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Patching One Crack at a Time
Healing the Hurts of Emotional Harm
From time to time, when my ex reads (or hears about) a piece I’ve written discussing the various forms of emotional and financial abuse he levied over the years, he’ll reach out to one of our kids, usually my daughter, and ask her if she believes and agrees that he was, in fact, emotionally abusive. He then pressures and berates her until she agrees, essentially tormenting her with the very same treatment until he gets the results he wants to hear. It’s a cycle that we’ve watched happen again and again, too many times to count.
One of the most specific signs of emotional abuse is precisely that sort of control and shame, manipulating a scene until it comes to be the way the abuser wants it to be. Another popular behavior on the part of the abuser is used when control doesn’t work, and that is to dismiss the feelings or reactions of the victim as meaningless or without merit. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” or “no one ever says that” are common responses.
I’ve heard all of these and more, of course, but it’s been such a relief to have not heard them in a very long time. I’ve been able to work on healing, patching the damage of that relationship for two years since I moved away. I left my former city because it was also his city, and the mere face that we shared some spaces, some neighborhoods, was…
