Category Archives: healing from emotional abuse

Healing Emotional Abuse By Taking Back Your Freedom

2282606553_4063fc8a91One of the effects of emotional abuse is hopelessness and depression.  It depletes almost all of your body’s energies, leaving you helpless and hopeless.  As you may have noticed, abuse also clouds the clarity of your thoughts,  keeping you confuse all the time. There is a confusion, and it is between the supossed role of your partner, chosen to be your loving husband, and his actual behavior which is clearly abusive. Your heart tells you that this is the person selected to share your life; while your mind is protesting the constant humiliation and isolation he subjects you to.


At first you may not notice that you are in an abusive relationship if it is “only” emotional abuse. In fact, you may not even accept the fact that you are in one. Emotional abuse is far different from other kinds of abuses such as sex abuse and physical abuse.  The pain, fear and the feeling of unworthiness usually linger for a long time…  This is why healing emotional abuse is an important task for you, as a victim.

Frankly speaking, it takes a lot of courage to leave behind an abusive relationship.  If you already have done it, you are one of the most courageous women in this world today.  One of the worse parts in an abusive relationship is that the battle is also within you.  It is not love or dependency that keeps you in the relationship but it is the fear of being unwanted and unlovable. This fear starts creeping up within your mind with your husband’s constant insults.

The human mind is unique.  It absorbs information quickly especially if the information comes in a repetitive way.  For instance, you constantly listen or watch MTV.  Typically, music channels repeat the best music.  Even though you don’t really like the song, you will still end up memorizing some parts of it.  And eventually, you get used to it and could end up getting to like it.  So if you listen to your husband’s insults every day, day in and day out, you will eventually end up believing him. When this happens, you will be addicted to his demeaning comments and it will get more complicated to get out of the relationship.

As a victim, the best gift you can give to yourself is taking your freedom back and consider healing emotional abuse. In order for you to do this, you must accept the fact that you are already being abused.  And no, your husband is not right.  Every woman is worthy of being loved.  The truth is that he is the one afraid of not being worthy of your love.  He is the one who cannot live without your acceptance and recognition.  He is the one who causes pain and suffering within the family by using abuse as the way to bond you with him.

Healing emotional abuse takes time but it is worth every minute of it.  It involves acceptance and realization.  You must accept that the relationship is already broken and cannot be fixed because of the abuse. Your lesson now is to overcome this situation and learn to stand up against this painful situation.


First, you must realize that you are not the guilty one here.  Honestly, you have done nothing wrong at this point.  Blaming yourself will get you nowhere.  As a woman, learn to love yourself first before others.  Your number one friend is always yourself.  As a mother, learn to love your children as much as you love your husband.  You may think that staying is good for the children but it is not.  Staying means learning a harsh reality for them, where they will learn how a human being can control, humiliate and destroy another.  You do not want your children to grow up in fear. So love yourself by learning how to defend yourself from abusive behavior, and if he doesn’t learn to treat you well, then plan how to live by yourself.  You deserve it.

Healing from Emotional Abuse: How to take Up Courage to Heal and Live to the Fullest

hoto By Pierre Rousseau / Rex Features DEPRESSED TEENAGER
photo By Pierre Rousseau / Rex Features DEPRESSED TEENAGER

Similar to other types of abuse, emotional abuse is something you should not ignore.  Every day thousands of women are reported being physical abused by their husbands.  However, the agony of emotional abuse was and is rarely mentioned. Do you have the courage to heal?

Due to the complexity of emotional abuse, emotional abuse victims will stay much longer in an abusive relationship than the physically abused person. Fortunately, getting over and healing from emotional abuse is relatively possible.  All it takes is courage to heal,  time and perseverance.

 

In an abusive relationship, your abuser will isolate you from your friends and family.  Generally, emotional abusers want only one thing from you: total control.

It is not love that they need but it is the power of domination. Emotional abusers can make you feel useless and unworthy. Though they won’t admit it, they are individuals in fact insecure of themselves.  They want to control you so that you won’t leave them.

 

The abuse usually starts after the marriage.  Prior to that, most abusers are loving, caring, and affectionate individuals.  The torture begins after the abuser isolates you from your friends and family.

A typical abusive relationship consists of the dependent and dominant party. Abusers effectively dominate the lives of their victims by making their victims dependent on them. As a victim, you will not have enough courage to fight back because of fear of his escalating anger, and possible retaliation.

 

In addition, you are barred from joining activities external to the couple.  You also need the permission and approval from your abuser before you are allowed to be doing things independently. As a consequence, healing from emotional abuse may take time and effort. In fact, getting out of it alive is very complicated as you are having low and lower self esteem and confidence.

Most victims cannot leave their abusers due to the constant fear they feel and the feeling of being unlovable. Some won’t leave because they are still hopeful that the relationship can be fixed.  Well in fact, giving false hope is an abuser’s manipulative strategy.

 

Healing from emotional abuse starts first with the sheer realization of your situation.  Realizing that you are a victim of an abuse will put you on your feet and build up courage to defend yourself. You can only build courage to fight back if you see how the relationship is making you deeply unhappy.

You cannot heal simply by staying in an abusive situation which is not addressed and left to run its course.  However if your partner is willing to seek professional help, it will be your decision to stay or not to stay, according to what you see about the possibility of him changing.

 

The mental and emotional effects of abuse typically linger afterwards.You can cope easily if you surround yourself with your friends and family, specifically the people who love you and make you feel worthy and loved.

Another benefit of this, you will be well protected from your abusive husband as most of the times abusers stalk their victims after they abandon the unhealthy spousal situation.

 

Do something that you love and enjoy, every day.  Start living your life the way as you want it.  Pick a hobby that will enrich and educate you.  Build up your confidence and self-esteem by participating in self development programs accessible around you, and keep doing them regardless the demands of your ex-partner about your return.