A Small Primer on Abuse

[Earl Grey]

A friend sent this to me a couple years ago when she was doing research for her Master's in Psych. I think it is important for people to know this given what we endured the past couple years here on the forum, because many of these and more were used in the Trump and climate change. I have set in blue the most egregious and obvious types that I have seen on the forum. 

 

A lot of people in emotionally abusive situations don't have the words to describe what they're going through. It's partly why they end up being stuck in the situation for a longer period of time or end up blaming themselves. I had discussions with trauma survivors who said that they wished they knew the word for "gaslighting" earlier.

 

Anyway, these terms can apply to both an emotionally abusive childhood or an emotionally abusive romantic relationship. Not all of these are psychological terms but they're in enough use in contemporary language that people in support groups will probably understand you.

 

1. Gaslighting - When a person constantly makes you doubt your memories, judgment, and reality instead of acknowledging your version of truth. This makes it easier for them to blame you for something they did.

 

2. Projection - When a person doesn't react to who you actually are, but to their own internal feelings about themselves or others unrelated to you.

 

3. Triangulation - When a person intentionally creates a scenario where two other people end up fighting for his/her attention. This could be in a relationship or in a family, say siblings fighting for a parent's attention. The two other people end up blaming each other or tearing each other down instead of recognizing that the abuser is the architect of the situation.

 

4. Neglect - The absence of a need being satisfied adequately. Example, when a child's presence is never acknowledged. This is not always intentional, but it can be an invisible form of abuse.

 

5. Minimization - When the abuser downplays the severity of a negative event they triggered, or downplays the feelings that the victims has. For example, pervasive school bullying can be minimized by the abuser as "just a prank" and tells the victim that they're overreacting.

 

6. Informed consent - Adults agree to do something together before they actually go ahead and do it. If one party withholds information relevant to what is being agreed upon, then that is not informed consent. That is what's called a bait and switch, which is basically like getting scammed.

 

7. Personal boundaries - The mental, emotional, and physical limits we have around ourselves to protect us from harm. Usually emotional abusers push these limits or get angry if these are enforced, and assert that their wants are more important than your needs.

 

8. Narcissistic supply - People on the narcissistic personality disorder spectrum have a pathological need for attention from others. They will seek attention even if it is destructive towards others, because they don't see the separation between self and other, and cannot regulate their own emotional needs. They will regularly trigger events, confrontations, and provoke a reaction, scandal, and confuse people around them. And when they receive this attention, they will gather social information about involved parties to instigate another event, confrontation or scandal to repeat the process.

 

9. Grooming - When an emotional abuser tests a potential victim, by pushing his or her boundaries and seeing how far they can take things. Think of a frog being slowly boiled in a pot of water--grooming is turning the heat on. This is also when the victim begins to see red flag behaviour or has the gut feeling that something isn't quite right, but he or she may dismiss them ("Oh I was overreacting") or think that the abuser was just joking. This can also be the time for the abuser to plant seeds of doubt in the victim's mind about their own reliability, competence, ability to live happily without the abuser, who they can trust, and so on.

 

10. Golden child and scapegoat - This often happens in a household with a narcissistic parent. It's a form of triangulation where the parent pits the two children against each other, but the golden child is the favoured child that can do no wrong, while the scapegoat is the child where everyone's problems are projected on. The golden child will begin to mirror the narcissistic parent and also abuse the scapegoat to win the affections of the parent.

 

11. Isolation - Some emotional abusers will isolate the victim so that he or cannot depend on others or use other resources to protect his or herself, or have regular contact with healthy normal relationships to compare the abusive dynamics with. This can be more obvious in the form of financial control, or it could be more subtle and the abuser can successfully convince the victim to cut off ties to friends and family.

 

12. Hot and cold - It's pulling a Jekyll and Hyde. When a person acts inconsistently and oscillates between affectionate behaviour and either complete withdrawal or outright hostility. The emotionally abusive person acts unpredictably so the victim never knows where he or she stands, and the victim will work hard to seek the "good side" of the abuser.

 

There are a lot more terms of course, but I hope that this at least makes it easier for folks to understand invisible or insidious dynamics by being able to finally put a name to them.

 

If you're a victim, you cannot change an abuser and you are not responsible for their actions. All you can do is disengage. Unfortunately it's hard for some especially if the abuser is your family (assholes end up having kids after all, unfortunately), but being able to manage the level of contact can help. You are not alone.

 

If you see yourself taking part in some of these abusive behaviours, you might not be conscious of them. You might have grown up in a dysfunctional household that taught these behaviours. Maybe you were the golden child. You may not be 100% responsible for your destructive behaviours, but you are 100% responsible to change for the better for the sake of everyone around you. Even if you intend to change, remember that people you have mistreated in the past are under no obligation to forgive you or to remain in contact with you.

 

Stay safe out there, kids. It's a weird world out there. Remember, no one is entitled to your body, time, or spirit. Healthy friendships/romantic relationships/family dynamics are filled with respect and mutual care. People are not who they say they are or the promises they make, but how they consistently treat you in the here and now.

 

And remember you are not responsible for other people's destructive behaviours no matter how convinced they are otherwise. Don't set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm.

Edited August 3, 2019 by Earl Grey

[silent thunder]

Six, seven years ago, my wife and I formally, fully and absolutely cut off her parents from any contact with us, or our son for exactly the reasons you outlined in this post.  Toxicity must be eliminated, usually through disengaging in the source as often, the source cannot be altered, I have found.

 

I wish them no ill.  I wish them only peace and healing, for then perhaps, they will cease inflicting harm on those they come in contact with...

 

But for health, longevity and a joyful life, it is not possible to have them in our lives in any manner.

 

Some folks it seems, come into our lives, only to show us that there are some people, we cannot allow to remain in our lives, if we wish to thrive.

 

I am grateful for them in some ways.  For they have unveiled to me the following truth.

 

 

[Earl Grey]

28 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

Six, seven years ago, my wife and I formally, fully and absolutely cut off her parents from any contact with us, or our son for exactly the reasons you outlined in this post.  Toxicity must be eliminated, usually through disengaging in the source as often, the source cannot be altered, I have found.

 

I wish them no ill.  I wish them only peace and healing, for then perhaps, they will cease inflicting harm on those they come in contact with...

 

But for health, longevity and a joyful life, it is not possible to have them in our lives in any manner.

 

Some folks it seems, come into our lives, only to show us that there are some people, we cannot allow to remain in our lives, if we wish to thrive.

 

I am grateful for them in some ways.  For they have unveiled to me the following truth.

 

 

 

We're under no obligation to have them back in our lives, yes, but I tend to be open after a few years or earlier based on their willingness to reconcile. Others, not so much if they demonstrate they're unwilling to change, particularly when we add these 12 types of abuse to the rest of the kinds such as stonewalling, and then to the four control dramas, which work out really well with these. 

 

For the sake of discussion and elaborating on something that has gone on in this forum for too long, here are the four control dramas from The Celestine Prophecy, which in spite of its New Age roots, is actually quite applicable in life to an extent.

 

The most aggressive one is the Intimidator, who steals energy from other people by dominating them and making them feel inferior, either with physical or verbal aggression, so the intimidator gets to feel better and the other people feel worse.  This is similar to being aggressive.

 

Next is the Interrogator, who gets to feel good by asking questions that are borderline aggressive, certainly they are aimed at making the other person feel small so that the interrogator can feel superior to them.  

 

Questions like “Have you thought about going on a diet?”, “Why don’t you do that differently?” and “Why are you so hopeless?” and “Come on, TALK to me!” are not nice questions are they?  And questions like “You know why that happened don’t you?” are tricky because whatever you say they are going to say “Oh no no no, you’ve missed the point”.  That’s the interrogator.

 

Then there’s the Aloof, which is a common response to an Interrogator parent or an interrogator partner – the Aloof copes with other people by acting distant & hiding what they really think, and either not answering at all or answering evasively, maybe with short non-committal answers like “Maybe” or “I don’t know really”.  

 

They might drop vague hints, which in turn may mean that you ask even more questions in order to engage with them. You can imagine how an Aloof person could use this as a defensive strategy, but also you can see how the aloof will encourage others to interrogate them to try to find out what they really think.  The Aloof encourages the Interrogator, and the Interrogator encourages the Aloof. 

 

Finally there’s the fourth way to control others and that’s the Poor Me.  These people take the victim position, saying their life is awful and it’s all unfair, and they use guilt or pity to manipulate you.  They might say “It’s fine, I’ll just carry on, I’m used to doing everything by myself” or even “After all I have done for you, you let me down like this.”

 

Those control dramas are actively employed by abusers often. 

Edited August 4, 2019 by Earl Grey