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Jun. 3rd, 2008
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Emotional Abuse isn't real?
Jun. 3rd, 2008 04:14 pmThere are some who would believe that verbal abuse doesn't "count", that its victims are weak-minded, overdramatic, emotional cripples who just can't take a joke. They might tell such a victim to stop overreacting, just get over it, and just get on with their lives, remaining blindly insensitive to the fact that words do indeed hurt, and that such pain takes a lifetime to heal.
Some people don't believe that verbal and emotional abuse are real because they don't leave any concrete, tangible effects. A person who is battered, for instance, can point at the bruises on their arms and at their broken bones, and have solid evidence that something happened. Some kinds of sexual abuse leave lasting scars, as well -- many survivors of sexual abuse are unable to bear children because of the scar tissue left behind by the brutality of their perpetrators.
But emotional abuse doesn't leave physical reminders. There are no bruises, no broken bones, no slapmarks, no welts, no scar tissue, nothing at all to indicate that anything happened, except for the incidents seared on the mind of the victim.
Memory should be enough, you might say, to prove that something happened. A victim's word should be enough to validate their experiences. Why, then, do we not give emotional abuse the full coverage that it deserves?
Read more here.
Some people don't believe that verbal and emotional abuse are real because they don't leave any concrete, tangible effects. A person who is battered, for instance, can point at the bruises on their arms and at their broken bones, and have solid evidence that something happened. Some kinds of sexual abuse leave lasting scars, as well -- many survivors of sexual abuse are unable to bear children because of the scar tissue left behind by the brutality of their perpetrators.
But emotional abuse doesn't leave physical reminders. There are no bruises, no broken bones, no slapmarks, no welts, no scar tissue, nothing at all to indicate that anything happened, except for the incidents seared on the mind of the victim.
Memory should be enough, you might say, to prove that something happened. A victim's word should be enough to validate their experiences. Why, then, do we not give emotional abuse the full coverage that it deserves?
Read more here.
