Author's Note: This article contains and discusses many mature details and I recommend that smaller children contact their parents before reading this article so that they may review it.
Love.
What does this word mean to you? A hug, a kiss, a caress? Well to some this is NOT their love.
Their love is lying on the floor. Someone telling them they are not good enough. Love. A very misconstrued thing. Different for everyone.
Well after I had moved away and hidden my identity from my abusive father I had a new "love". This love is different from the steel hand of my father. The one that I could feel the pain and failure; the tears running through the nerves in my body. This one is different. Yet I still cry myself to sleep at night. Why you ask? Because this person does not hurt me with their hands. They do it with their words. And sometimes, words, the "sticks and stones" do indeed break our bones. This is also the story of other teens and their boyfriends (this case is more common than the girlfriend beating the boyfriend) and also of parents and their children.
He has just come home. Five minutes and yet I have managed to do something wrong. He yells at me for having a metal paperclip on the wood desk. He claims I have scratched it. I know he is wrong. We got the desk on sale because of the fact it had scratches. But yet, I still hear myself saying "Oh I'm sorry. I'll be more careful next time." It's an out of body experience.
I don't know why but all these things; the wrong accusations and criticisms kill me inside. He is way too hard on me; accuses me of many things. It is still my fault even though my mom confesses to leaving the paperclip out. It always is.
You may want to know why this hurts me so. From this story, you could not tell, but I am smothered here. I cannot speak my opinions. Every time he asks, I only tell him what he wants to hear. I feel like I have no way of telling what I feel like. This is how 8% of all Child Abuse victims feel. No escape.
A different day. This time I won't stand it. Why? Because my Government class was discussing censorship today; just this one day, I did not want to be censored. So he comes home. I hear his words. They are the same: this is not good enough. But this time I am more angered by this than ever. I finally put together a flameproof argument. I say, "I did not do that. Mom had cleaned the bathroom while I had cleaned the office." He replies, "Well that was done carelessly as well."
He never even looked.
I could not believe it. He knew he was wrong. The look in his eyes convinced me to back down. I had seen that look before. One I would never want to replay again. It was in a different person. My father. Looking in his eyes, I said, "I'll go fix it." And slinked away. Tears well up. A million thoughts race through my mind; all back to old habits. Cutting, anorexia, even running away flashed away. I combat it all with a lie to my own self. I know it is false yet I say, "I will fix it and next time I will do better." The next time I never do. It's never good enough. I drown this fallacious failure in my bed. I cry myself to sleep that night. Not just that night, but every night.
This is the soul of Emotional Abuse.
Technically, emotional abuse is defined as the systematic tearing down of another human being. It is also considered the hardest for people to understand and recognize as a "real" type of abuse. Most goes unreported. My case has not been reported. Only to you. You are my jury.
There are different divisions of Child Abuse. And within that; emotional as well. Of types of emotional abuse are:
Rejection
This is when the parents to do assign value to a child or another person besides that of the scapegoat. They tell the other person they are worthless and insult them. They also may blame all the family's problems on this person regardless of whether it is really their fault.
Ignorance
This is when the person is physically there for the person, but is emotionally absent. They do not nurture or show love towards the other. They may not even acknowledge their presence.
Terrorizing
In my opinion this is the most brutal of all. The person singles out and critiques another; setting goals for them that are unrealistic. They taught them with threats of mutilation and abandonment.
Isolation
The person refuses to the other any right to do anything "extra". An example is a parent requiring that their child stays in their room from the time they get home to the next day.
Corruption
Here the person forces the other to engage in "dangerous" activities, like prostitution, alcoholism, drug usage, criminal activities, or to watch animal mistreatment.
Even though you can not spot out an emotional abuse victim, you should be aware of this. Some may not even know they are being abused in this way.
This is Lyd1212, going to face the person who scares her most; if I can.
Author's Note: Source: http://www.preventchildabuse.com/emotion.htm
