With Mental and Verbal Abuse Never Remain Silent

Mental abuse. It’s the most unassuming of threats to many women, and sometimes men, that can lead to some of the most dangerous situations.

It starts with little abuses to your self-esteem that soon transform into psychologically damaging assaults to your character. These can eventually become physical blows when the insults fail to maintain their sharpness.

Mental and verbal abuses are the most dangerous because they’re hard to report and even more difficult to detect.

Barbara Rose PhD defines it: “Mental abuse is a bit trickier than verbal abuse. Mental abuse is a pattern of behavior or speech that makes you feel you are being played with, controlled, and intimidated.
“When you are the victim of mental abuse, you find yourself feeling more and more insecure, less and less vibrant, and more confused; you feel as if you need to ask your partner for permission to do things, buy things, go places. You may even feel that you need to ask permission in regard to your spiritual preferences.”

Mental abuse seeps into your life; it’s as sudden and subtle as a germ, a disease that slowly weakens you until it’s much too late to cure.

Like a snake, it twists its way around you, constricting you, tighter and tighter, each time you attempt to free yourself.

It squeezes you into submission.

Some don’t want to believe it’s happening because after all, he’s so charming and your friends and family think he’s a great guy. So it can be that bad right?

Until you realize you’re becoming insecure about things you’ve almost never had a problem with.
He’ll tell you to diet or “cover that up, it’s ugly” or even make you feel obligated to continually inform him of your whereabouts. But I beg you not to fall for it. It almost always begins with the person trying to separate you from your friends because “they’re stupid,” or “don’t know you like he does” and then what was a demeaning comment here and there transforms into a tirade of insults that control you every action.

Unfortunately, the solution to this sort of abuse never can begin with the source of abuse backing down. It almost always ceases when the victim of abuse steps up.

But there is help. Talk to someone. Although the bridges between you and old friends have been strained, there is always someone who will accept your reaching out to them. Also, even on this campus there are victims advocates and counselors that would be more than happy to assist you and are well versed on all the signs of mental abuse and how to help you.

In the end, the change begins with you. You have to get up. You have to realize that relationships aren’t supposed to have intimidation, fear and dependence as motivators to continue. You have to refuse the empty apologies of “I’ll never do it again,” just as you are showing signs of being fed up with the situation. Find the strength, talk to someone leave and never look back.

Nicole Robinson can be reached at nrobinson@ut.edu.