|
Home / Relationships
Mental Abuse - The 7 Most Important Things To Know
By:Annie Kaszina
1. Sticks and stones won’t break my bones” – and words won’t leave any measurable physical damage, but they will cause progressive, long-term harm. Never underestimate the power of words: words are used to brainwash.
Being told you are “stupid”, “ugly”, “lazy” or “worthless” is never acceptable. The first times you hear it, it will hurt, naturally. In time you “may get used to” hearing it from a partner. That’s when you start to internalise and believe it. When that happens you are doing the other person’s work of putting you down for them. This is why your feelings of self-worth suffer increasingly over time.
The good news is that just as words have been used to bring you down, you can learn to harness the power of words to build you up and restore your confidence and belief in yourself.
2. You are always told that it’s your fault. Somehow, whatever happens, however it starts, the ultimate blame is always yours. Notice that we are talking ultimate blame here. The blaming partner will always tell you that their behaviour was caused by what you said or did. In fact, their argument runs along the lines that you can’t possibly blame them for anything, because if you hadn’t said what you said, or done what you did it would never have happened.
3. You’re more inclined to believe your partner than you are to believe yourself. Have you ever reeled with a sense of hurt and injustice, or seethed with anger at the way you’ve been treated? Have you found yourself asking: “Is it reasonable to feel like this?” “Am I misinterpreting things?” “Have I got it wrong?”
If this is you, what it means is that you have become so brainwashed you’ve stopped trusting in your own judgement. Your mind keeps throwing up the observations and questions because, deep down, you know that what is happening is utterly wrong. But right now you can’t feel the strength of your own convictions.
4. You need your partner to acknowledge your feelings. Have you ever felt desperate to make your partner hear what you are saying and apologise for the hurtful things they’ve said? Have you ever felt that only they can heal the pain they’ve caused?
Does your need for them to validate your feelings keep you hooked into the relationship?
When a partner constantly denies or refuses to listen to your feelings, that is, unquestionably, mental abuse.
5. Your partner blows hot and cold. He can be very loving but is often highly critical of you. He may tell you how much he loves you, yet he is short on care or consideration towards you. In fact, some of the time, maybe even a lot of the time, he treats you as if you were someone he truly dislikes.
You do everything you can to make him happy, but it’s never good enough. You’re more like the pet dog in the relationship than you are the equal partner. Your constant efforts to get his attention and please him meet with limited success. Sometimes he’ll be charmed, often he’s dismissive.
If you find yourself puzzling about how your partner can treat you that way, it is because you are trying to live in a love-based relationship, when in reality you are living in a control-based relationship. The mental abuser struggles with his own feelings of worthlessness and uses his relationship to create a feeling of personal power, at his partner’s expense.
6. You feel as if you are constantly walking on eggshells. There is a real degree of fear in the relationship. You have come to dread his outbursts, the hurtful things that he will find to say to you. (Maybe the same anxiety and need to please spill over into your other relationships also.)
Fear is not part of a loving relationship, but it is a vital part of a mentally abusive relationship. It enables the abuser to maintain control over you.
7. You can heal. Mentally abusive relationships cause enormous emotional damage to the loving partner who tries, against all odds, to hold the relationship together and, ultimately, can’t do it, because her partner is working against her.
Whether you are currently in a mentally abusive relationship, have left one recently, or years later are still struggling with the anxieties and low self-worth and lack of confidence caused by mental abuse, it is never too late to heal.
But you do need to work with a person or a programme specifically geared to mental abuse recovery.
Women who have suffered mental abuse expect radical change of themselves, and they expect it right away. This is why they often struggle and, not uncommonly, take up with another abusive partner.
Mental abuse recovery is a gradual process. Low self-worth and limiting beliefs about what kind of future the abuse sufferer can ever hope for are the blocks that can stop women from moving on. But they are blocks that you can clear very effectively. Just as language was once used to harm you, you can now learn how language can heal you. You can overcome past mental abuse and keep yourself safe from it in the future. You can also learn to feel strong, believe in yourself and create the life and the relationships you truly want.
“The Woman You Want To Be” is a unique workbook designed to accompany you on a year long journey into emotional health and happiness.
(C) 2005 Annie Kaszina
Digg
del.icio.us
Blink
Stumble
Spurl
Reddit
Netscape
Furl
Article keywords: mental abuse, abusive relationships, abusive partners, self-worth, limiting beliefs, overcome mental abuse, walking on eggshells, recovery
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com
Dr. Annie Kaszina Ph D, is a coach and writer who has helped hundreds of women to rebuild their confidence and their life after an abusive relationship. Annie is the author of "The Woman You Want To Be". This ebook will teach you how you can love yourself first, so that you can create strong self-belief and build the fulfilling future you're looking for on firm foundations. Email:annie@EmotionalAbuseRecoveryNow.com: Websites: www.EmotionalAbuseRecoveryNow.com , www.anniekaszina.com To order Annie's eBook 'The Woman You Want To Be', or subscribe to Annie’s free, twice monthly ezine, go to: www.EmotionalAbuseRecoveryNow.com.com
|
|
| Top Relationships Articles |
- 1). Nurturing friendships By : CD Mohatta
When we plant a tree, we take care of that plant from the smallest stage of growth. We not only nurture that plant with water, air and fertilizers, but also protect it from any damage. Friendship is one such plant. One has to take care of friends, as one takes care of the plants, one grows.
Most of us take friendship for granted. We believe that friends are always there, whenever we need them.
|
|
|
- 3). Body Language Secrets You Should Know By : Royane Real
Even when you don’t say a word, other people can still learn a lot about what kind of person you are and what you are thinking and feeling.
How do other people do this? By studying your body language.
The term body language refers to the messages you send out with your body gestures and facial expressions.
Some body language experts claim that only about 7% of our messages to other people are communicated through the words we speak.
|
- 4). How To Make A Relationship Last? By : CD Mohatta
For a relationship to last, there are few basic requirements. The rapidity with which relationships are breaking in the modern days is a matter of concern and we should try to find out how to make a relationship that lasts for a long time. The major factors that affect the survival of a relationship are as below -
Selection Of Partner - Sometimes, our selection of partner may be wrong.
|
- 5). Happy Friendship By : CD Mohatta
How to have happy friends? This is a very important question. Who likes friends who don't smile and laugh? Who enjoys meeting friends who look serious? Not any one of us.
What about ourselves? Do we make happy friendships? Do we make our friends happy? Before thinking about others, wouldn't it be better if we first analyze our own selves? Do we smile.
|
- 6). Tips In Solving Relationship Problems By : Dana Goldberg
It can not be denied that relationships have been considered as the source of a loving relationship that is full of support, enthusiasm and pleasure, whether the relationship is in the family or to somebody you are intimately in love with. And we would like to experience such a relationship to last until death. Hence, we exert so much effort in order to nurture and to make it perfect if possible.
|
- 7). How well do you know your own eyes? By : Pradeep Aggarwal
A quote
The power of a glance has been so much abused in love stories that it has become to be disbelieved in. Few people dare now say that two beings have fallen in love because they have looked at each other. Yet in this way that love begins and in this way only. The rest is only the rest, and comes afterwards. Nothing is more real than these great shocks, which two souls give each other in exchanging this spark.
|
|
|
|
|
- 10). Erotic Hypnosis By : Abbas Abedi
A Little Romance Can Enhance Your Love Life
Nothing can enhance your love life better than a little romance. Enhancing your love life is something that every long term relationship eventually requires. Sooner or later your love life will be affected by the regular stresses of everyday life and many other factors that may make your love life seem lacking.
|
| New Relationships Articles |
|
|
|
|
|
|
- 4). 99 Days Left Until the NFL and Love Kickoff - Are You Ready By : Jaci Rae
With pre-season here and the NFL kickoff around the corner many men and women will have their love life tested. How will they survive? Jaci Rae, author of Winning Points with the Woman in Your Life One Touchdown at a Time - How to Score for Men and Women has the answers.
|
- 5). How Relationship Disagreements Can Make You Closer By : Donna LeBlanc
If you are like me, you’ve found yourself standing in the aftermath of a firestorm called a fight. You feel burned, damaged. Bitterness has taken root. Your heart, once open, is now closed—protected behind armor so you can’t be hurt again. Although you bury the pain, it smolders like a burning ember and pollutes your love or marriage relationship forever.
|
|
|
- 7). Pheromones To Attract Man By : Peter Vermeeren
Male Female Attraction through Pheromones
The only way the lower living beings like ants, butterflies, birds, dogs or even a tiger can communicate is through pheromones. The pheromones are the way they communicate as they cannot communicate through oral or written word. The communication starts when the particular species it at its very best to procreate and ends when the species is not in a position to attract the opposite sex.
|
- 8). Friendship Test- Do Friends Love Talking To You? By : CD Mohatta
You must be having a large group of friends. You also deal with many people in your job or business. You interact with people at every stage of your life. Do you find that you love talking to one person and avoid talking to another? You must have noticed that. What is the difference between these two persons? Why do you enjoy talking to one of them and avoid talking to another? What about yourself? Have you thought about that?
We enjoy talking to people who have the following qualities -
Listening - Good communicators are good listeners.
|
- 9). Relationship Test - Are You Continuing Without Pleasure? By : CD Mohatta
A relationship should be like a flowing river. Fresh, moving around and finding ways around obstacles. Enjoying a relationship should never be like a still pond of water that just exists. A relationship should have life and should never be a compromise.
But many relationships become like a pond. They began like river but are now stationary wondering where to go, and whether to exist at all.
|
- 10). Relationship Test - Are You Happier Being Alone? By : CD Mohatta
Many of us are of the types who are happy being alone. If such persons enter into any relationship it will invariably fail. Such loners want to be left alone and want no responsibility of others nor want others to take any responsibility of their. Are you one of them? Have you thought about this? Let us find out more.
What are the main characteristics of such people? The first is total independence.
|
|
|
