The Effects of Verbal Abuse

Verbal abuse isn’t easily identifiable especially if it’s coming from someone you love. You may feel you can justify behaviours like yelling, swearing, excessive criticism or sarcasm by saying it’s normal to behave this way when one is angry, stressed or even by saying it doesn’t happen that often. You may attribute it to their short-tempered personality or their deep-rooted insecurities but, the truth is, that none of these behaviours are productive; quite contrarily they are destructive and overtime can have serious effects on your emotional well being.  You may feel hesitant to put the label of “verbal abuse” on what you’ve experienced simply because of the stigma associated to the term but denying the reality or minimizing the situation won’t help you overcome it. 

Love and authority are man’s greatest weakness; while love creates the “rose coloured glasses” effect, authority makes it even more difficult to recognize abuse. If you have a verbally abusive boss you may feel that because they’re your superior that they’re “allowed” to treat you whatever way they see fit. Sure, it’s normal for your boss to be unhappy with you occasionally and maybe even yell once or twice, stress can make the workplace all the more tense but when the attacks start to get personal a line is being crossed.

Verbal abuse, in turn, has an adverse effect on your emotional well-being.  The first couple times you may think “Ok, maybe I messed up, let me make sure I don’t do that again next time” but over time you’ve noticed that you are always taking the blame and maybe even feel guilty for being the trigger that sets this person off.  Trigger or not, the abuser is the one who need to learn to be a better communicator, who needs to understand that they can achieve the same results by approaching the people around them in a more constructive and openly communicative way. 

If you’ve been repeatedly insulted or put down by mentally abusive men, you may begin to doubt your inner and outer self. Your self-esteem and self-confidence can be severely affected which can then lead to feelings of depression, isolation and a general loss of enthusiasm. If a person is criticised often, especially by someone they love, it leads them to question themselves as well creating pools of self-doubt and can lead to self-loathing as well.

If you’ve ever heard your abuser call you “too sensitive” it’s because this person is trying to minimize their actions and trying to make it seem like it’s you who has an issue. When blame is placed on you even though you feel it shouldn’t, when you are called names that don’t seem to reflect the person you really are you may start to feel like your perception is warped, like maybe you’re not seeing something in yourself that another person is, this is called crazy making.

Experiencing verbal abuse can make it difficult to trust people in the future because, as you’ve seen, someone you love or count on can also become your worst enemy.