5 emotionally abusive patterns that may be breaking you from within 

IWill blogs

Emotional abuse is belittling and breaking someone emotionally. Like physical abuse is an attack on you physically, emotional abuse is an attack on your emotions, an attack on things that make your emotional health like self-respect, expectations of love, and thoughts about self. 

Here are some of the patterns of emotional abuse that if happening could break anyone from within 

1. Treating your emotional needs as "over-expectation" and denying you happiness 

If someone around you blames you for having emotional needs if someone in your life is with you but doesn't want to take the responsibility of loving you, or comforting you if your need of affection from them when they ignore you are over-expectation and they blame you for your loneliness or your tears then this is a classic emotionally abusive pattern. 

Denial of getting love and denial of even acceptance that you deserve love from them is one of the most painful forms of emotional abuse. It brings in self-worth, "why am I here" kind of issues and make the person very unsettled and mentally unhappy, and demotivated to go about their daily life. 

 

2. Belittling you and your intelligence or capabilities 

"You want to do this? Do you even think you would be able to?"

"Great you got an award. What is your salary? She got a great salary hike"

"You have no idea what needs to be said. Don't embarrass me"

"You must listen to me... I want your best, you can't think like me"

 

If you know someone who does this with you, whenever they want to have power over you, whenever you share an idea, whenever you want to say something, they put you down and you have started second-guessing your capabilities, you have started feeling like you are not capable or ashamed of yourself, or not wanting to try, then this shows that you are dealing with one of the worst forms of emotional abuse that is causing you both short term and long term mental health harm. 

 

3. Yelling, screaming at you, and doing things to scare you 

If someone around you, whenever you try and raise a point or say something that you want to get done, threatens harm to self, harm to you, yells, throws things, becomes angry, gives you verbal threats of things moving out of control, then this is a big sign you are dealing with emotional abuse that has made you believe that sharing your heart out and your opinions would cause issues. You may be accepting bullying, suppressing your needs, your emotions just because of this threat.  The exhaustion that comes from being scared and worried also lasts longer and reduces a person's capability to bounce back and think clearly in life. 

 

4. Silent treatment or taking power over who controls conversations 

If your loved one gives you the silent treatment, leaves you within a discussion, stops talking to you, says that they are upset with you but denies you the right to know why, and if their silent treatment makes you react, where you cry, start panicking, become unable to focus on anything else then it is a sign of emotionally abusive pattern that has broken you somewhere from within! 

 

5. Leaving you or threatening to leave you or showing behaviors that make you scared they will leave you

Going out of the house, walking out on you, saying things that they don't want to be with you, showing you constantly that they don't need you, always saying or implying that you need them, this goes at the heart of emotional abuse. And this control that someone can leave you has a defining impact on your behavior, your emotional reactions, your self-control, and your ability to feel like things are fine. 

Emotional abuse is very common and is one of the major causes too of mental health issues in its victims. As faced with a lack of love, fear of being left alone, and being made to feel like not worthy can bring in fear, hopelessness, anxiety, pain, and difficulty in even going about normal daily life. 

So many people who have faced emotional abuse are in therapy at IWill. The first thing is always to help a person gain back control, get independent emotionally, and not feel so weak that due to fear of abandonment, they keep ignoring their needs. The second is to help a person assert, have boundaries, have a voice, and not be always there standing to be treated in any way the abuser likes to. 

Emotional abuse is never ok. And its scars run deep. If you are going through it and feel it's your fate to be in pain, you may need to rethink, start therapy and fix the hurt and get back up and stand for yourself. You need to show your power even to the abuser and no matter how close they are to you, not give them the power to break you anymore, or control your life. You deserve to be yourself, have love, feel valued and be proud of who you are!