of the victims life.

Self is divided into spirit, soul, and body. The spirit can be defined as the essence of self. The soul can be defined as the mind, the will, and the emotions. The body can be defined as the casement and structure of the self. The physical and sexual abuse are assaults on the body and may do harm to the spirit and soul. These abuses usually do not happen at the frequency of verbal abuse. Verbal abuse is actually an attack directly to the soul and the spirit. Because verbal abuse happens in many forms many times daily, the frequency alone does damage that is makes complete regaining of self impossible. Many women say that who have experienced violent abuse report that the emotional abuse is what is causing them the most harm. (Bancroft 8)

Because of the dynamics that are accepted in society, many people never knew that they were being verbally abused. Within heterosexual couples, homosexual couples as well as parent-child , employee-employers, and student-teacher relationships, there are mild to extreme forms of verbal abuse happening as we speak. If you come from a home where verbal abuse was prevalent, when you get married, you will accept this behavior as normal. This is the same as a person being incestuously molested and stating, "My daddy did it to all of us. I had to get over it just like my daughter will." Many believe verbal abuse as well is a normal occurrence in life. Some people have been bullied in school, by siblings, at home, at work, etc. Our culture teaches that if you know how to break people down verbally, you will be an awesome leader that people will follow. This socially accepted form tells us that our society is either a group of broken and wounded individuals only kept in line through fear and harshness or that we need a lot of esteem healing that must go on for us to function mutually in all relationships. Even if the victim of abuse accepts the blame, it does not negate the fact that it is abuse.

Because verbal abuse is so prevalent in communities, the sensitivity to recognize it as unhealthy is totally unclear. When a victim of verbal abuse becomes aware of what is going on, they immediately connect with the behaviors and results. There are some standard behaviors that are exercised in men that verbally abuses. The following are behaviors used by controlling men to verbally abuse: withholding, blaming, accusing, criticizing, trivializing, threatening, name calling, and abusive anger to name a few. (Evans 81) Usually when the victim of abuse has a clear understanding how each behavior plays out, she will usually identify several of the controlling behaviors in her own relationship.

Not knowing in itself can drive you crazy. It is like constantly feeling the knots your stomach, the emotional drain, the feeling of no escape, constantly off balance, overwhelm, or never caught up. Now imagine feeling this way and everything you do to fix it, the symptoms never go away. Because the controller has already set the stage that something is wrong with you, you start to question yourself. Now your on an unending cycle of self-evaluating and self-"help" that never solves the problem. The problem is that the psychological warfare that is trickling in several times every single day is chipping at the very core of who you are. Now you cannot trust your perception or even your feelings for judgment. At this point when one is made aware of the controlling behaviors, they realize that they are not as unstable as they thought and

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