BONUS BLOG/ Recognizing And Surviving Emotional Abuse
Alexandria Gohla, MSW, LCSW, Ed. S describes her personal experiences as a survivor of emotional abuse. “Unless you are a survivor of emotional abuse, you have no idea what it means to fight daily battles in your head with a person you no longer have contact with. Verbal, emotional, and physical abuse has residual effects on survivors. You don't just ‘get over it.”
Recognizing and Surviving Emotional Abuse
By: Alexandria Gohla, MSW, LCSW, Ed.S
How many of you stayed in an abusive relationship because you weren’t getting physically abused and didn’t know that emotional, mental, financial, verbal, sexual, and psychological were equally, if not more, damaging forms of abuse? I have been a victim of emotional abuse and I did not realize its effect on me and the trauma I experienced until many years later when I have been able to reflect on my own experiences.
In college, I dated someone pretty seriously. We were totally enamored with one another. We had worked together in high school and I had had a huge crush on him since then. When we first started dating he was extremely romantic and loving. He made me feel like I was really special and the most beautiful girl in the world. He would do silly things to make me feel loved like picnics in his apartment, going on camping trips together, writing songs for me on his guitar. We also had an amazing physical connection. I was heavily invested in our relationship and spent the majority of my time with him. He was funny, kind, and charismatic. At first, my friends all loved to be around him and told me what a great guy he was.
A few months into the relationship he would accuse me of looking at other guys or say that I was flirting with guy friends when I wasn't. I would explain to him that these were just friends or acquaintances I knew from classes, but it didn't matter. He would make me question my relationships with my friends and would make me feel ashamed that I had any male friends, or guilty that I went out with one of my girlfriends. He would manipulate situations when I was talking with other guys to make me feel like I was being too flirtatious. He would accuse me of cheating, even though I was only ever spending time with him. I thought nothing of it, and actually took it as flattery that he thought every other guy I spent time with wanted to be with me.
Soon, we began to go out with only his friends and I abandoned my own. My friends would call or text me to hang out with them, but I always ditched our plan to be with him. We were in our own little world. He began to isolate me from my friends and family. When I did go out with my friends, he would purposefully make me upset or cause an argument before I left, so I could not enjoy myself and would be thinking about him or talking about him the whole time. When I got home we would get into the most passionate screaming matches over who I could and could not hang out with and what I was doing or who I was talking to while I was out. He questioned why I did not answer my phone when he called me every 30 minutes to check in. When I brought up my feelings with him he would disregard my emotions and call me crazy. He would tell me that “I take everything too seriously,” to help mask the abuse as teasing. He would tell me, of course I could hang out with my friends! Of course he wanted me to be able to speak to my male classmates for a project! Of course he wanted me to enjoy life and have fun!” He wasn’t stopping me, but all those things came with consequences when we were home alone. It did not matter if I was going out to a bar or out to ice cream with the girls, every situation became an issue.The next day, we would make up and go back to normal, if not better than we were before. He would try to make things right by offering me gifts, writing me a song, and being overly kind and loving. After our arguments I would actually feel closer to him and that our relationship had gotten stronger. However, If I were to protest or go out with my friends, I would get the silent treatment or he would withhold affection or not talk to me until I begged for his forgiveness and admitted I was wrong. It was always my fault that we got into an argument. So, I would stay in on the weekends when he was out with friends to avoid the conflict.
I went to a therapist in college to talk about my feelings and she told me that she felt like this was not a healthy relationship, but I stopped seeing her almost immediately and went right back to him when she did not give me a solution that involved keeping him in my life. Over the course of the next three years we were together, I tried to leave a dozen times, but kept getting sucked back in. We would fight and make up over and over again. He continued to patronize me, gaslight me, put me down but masked it using sarcasm, and tried to take credit for my accomplishments. I stayed in the relationship because I thought that I could fix us, I thought I could fix me. I believed it was me that was the problem. But,I was “in love!” We had made plans to get married and start a family. We had even named our future children.
What I didn't realize is that I was in an emotionally abusive relationship. I didn’t realize it was still domestic abuse if he didn't hit me, choke me, or slam my head into a wall. He degraded me, humiliated me, blamed me, screamed at me, lied to me, cheated on me, and tried to flat out control me. Emotional abuse is one of the hardest forms of abuse to recognize. It can be subtle and insidious. It chips away at its victim’s self esteem and they begin to doubt their perceptions and reality. The ultimate goal of emotional abuse is to control the victim by discrediting, isolating, and silencing. Although I am a strong and independent woman, I had even got caught in its web.
Emotional abuse can look like:
Accusation and blame
Humiliating you
Always feeling as if you are in a state of shame, guilt, and anxiety
Using manipulation
Name calling, belittling, or constant criticism
Invalidating your emotions
Being overly controlling
Gaslighting
Withholding love and affection
Giving the silent treatment
Unless you are a survivor of emotional abuse, you have no idea what it means to fight daily battles in your head with a person you no longer have contact with. Verbal, emotional, and physical abuse has residual effects on survivors. You don't just get over it. Leaving him wasn’t the hardest part, it was staying away. Most survivors will feel the need or pull to return to their abusers. After our break up, he told me I was broken. He told me that no one would ever want to be with me again and that I had caused all the issues in our relationship. Luckily those girlfriends that I kept pushing away in college and early on in grad school were there for me and were persistent when I finally made the decision to leave. I also no longer had as much access to him as I did when we were in undergrad, which made the leaving part so much easier.
After our break up I took a friend's advice and took 6 months to focus on me. I got in the habit of practicing radical self care and self love. I took care of my body, mind and soul. I deleted him on my social media, blocked his number, I woke up earlier, I got dressed although I may not have needed to go anywhere, I ate healthier, I journaled, I talked to a therapist, I surrounded myself with people who cared about me, and I began to take up running. I told myself, “this is your own life, do what you can to love and enjoy every aspect of it. No more waiting. Be the person you've always wanted to be. This will not be like the other times you tried to leave, this time is for you and you will change. I will stick to habits, and I will see results.”
Even after doing the work and getting out of the relationship I still experience emotional triggers, even 15 years later. If you are not sure what an emotional trigger is, it is something that sets off a memory or flashback and often takes the individual back to the event of your trauma or painful experience. These triggers can be activated through any of the five senses. These triggers happen when you least expect them. When I think all the emotional wounds are healed something can happen that reminds me that there is still a scar. I have found that one of my takeaways from this experience is becoming extremely protective of my friends and family in their relationships. I want to shelter them and be sure they do not experience the same traumas and hurts I experienced. For others, common triggers may be rejection, abandonment (threats to leave), feeling helpless, mocking, judgment, criticism, discovering lies, being ignored, blaming or shaming, unwanted advances, not feeling safe, being or feeling controlled. Triggers can also be people, places, things, objects, TV shows or movies, situations, dates, photos, songs, news, scets, foods, stories told, thoughts or memories. These triggers can often activate the survival systems of fight, flight or freeze. When I am being triggered, I try to ask myself, “What work still has to be done?” in order to increase my level of consciousness. Emotional triggers are always an opportunity to see what we're not looking at. There is always something deeper. I still relive some of the trauma I experienced with that relationship and rehash it with those friends who stood by me and helped me through. I would not have had the courage to let go when I did without them. I would not have the courage to tell you my story today without them.
You have the opportunity to actively shift your emotional state: relax, detach, center, and focus. This will take time. The trauma you experienced will be with you and will creep up on you when you least expect it to. You can manage your emotional triggers by recognizing your emotional reaction, accepting responsibility for your reaction, identifying the emotion attached to your response, determining who/what triggered the emotion, and choosing how you want to feel or what you want to do. You are strong, you matter, and you deserve better.
If you or someone you know is a victim of domestic abuse help is available and you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline to speak to someone today at: 800-799-7233
