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Emotionally Abusive Relationships Can Be Hard to Recognize. Here’s Why

Messing with your thinking

 "Four months into a college relationship and I knew something was wrong: The man I was dating was no longer the romantic person I’d fallen in love with.

There were no more ice cream dates or bouquets of roses or long strolls by the river anymore — just belittling insults, manipulation, and heaps of blame for taking up so much of his time.

He rewrote my papers, ruined relationships with my other friends, and prohibited me from doing anything that he disapproved of."

Sound familiar??? This is a very good article to put things in perspective--and see how abuse creeps up on you.

Read this article by clicking here.

Abusive Holidays Suck!

Abusive Holidays Suck

Excerpted:

Has your co-worker or loved one ever given you a beautiful gift, but then acted

• offended that you didn't appreciate it enough,
• claimed that you were lying about how much you liked it,
• snatched it back saying you didn't deserve it at all,
• or any other action that changed your happiness into some other feeling?

If so, you've experienced an abusive incident aimed at destroying your sense of reality. 

+++++++++++++++

There are things you can do--start with this article.

PA-BE (Prevent Abuse Become Educated) videos (Session 1 & Session 2) on youtube

We have a Youtube educational video sent in by Boni H.It's in two parts and we thank Boni for turning us on to it. It's like attending a college class--a little dry but very good information. It's worth your time. they use Patricia Evan's material and I highly support her work. Take a look--like, comment--and pass along.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMpgFXT0IpY

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bsn1JoyRz5E

Sex bots? How will this contribute to emotional abuse?

Honestly--Sex bots????? I feel sorry for men who believe they must use these--or maybe have to because of disabilities or defermaties--but what does this say about real women and what their "competition" is? Will we suffer more emotional abuse becasue men now have a choice to have a non-threatening substitute? Hmmm..not sure what I think about sex bots--next stop,

The Stepford Wives 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/tech/6789055/sex-robot-addiction-warning-clinic-risk/

Learning to do the "Walk Away"

More graduates from the RespectMeRules.com tutorial. I must aplogize as I have been overwhelmed with work for 6 months. I sold the rights to "Sober Coaching Your Toxic Teen" to help alleviate the pressure and free up some time--let's hope it works so our participants in the tutorial are not neglected as I have recently done!

Our latest graduate, Boni H. went diving into the tutorial and had what I thought were some deep insights. She took her tutorial and her life lessons a notch higher and has prepared some educational videos in order to help others. They will be shared with our other participants once they come out--here is what Boni wrote about Closure:

I have created an educational presentation called Prevent Abuse-Become Educated. The focus is on learning how to recognized the subtle early warning signs of emotional abuse. It is currently being edited. I hope to have it available on youtube in a couple months. Like you, helping others has become my passion. This provides me with some of the closure I so desperately desire. A friend once told me that I need to acknowledge, accept, and adjust. It's tough but I am working on adjusting everyday. 

Tassie from the UK had some peace after figuring out her closure, but I wanted to point something out about one lesson that needed some tweaking: Tassie gave a definition for Detachment, "Not allowing the behaviors of others to control me." It's true that controlling behavior is a major symptom of abusers, yet when trying to detach, it is more important, to not take responsibility for their behavior--rather than worrying about what they are trying to control. 

Mai M is another graduate and I she had an interesting view of why Kathy let her abuse go so far. She wrote, "When you believe you love someone, and you try hard to create a life with them, it becomes very hard to see abuse as what it is, because it destroys your image of your relationship and the future. She was also afraid of him, and the abuse was gradual. She built a split reality." Abuse is like living in a split reality, you see yourself as one being--competent, caring, usually successful in one life and then your life with the abuser takes that all away and you become a bumbling, selfish, incompetent loser (via the eyes of your abuser which they manage to convince you of.) Mai has a very optimistic view on her closure--she wrote that she wants "a serious apology in front of other people, witnesses. This is to make up for how humiliated and ashamed I felt in front of others when he said and did certain things in public. I actually believe I will get this closure." I really hope she does, and that she will share that with us. 

Maria F. started out slow saying, "Someone can only walk all over me because I let them. I am too weak." and ended up writing, "By doing my walk away, learned appropriate responses I focus on my self care and strengthen myself. This is not my fault as I was also abused as a child. Instead this will enable me to help and focus on my own health." I really like this phrase, "Doing my walk away..." Let's all remember to do that walk away when they get ugly!

Lindsey M. had a powerful response to how she would want to get closure, "I wanna know that he knows what he did and that he can recognize he actually did something wrong, and I can apologize for my wrong doings too and be able to move on knowing we both said everything we needed to." We always want them to know and understand what they did--that so seldom happens. It's sad--but wanting them to understand is still trying to control--we want to control how they think--sigh. It doesn't work as so many of us know. 

And finally another from the UK, we have  Nuala M. who learned something very important about personal power, "It makes sense because we give implicit permission to our abuser by tolerating their behavior. We need to respect ourselves and put boundaries in place. Take back our power."

Congratulations to all our graduates and now it is time to "Take back our power."

The Most Effective Way to Put an End to Verbal Abuse

Ignoring the content of what the verbal abuser is saying is very difficult--it is best NOT to try the Respect-Me Rules until you understand what you are doing and will be consistent. Ignore the content and call them out for their abuse--do not put up with it and it stops--honest! In this article in Psycology Today--they support what Mike and I have said for years in Respect Me Rules.

The Most Effective Way to Put an End to Verbal Abuse | Psychology Today: "The only effective way to put an end to verbal abuse is to call out the abuser each time they strike. If someone blames you for something you have no control over, you need to ignore the actual content of what's been said, identify the type of abuse employed, name it, and calmly ask the abuser to stop it (Evans, 2009)."

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