Welcome to this week’s episode of the StephUp Podcast! Thank you for your support. This episode features special guest, Licensed Profession Clinical Counselor Dr. Janet Birkey, as we continue our conversation about emotional abuse.
Stephanie and Janet begin the episode by defining what emotional abuse is and what it may look like. Janet defines emotional abuse as when behaviors, words, and actions are used to control and manipulate someone so they will do what the abuser wants them to do. Gaslighting is also common, which is when the abuser will try to convince you that you are not perceiving or experiencing something accurately. Sometimes a person may just be abrasive and although that’s not good, it’s not necessarily abuse. This is just one of many reasons why emotional abuse can be hard to pinpoint at times. Another thing to consider is, what may be considered by one to be abusive, may not be abusive to someone else.
What upsets me may not upset you, and what upsets you may not upset me. But that doesn’t change our personal experience.
Janet discusses people who are HSP’s (highly sensitive persons), who are acutely aware of tone, body language, noise, light, and rhythm. If an HSP tells the abrasive person that they are hurting their feelings, and it’s a pattern of behavior, and the offending person continues on, that could be emotional abuse. You want the person you are in a relationship with to be sensitive to your feelings and care about how they make you feel.
Most women don’t always recognize that they are in an emotionally abusive relationship or see that there are patterns. Women who are in these kinds of relationships may have also witnessed their mothers or other women in their life treated the same way and think it’s normal. This can create a generational pattern of abuse.
Emotional abuse can lead to damaging side effects such as anxiety, making excuses for the abuser’s behavior and trying to find where we were wrong in the scenario, lack of self-care, poor sleep and dietary habits, lack of exercise, and inability to concentrate and make sound decisions.
Leaving is easier said than done when it comes to the victim. Janet states that people stay with abusers because they don’t know that it can be different, they are comfortable and unwilling to leave the situation even though it’s abusive, they might stay for the children, for financial support, for religious reasons, or they don’t think they have the strength to leave. You may be tempted to forgive or ignore the abuse for these reasons. Although you can extend grace many times to someone, eventually they need to take accountability for their actions.
Abusers can be cathartic and be sorry for their actions and promise to never do it again, but catharsis does not equal repentance.
Stephanie and Janet also discuss emotional abuse within the church. When you approach emotional abuse from a religious perspective, it may not be viewed as reason enough to leave the relationship or divorce. Stephanie and Janet are hopeful that this view will eventually change within the church. The leadership within a church can be emotionally abusive as well. They can manipulate you into doing things you aren’t comfortable with under the guise that it is required from you by god.
Janet ends the episode with suggestions on how you can safely leave an abusive relationship.
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