May 2, 2022 • 35 mins
What is emotional abuse and what are the emotional abuse signs in a relationship? The signs of emotional abuse in marriage or any relationship can often be quite subtle and hard to recognize when you're experiencing it.
Questions we discuss in this episode include:
- Is emotional abuse domestic violence?
- Is emotional abuse worse than physical?
- Is emotional abuse grounds for divorce?
- How emotional abuse affects you
- What emotional abuse feels like
- How emotional abuse works
- What emotional abuse really means
- Why emotional abuse happens
- Why emotional abuse is ignored
- Why emotional abuse is hard to detect
- Will emotional abuse become physical ?
- Is it emotional abuse or am I overreacting?
- How to deal with emotional abuse
Related episodes:
5 Self Worth Lessons Divorce Taught Me
Related articles:
Identify & Cope With Emotional Abuse
What is Emotional Abuse?
Emotional Abuse 101
5 Signs of Emotional Abuse
How to Recognize the Signs of Emotional Abuse
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You are listening to the Self-Worth. Edit the
podcast inspiring South Asianwomen and beyond to quit
playing small and starttrusting the power and wisdom
within. Join Me No Sheen onMondays as I share insightful
conversations, tips forhealthier ways of thinking and
lessons in healing ourrelationships with ourselves.
(00:29):
Thanks for tuning in to theself-Worth edit. Here we go.
Hello, hello. Welcome back tothe Self-Worth Edit podcast.
We're almost coming up on theend of our season here. A
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the landscape, then you canfind a link to my guide for how
to start one. In the shownotes, you can see what
(01:13):
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You'll also see guidance inshow notes on how to schedule a
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reminder, you can access allthe resources related to the
show at self-worthedit.com/resources. Also linked
(01:38):
in the show notes here you cansee books recommended by our
guests programs and discountcodes. Some of them offer for
you the listener and more.
Today's topic, to be honest, isone that has been on my heart
to share since before I evenlaunched the podcast, so why
has it taken me so long? Whyare we in year two before this
(02:00):
episode makes an appearance? Itry never to force a topic. A
lot of what I share on thispodcast puts me out of my
comfort zone. I've talked aboutit before. It's deeply
personal. I aim to beintentional about processing
first, thinking somethingthrough fully learning my own
lessons best I can beforesharing here. This approach I
(02:24):
feel is best in service of meand you, and so here we are in
year two ready to talk abouttoday's topic. Before we go any
further though, I'm going toput a trigger warning on this
episode just to be safe. Thetopic of abuse is a difficult
one and I am not going to stepinto it lightly. If this is a
(02:47):
particularly sensitive topicfor you, and even if it's not,
please take a grounding breathand be aware that this may not
be an easy listen all the waythrough. I'm not going to
discourage you from listeningaltogether though because you
might need to hear what isshared in this episode. So much
(03:07):
of my inspiration for topicsfor this show comes from things
I wish I had learned or knownearlier, things I needed to
hear, lessons I learned thereally, really hard way, which
is most of my life lessonshonestly, so that you don't
have to. So let's get into thisepisode. Here's where I want to
(03:28):
start. In my experience, it'sso common in our cultures
around the topic of divorce, tohear a question like, but did
he hit you? He hit you right?
He must have hit you. Ioutright got this question as I
pursued my divorce and I wasn'tsurprised knowing this would be
(03:49):
the stick used to measure thevalidity of my divorce is in
part what kept me in myrelationship because no, there
was no actual physicalviolence. There were times I
felt we were very close to it,but there was absolutely no
actual physical violenceinvolved. To think of abuse
(04:11):
only at the physical level isto really, really miss the
point. Abuse can take manyforms. Financial, verbal,
psychological, emotional, andthe focus on physical abuse
because it's most visible hasan invalidating effect on the
rest is a problem because it'soften these less visible forms
(04:35):
of abuse that cause the mostdamage, the most long lasting
harm, and on top of that canoften be the least socially
acceptable grounds to part waysin a relationship. Domestic
violence is a difficultsubject. Of course. For me, it
remains one of my biggesttriggers. I have a lot of
(04:58):
healing left to do around thissubject that goes far beyond my
marriage and divorce in thelast few years, and that's my
work to do. I'm working to beready to face it all, but what
I do know and want to emphasizenow with conviction is that
abuse is abuse and it is neverokay, never acceptable. When
(05:22):
people say relationships arehard work, this does not
include dealing with abuse.
When people recommend couplestherapy, this does not apply to
situations of abuse. I have awhole other episode on this
topic, not yet out, but oneI've been meaning to do despite
(05:46):
this being an especiallydifficult topic for me. The
reason I wanna share about ittoday is in case you are
experiencing or have everexperienced it, and by it I
mean emotional abuse and youdon't recognize it or want
validation around it, I want tooffer that to you. So much of
(06:08):
my experience with emotionalabuse, I only fully understood
in hindsight often by the lookon the face of the person. I
shared an anecdote, aconversation, a situation with,
and I'm still finding that Ididn't realize how messed up
some of the stuff was that wassaid to me until moments like
(06:28):
these and those words, thosefeelings stay with you. I'm
still working through some ofthem. I still hear them in my
head and they still color someof my beliefs about myself.
It's hard to rewrite. I'm awork in progress, so in this
episode I'm going to give yousome examples of emotional and
(06:50):
verbal abuse. I'm going toassure you that just because
things haven't turned physicaldoesn't mean it's not abuse. In
fact, emotional and verbalabuse are often precursors to
physical abuse. When I learnedthis, I found myself at times
(07:11):
wishing things would justescalate to that point already
because it would maybe helplegitimize the abuse I was
experiencing. I would havesomething to point to to prove
I need out to myself as much astwo others. I said , sorry, I
knew this was going to be adifficult one to record and I
(07:32):
ask you to bear with me. I knowI'm not alone in that line of
thinking, and I also know evenif it had gotten to that point,
it would have been easy tocontinue to rationalize
staying. I want you to hearthis. I want you to know you
are not alone in thesethoughts, these experiences,
(07:55):
and I want you to feel 10,000million percent justified in
leaving. I want this for you somuch. I also want us to put
aside for a while this ideathat emotional abuse and
similar terms that fall underthis umbrella are turning into
buzzwords and being overused.
(08:17):
While I do agree that we cansay this is happening, I also
worry, the more I see that,that we're going to further
invalidate true cases of abuse.
I'm referring to when it seemslike everywhere, all over
social media, we're callingpeople narcissists. Well, guess
what? There are truenarcissists out there. I'm not
(08:40):
making a bold claim about thatin this episode, but let's put
all of that aside and let's youjust think about you here. I
wanna put an early exclamationpoint around the fact that
whether you define yourexperience as abuse or not, if
you are in a situation thatmakes you feel unhappy, unsafe,
(09:02):
then it's not okay and you arenot overreacting. Even if there
is no abuse and you simply nolonger feel a relationship,
whether with a coworker , aromantic partner, a friend, a
parent, whatever is right foryou, do what you need to do for
you. That's just me layinggroundwork. I also recognize
(09:27):
some of you listening may notbe or have ever have been in
this situation firsthand, whichI am so glad for. For you, you
may or may not have someone inyour life who does experience
this. I recognize that if youhave not experienced this
firsthand, it's not easy tounderstand why someone won't
(09:47):
just leave, how someone couldactually rationalize staying
how someone could not see thatthese are obvious signs of an
unhealthy relationship. I getit. I can't or rather don't
have the energy to explain it,but I will acknowledge that it
can be frustrating to see aloved one struggle with this.
(10:08):
It's a whole other topic that Idon't have the emotional energy
to get into at this time, but Iwant to acknowledge it,
especially because I alsorelate to aspects of it now
that I am in a different placein my own life, emotional and
verbal abuse are insidious. Wealready talked about how you
might not even fully recognizeit, especially the emotional
(10:32):
piece , but the way it affectsyour self-esteem, how you view
yourself, feel about yourselfis very real, and even this is
not always an obvious shiftbecause it can happen so slowly
over time. I do believe some ofus are more prone to fall into
it than others, though it canhappen to anyone. I don't say
(10:53):
this from any kind of blame orshame perspective, but from an
awareness one, and because Irecognize now with my shifts in
mindset and self-love, why Iwas susceptible before, I
already had low self-esteem. Iwas full of insecurities in a
lot of ways. I was easy prey.
(11:14):
What I wanna communicate to younext are signs and examples of
emotional abuse because it canoften be subtle, and if you
don't have it called out foryou, it can be hard to
recognize and easy to push awayand say to yourself, it's not
so bad. I'm making a big dealout of nothing, so I wanna
share what it looks, feels andsounds like. I'm going to also
(11:35):
link to additional resourcesthat will expand further on
these or beyond these, and Iencourage you to click through
those resources too . As I gothrough these, maybe they'll
resonate. Maybe they'll causeyou to question something
you've been minimizing is not abig deal. All I want you to do
for now is listen, you don'thave to worry about diagnosing
(11:57):
abuse or not abuse. Just listenand let your intuition, your
instincts, your gut, speak toyou and guide you as you do for
what I'm about to share, we'renot talking about isolated
instances of the below butpatterns of behavior. So bear
that in mind. Alright , oneindicator of the presence of
(12:17):
emotional abuse is minimizingyour feelings and your
accomplishments invalidatingyou. This can sound like you're
being too sensitive or can'tyou take a joke or with regard
to your achievements, I coulddo that too, or simply ignoring
your accomplishments or ifyou've been recognized for
(12:38):
something. This is subtle andtricky for me. I heard the
first two regularly growing upfrom different people,
including it's at school fromyou know, fellow classmates, so
I assumed this feedback wasvalid in every situation, and
that also plays into thesubtlety here. Often emotional
(12:59):
abuse plays upon your existinginsecurities that you might
have shared with someone, andthese are then used against
you. When you keep havingphrases like this directed at
you in response to youexpressing a need or feelings
of a boundary being crossedover and over again, you stop
expressing it, you start tointernalize that maybe you
(13:22):
really are too sensitive anduptight and before you know it,
you're tolerating increasedlevels of disrespect as a
result. This is how I got tothe point of not realizing how
messed up things were until Irecounted a conversation for
someone and they verified withthe shock on their face that
what I had normalized waswrong, and to be fair, this
(13:45):
whole thing goes beyondromantic relationships. I had a
very similar experience withsome friends in college.
Experiences like this affectyour ability to stand up for
yourself because your gauge forwhen you should be standing up
for yourself versus not getscompletely distorted. You can't
tell whether you are wrong orthe other person is you usually
(14:08):
believe it's the former. If youfind yourself constantly second
guessing yourself when it comesto whether or not you should
speak up for yourself, if youfind yourself thinking, oh,
they're just joking, I'm beingtoo sensitive over and over and
over again, I urge you toreevaluate. If there's someone
(14:28):
you feel comfortable gutchecking with by sharing the
story with them to get theirperspective, someone you really
trust and who knows you andloves you, well do it. If you
find yourself not wanting toshare the instances with anyone
or distorting the truth whenyou do, that's also a data
point for you. For so long Ididn't share the details. I hid
(14:51):
things from the people closestto me because I could feel
something was off and not rightand I was ashamed before I even
rationally, consciously couldput into words what was going
on. If you find yourselfrationalizing and editing the
truth to protect your partneror whomever, and you think that
(15:12):
if you restate something intruth, the other person just
won't understand becausethey're not in your
relationship and mightinterpret something the wrong
way, reevaluate maybe theiroutsider perspective is
actually more valuable than youthink. After the last few years
as a result of this indicatorin particular, I now view
sarcasm as a red flag. I usedto love sarcasm myself. As I
(15:37):
grew older, I increasinglyrealized how harmful it can be,
and now I don't even messaround with the nuances of
sarcasm for fun versus forharm. If I'm swiping on bumble
or hinge and I see fluent insarcasm, that's an immediate no
for me. I don't want to everagain have someone say mean
things to me in a sarcastictone that when I express I
(16:00):
don't appreciate it. They canjust say, you're being too
sensitive. It's just a joke. Iwas being sarcastic. Get outta
here with thatliterally F that. I find it so
immature. Please communicatewith me on a different and more
real level. If you need to hidebehind your sarcasm, I don't
want any part of it, and ifyou're only skilled at being
(16:22):
funny through sarcasm, you'renot funny enough. For me,
that's just facts. I wanna alsogo back to this minimization of
your accomplishments andsuccesses for a moment. If you
have someone telling you thatyour job is easy and they could
do it too, that your publicrecognition for something is no
(16:43):
big deal and doesn't need toeven be acknowledged that your
hobbies and passions are dumband a waste of time to the
point where you find yourselfholding back on even sharing
good news with this personbecause you know they're just
going to ignore it or bring youdown and just don't wanna
engage in that hassle .
Recognize that I had a friendyears ago in college who ended
(17:07):
a relationship with herlong-term boyfriend because he
didn't celebrate her enough andat the time I didn't really
understand to be honest, butafter my own experience with
this, not only not having myactivities and my mind and my
things celebrated, but havingthem actively put down, I
completely get it. If someoneis minimizing your interests
(17:29):
and achievements, they aretrying to bring you down and
make themselves feel better incomparison, and I'm not even
saying that , that they'redoing this on a conscious level
with conscious maliciousintent. Although I've learned I
tend to give people too much ofthe benefit of the doubt, so
who knows, maybe they are , but that's not to say
either way, that it's notwhat's happening and you
(17:51):
deserve better, you deservemore. You deserve to be
celebrated and recognized andacknowledged, and it really is
a big deal. It really is a bigdeal. You really should
celebrate. It really is amazingwhat you did. Don't let someone
else make you feel like youshouldn't be proud of the
(18:13):
things you are proud of. Thereare billions of people on this
earth. Surround yourself withthe people who make you feel
good about yourself and stopwasting energy on the ones who
can't. I feel like I'm talkingas much to myself right now as
to you, which I think is a goodthing. Another indicator of
(18:34):
emotional abuse is a constantignoring of your boundaries. If
you have shared something youdon't like a behavior or
language, whatever, it doesn'teven have to be you saying,
Hey, I have a boundary againstthis, but if you've shared,
Hey, I don't like when you dothat to me or say that to me,
if you've clearly shared thatand had it either minimized or
(18:55):
repeatedly ignored and had thebehavior or language take place
anyway, if someone tries toconvince you to change your
boundary or says your boundarydoesn't make sense or even says
something like, I do it becauseI love you, you should be
worried if I ever stop doingit, not if I continue. All of
that is trash, and yes, that'sa quote throw with the F out.
(19:18):
You deserve to have yourboundaries respected. Your
boundaries don't have to makesense to anyone else, but they
absolutely must be honored, andwhen someone is incapable or
refuses to honor yourboundaries, words are
meaningless. They may say theylove and care for you, but if
their actions cannot back it upby respecting your boundaries,
(19:39):
it means nothing and youdeserve to implement a next
step based on this. Whetherthat's you cut them out of your
life, you leave them or you seeand talk to them less or you
don't discuss certain topicswith them anymore, whatever it
is, don't compromise yourboundaries. Moving on. Constant
criticism and judgment isanother indicator of abuse. If
(20:02):
someone tells you or makes youfeel like you are always in the
wrong with how you do things,how you dress, how you speak,
and that they are always rightand just trying to give you
feedback to improve, but thatfeedback is always about
telling you how you're doing.
Every little thing wrong, eveninconsequential daily actions
(20:25):
to the bigger things about likeyour relationships with friends
and family. There's somethingwrong there and it's not
something wrong with you likethis person would like you to
believe. This is verycontrolling behavior. Just
because the person isn'tphysically forcing you to do or
not do something does not meanthis is not controlling highly
(20:45):
manipulative behavior. If youfeel like you can never do or
say the right thing and findyourself walking on eggshells
around this person red flag,please don't ignore this. Do
you find yourself walking oneggshells? Do you find yourself
hyper monitoring things you sayor don't say or do or don't do
just so you don't incur thewrath of this person or a
(21:08):
barrage of criticism orjudgment? This is not a healthy
environment for you to be in.
There are so many differentways to do things that is
allowed, that is beautiful. Ifsomeone constantly makes you
feel or even outright tells youthat they're the ones who know
how to do everything right andyou and others always do things
wrong, that's a them problem,not a you problem. Stop trying
(21:33):
to satisfy their needs for howyou do or say or move or dress
or look. It's not possible andit's certainly not worth it,
and again, this can apply toany type of relationship. This
next one gets into the realm ofpsychological abuse, so
psychological abuse is moreabout affecting how you think,
(21:53):
whereas emotional is more aboutaffecting how you feel, but
there are of course a lot ofoverlaps between these. This
next one is gaslighting. Theterm gaslighting comes from an
old movie in which the husbandtried to convince his wife that
she was going crazy by slowlydimming the gaslights, but
(22:14):
telling her she was imaginingit essentially. I've never seen
it, but I know that term and Iknow that's where it comes
from, and I know what it feelslike. It's frustrating as hell
to experience it. It'sconfusing and maddening. You
literally start to questionyour reality. You know you're
right, but you can't prove it,so you start to wonder or you
(22:38):
feel frustrated about it.
Here's how this might show upin a relationship. Someone
might tell you you aremisremembering certain
conversations or details thatyou definitely remember, but
you're then being toldrepeatedly that you're not
remembering correctly orregularly being told in
conversation, that you tooksomething out of context that
(23:01):
you know for a fact was not,and again, it's when this stuff
happens over and over and overagain and it's a pattern at a
certain point, it's actuallynot about miscommunication,
which might be the problem thatyou decide you need to solve
when this happens as I did,it's not about
miscommunication, it's aboutlying and redirection. Another
(23:23):
way this could show up could bein a discussion or argument.
When you're talking about onething, you start to make a lot
of logical, rational sense andthink you'll come to a point of
clarity, but then instead theperson says, that's not even
what we've been talking about.
Again, for a long time when Iexperienced this, I thought,
(23:44):
oh, we just have vastlydifferent communication styles
and ways of interpreting theworld and words and no. You
know what recently reminded meof this and might be a good
example, is if you watchselling Sunset, Christine , on
the latest um season, I hadsome moments where you were
watching her having aconversation on the screen and
(24:06):
she would say one thing andthen when she was almost about
to be caught in, it wouldcompletely pivot and say,
perfectly matter of factly.
What do you mean that's notwhat we're talking about. We're
talking about this. What do youmean that didn't happen? I
didn't say that this happened,this, I was watching this and I
was like, oh my goodness. Sothere's a homework assignment.
(24:27):
You can go watch selling Sunsetto get one example on a related
note when someone tries to tellyou how you're being perceived
by others. That's anotherexample of this. So for
instance, if you're all outwith friends, you talk, you
chill, whatever, and then laterthe person tells you that you
totally misread everyone'sfacial expressions the whole
(24:48):
time. They actually weren't onboard with what you were
contributing to theconversation. It was
off-putting. Now, normally thiscan be really helpful feedback
and even valid depending on thesituation, who the feedback is
coming from what reason, likeif they genuinely wanna help
you be a better human orcommunicator. That's different
(25:09):
from planting seeds ofself-doubt and making someone
question their own sense ofself-awareness. If someone ever
starts to make you questionyour own level of
self-awareness, what you shoulddo is affirm or refute. You
could follow up , for example,in this case with the group of
friends themselves and saysomething like, Hey, I realize
(25:31):
I might have come across as X,Y, Z the other evening. Is that
right? Do I have a good read onthat? Ask for verification
outside of the person tellingyou this. Maybe they misread
the situation themselves ormaybe they want you to question
your sense of self, and again,they may not be doing all of
this at a conscious level, butthey're doing it. So
(25:51):
gaslighting is about gettingyou to question yourself. Your
reality, your memory. If you'refeeling confused or frustrated
or like you can never rememberthings the right way anymore,
or you used to be an excellentcommunicator and you've been
giving that feedback your wholelife, but all of a sudden you
just can't seem to beunderstood or even understand
(26:14):
the other person. Startdocumenting things that happen
as they happen as clearly asyou can journal about it. I
look back at my journal entriesfrom a few years ago now and I
can read how confused I was. Iwasn't doing it from the
standpoint of trying todocument like I'm now advising
you to do because again, whileI was in it, I didn't really
(26:37):
grasp what was happening for along time, hence the reason for
this episode now, but when I dolook back because I have
journaled for so long, I findit very valuable in general. I
can clearly see how all of thiswas happening for me and what
it was doing to my thinking andmy views and my sense of self,
and it's honestlyheartbreaking. Another
(27:00):
indicator, and again, I've hadthis also happen with so-called
friends in the past, is whensomeone uses your insecurities
or your compassion, your valuesagainst you, I think this is
pretty straightforward. If youshare your fears and
insecurities with someone whois obviously a close
relationship to you and theythrow it in your face when the
(27:22):
opportunity arises, that is notokay, that is not your person.
Those are not your people.
Another perhaps more obviousindicator of verbal and
emotional abuse is yelling andname calling . I say perhaps
more obvious because even thiswas something I hate to say can
be rationalized, right? You canchalk it up to different
(27:46):
communication styles and I usedto do a lot of research in
forums and there would bepeople saying, Hey, this is
just how I talk. I don't takeit to heart, so I would just
think, okay, some peoplecommunicate in these ways and
don't mean anything harmful byit, it's just what they're used
to. But then when you thinkback up to boundaries, if you
(28:06):
express a boundary against acertain behavior or language
and it's repeatedly ignored,that's something to look into
Also, often yelling is anintimidation tactic. Also,
words have meaning, and for me,my love language is words of
affirmation. Having insultshurled at at you will hurt
anyone, and for me it's like anactive reversal of my love
(28:30):
language. It demonstrates tosuch a lack of respect of self
and the other. In my opinion, Idon't ever wanna engage in any
kind of relationship with anyadult who does not have control
over their own emotions anddoesn't know how to emotionally
regulate. The more subtle flipside of this that also falls
(28:51):
under abuse is stonewallingmore commonly known as giving
someone the silent treatment,refusing to engage with them. A
healthier approach to this isto communicate, to say, Hey, I
need some time to cool down.
Let's talk again in two hours,or let's talk again tomorrow or
whatever time bound it . I'mgoing to take some space, but
(29:14):
to just ignore someone andrefuse to engage when they talk
to you or not allowing them totalk about a specific incident
or feeling to express, notallowing them to be heard
pretending they don't exist.
This is not emotionally safebehavior. Another layer of this
is threatening threats. Thiscan range to include everything
(29:36):
you think of when that wordcomes up, but it can also
include threatening to leave ifthere's a constant threat to
the relationship. When someoneexpresses a need or has a
differing opinion and theresponse is, let's break up, or
let's get a divorce. Thesethings can be really damaging
in a relationship. So thisbrings us to a shift in our
conversation. Why do people actthis way? Why do abusers abuse?
(30:02):
I said a couple times that theymay not be doing it on a
conscious level, likely, verylikely they're operating from a
place of their own unhealedtraumas. That's often the hard
reality of it for me and likelyfor many like me. This is yet
another reason we rationalizeaway this behavior because we
(30:23):
feel for this person who maybecan never feel this way for us,
we feel their pain. We feellike we want to fix them and
help them and heal them. Wefeel sad for them. We feel like
it's unfair. The trauma theyexperienced that contributed to
these reactions. We feel likeit's not their fault. We feel
(30:45):
like we understand them and aretherefore overly forgiving of
them at the expense ofourselves. We know we feel the
words hurt people hurt people,and we minimize our own hurt to
try to heal theirs, And we loseourselves in the process. We
(31:08):
make ourselves martyrs, andit's often fruitless because
while the intentions are good,we're not facilitating their
healing. We're not changingthem By sticking around. If
anything, we are just enablingthem. It sucks. It sucks to
(31:33):
realize this, but it's also sofreeing because you can then
shift from trying to heal theirpain and changing their lives,
to healing your own, to freeingyourself, to loving yourself.
In fact, it was the moment Ihad this specific realization,
oh, I thought by staying I washelping, but I'm actually
(31:57):
enabling that everything seemedto crash down around me. It is
the moment I realized thatnothing was ever going to
change because me staying therewas enabling this behavior to
continue, and the more I stayedand the more I tolerated and
the more I forgave, whatincentive does anyone have to
(32:18):
actually change then none.
Here's the thing, We're notresponsible for the traumas we
experienced growing up, but weas adults are responsible for
our own healing. Some peopleget this, some people continue
(32:39):
to live far too long with thevictim mentality and refuse to
engage in true healing andcontinue to blame others for
their pain, for them being theway they are for their
reactions. You cannot getthrough to a person like this.
You can only change and healyourself. You can only change
(33:00):
and heal yourself, and youcannot do so stuck in the same
environment that's keeping youstunted and causing you harm. I
hope this episode gave you whatyou needed. I hope you know now
that emotional abuse is real.
It's a valid reason to ridyourself of a relationship that
(33:21):
is unhealthy so you can createspace for one that is healthy,
ideally beginning with healingyour relationship with
yourself. I hope this gave youa better sense of or validated
how emotional abuse canmanifest what it sounds and
feels like. I asked you tolisten and to ultimately trust
(33:44):
your gut. For so long, Iignored my own intuition. I
didn't trust myself. Irationalized and rationalized.
I guilted myself into staying.
Even if you listen to this andthink, Nope, this does not fit
the description of what I'mexperiencing. If you're unhappy
in a friendship, a romanticrelationship, a work
(34:05):
relationship that is reasonenough, that is reason enough
to leave one more time, that isreason enough. Even abuse is
not the only reason to move onto leave if you're not happy.
If something doesn't fit, nomatter how it looks on paper,
(34:27):
please honor yourself, honoryour needs, honor your wants,
your desires. Life is so short.
Life is too short to ignore ordownplay what you want out of
it. I'm sending you so muchlove and support. I'm including
resources in the show notes. Ifyou need help, please seek it
out. If there's someone youknow who needs to hear this
(34:49):
episode, send it to them.
Sometimes other people's voicescan get through to our loved
ones and resonate in a way thatwe just cannot directly. So
share this. If you know someonewho needs it, take care. Tune
in for the next episode of thisseason. Remember, we're on an
every other week cadence, somake sure you hit subscribe
(35:11):
wherever you're listening, soyou never miss an episode.
Until next time.
You are listening to the Self-Worth. Edit the
podcast inspiring South Asianwomen and beyond to quit
playing small and starttrusting the power and wisdom
within. Join Me No Sheen onMondays as I share insightful
conversations, tips forhealthier ways of thinking and
lessons in healing ourrelationships with ourselves.
(00:29):
Thanks for tuning in to theself-Worth edit. Here we go.
Hello, hello. Welcome back tothe Self-Worth Edit podcast.
We're almost coming up on theend of our season here. A
reminder, if you've beenenjoying the show, to please
leave a five star ratingwherever you're listening,
(00:50):
whether that's on Spotify,apple Podcast or anywhere else.
It will only take a few secondsand means so much to me and for
the growth of the show. Ifyou're inspired to start a
podcast of your own and addyour voice, your perspective to
the landscape, then you canfind a link to my guide for how
to start one. In the shownotes, you can see what
(01:13):
equipment I use, my tips forbeginners all in that post.
You'll also see guidance inshow notes on how to schedule a
one-on-one consultation ifthat's something that you're
wanting as additionalpersonalized support and as a
reminder, you can access allthe resources related to the
show at self-worthedit.com/resources. Also linked
(01:38):
in the show notes here you cansee books recommended by our
guests programs and discountcodes. Some of them offer for
you the listener and more.
Today's topic, to be honest, isone that has been on my heart
to share since before I evenlaunched the podcast, so why
has it taken me so long? Whyare we in year two before this
(02:00):
episode makes an appearance? Itry never to force a topic. A
lot of what I share on thispodcast puts me out of my
comfort zone. I've talked aboutit before. It's deeply
personal. I aim to beintentional about processing
first, thinking somethingthrough fully learning my own
lessons best I can beforesharing here. This approach I
(02:24):
feel is best in service of meand you, and so here we are in
year two ready to talk abouttoday's topic. Before we go any
further though, I'm going toput a trigger warning on this
episode just to be safe. Thetopic of abuse is a difficult
one and I am not going to stepinto it lightly. If this is a
(02:47):
particularly sensitive topicfor you, and even if it's not,
please take a grounding breathand be aware that this may not
be an easy listen all the waythrough. I'm not going to
discourage you from listeningaltogether though because you
might need to hear what isshared in this episode. So much
(03:07):
of my inspiration for topicsfor this show comes from things
I wish I had learned or knownearlier, things I needed to
hear, lessons I learned thereally, really hard way, which
is most of my life lessonshonestly, so that you don't
have to. So let's get into thisepisode. Here's where I want to
(03:28):
start. In my experience, it'sso common in our cultures
around the topic of divorce, tohear a question like, but did
he hit you? He hit you right?
He must have hit you. Ioutright got this question as I
pursued my divorce and I wasn'tsurprised knowing this would be
(03:49):
the stick used to measure thevalidity of my divorce is in
part what kept me in myrelationship because no, there
was no actual physicalviolence. There were times I
felt we were very close to it,but there was absolutely no
actual physical violenceinvolved. To think of abuse
(04:11):
only at the physical level isto really, really miss the
point. Abuse can take manyforms. Financial, verbal,
psychological, emotional, andthe focus on physical abuse
because it's most visible hasan invalidating effect on the
rest is a problem because it'soften these less visible forms
(04:35):
of abuse that cause the mostdamage, the most long lasting
harm, and on top of that canoften be the least socially
acceptable grounds to part waysin a relationship. Domestic
violence is a difficultsubject. Of course. For me, it
remains one of my biggesttriggers. I have a lot of
(04:58):
healing left to do around thissubject that goes far beyond my
marriage and divorce in thelast few years, and that's my
work to do. I'm working to beready to face it all, but what
I do know and want to emphasizenow with conviction is that
abuse is abuse and it is neverokay, never acceptable. When
(05:22):
people say relationships arehard work, this does not
include dealing with abuse.
When people recommend couplestherapy, this does not apply to
situations of abuse. I have awhole other episode on this
topic, not yet out, but oneI've been meaning to do despite
(05:46):
this being an especiallydifficult topic for me. The
reason I wanna share about ittoday is in case you are
experiencing or have everexperienced it, and by it I
mean emotional abuse and youdon't recognize it or want
validation around it, I want tooffer that to you. So much of
(06:08):
my experience with emotionalabuse, I only fully understood
in hindsight often by the lookon the face of the person. I
shared an anecdote, aconversation, a situation with,
and I'm still finding that Ididn't realize how messed up
some of the stuff was that wassaid to me until moments like
(06:28):
these and those words, thosefeelings stay with you. I'm
still working through some ofthem. I still hear them in my
head and they still color someof my beliefs about myself.
It's hard to rewrite. I'm awork in progress, so in this
episode I'm going to give yousome examples of emotional and
(06:50):
verbal abuse. I'm going toassure you that just because
things haven't turned physicaldoesn't mean it's not abuse. In
fact, emotional and verbalabuse are often precursors to
physical abuse. When I learnedthis, I found myself at times
(07:11):
wishing things would justescalate to that point already
because it would maybe helplegitimize the abuse I was
experiencing. I would havesomething to point to to prove
I need out to myself as much astwo others. I said , sorry, I
knew this was going to be adifficult one to record and I
(07:32):
ask you to bear with me. I knowI'm not alone in that line of
thinking, and I also know evenif it had gotten to that point,
it would have been easy tocontinue to rationalize
staying. I want you to hearthis. I want you to know you
are not alone in thesethoughts, these experiences,
(07:55):
and I want you to feel 10,000million percent justified in
leaving. I want this for you somuch. I also want us to put
aside for a while this ideathat emotional abuse and
similar terms that fall underthis umbrella are turning into
buzzwords and being overused.
(08:17):
While I do agree that we cansay this is happening, I also
worry, the more I see that,that we're going to further
invalidate true cases of abuse.
I'm referring to when it seemslike everywhere, all over
social media, we're callingpeople narcissists. Well, guess
what? There are truenarcissists out there. I'm not
(08:40):
making a bold claim about thatin this episode, but let's put
all of that aside and let's youjust think about you here. I
wanna put an early exclamationpoint around the fact that
whether you define yourexperience as abuse or not, if
you are in a situation thatmakes you feel unhappy, unsafe,
(09:02):
then it's not okay and you arenot overreacting. Even if there
is no abuse and you simply nolonger feel a relationship,
whether with a coworker , aromantic partner, a friend, a
parent, whatever is right foryou, do what you need to do for
you. That's just me layinggroundwork. I also recognize
(09:27):
some of you listening may notbe or have ever have been in
this situation firsthand, whichI am so glad for. For you, you
may or may not have someone inyour life who does experience
this. I recognize that if youhave not experienced this
firsthand, it's not easy tounderstand why someone won't
(09:47):
just leave, how someone couldactually rationalize staying
how someone could not see thatthese are obvious signs of an
unhealthy relationship. I getit. I can't or rather don't
have the energy to explain it,but I will acknowledge that it
can be frustrating to see aloved one struggle with this.
(10:08):
It's a whole other topic that Idon't have the emotional energy
to get into at this time, but Iwant to acknowledge it,
especially because I alsorelate to aspects of it now
that I am in a different placein my own life, emotional and
verbal abuse are insidious. Wealready talked about how you
might not even fully recognizeit, especially the emotional
(10:32):
piece , but the way it affectsyour self-esteem, how you view
yourself, feel about yourselfis very real, and even this is
not always an obvious shiftbecause it can happen so slowly
over time. I do believe some ofus are more prone to fall into
it than others, though it canhappen to anyone. I don't say
(10:53):
this from any kind of blame orshame perspective, but from an
awareness one, and because Irecognize now with my shifts in
mindset and self-love, why Iwas susceptible before, I
already had low self-esteem. Iwas full of insecurities in a
lot of ways. I was easy prey.
(11:14):
What I wanna communicate to younext are signs and examples of
emotional abuse because it canoften be subtle, and if you
don't have it called out foryou, it can be hard to
recognize and easy to push awayand say to yourself, it's not
so bad. I'm making a big dealout of nothing, so I wanna
share what it looks, feels andsounds like. I'm going to also
(11:35):
link to additional resourcesthat will expand further on
these or beyond these, and Iencourage you to click through
those resources too . As I gothrough these, maybe they'll
resonate. Maybe they'll causeyou to question something
you've been minimizing is not abig deal. All I want you to do
for now is listen, you don'thave to worry about diagnosing
(11:57):
abuse or not abuse. Just listenand let your intuition, your
instincts, your gut, speak toyou and guide you as you do for
what I'm about to share, we'renot talking about isolated
instances of the below butpatterns of behavior. So bear
that in mind. Alright , oneindicator of the presence of
(12:17):
emotional abuse is minimizingyour feelings and your
accomplishments invalidatingyou. This can sound like you're
being too sensitive or can'tyou take a joke or with regard
to your achievements, I coulddo that too, or simply ignoring
your accomplishments or ifyou've been recognized for
(12:38):
something. This is subtle andtricky for me. I heard the
first two regularly growing upfrom different people,
including it's at school fromyou know, fellow classmates, so
I assumed this feedback wasvalid in every situation, and
that also plays into thesubtlety here. Often emotional
(12:59):
abuse plays upon your existinginsecurities that you might
have shared with someone, andthese are then used against
you. When you keep havingphrases like this directed at
you in response to youexpressing a need or feelings
of a boundary being crossedover and over again, you stop
expressing it, you start tointernalize that maybe you
(13:22):
really are too sensitive anduptight and before you know it,
you're tolerating increasedlevels of disrespect as a
result. This is how I got tothe point of not realizing how
messed up things were until Irecounted a conversation for
someone and they verified withthe shock on their face that
what I had normalized waswrong, and to be fair, this
(13:45):
whole thing goes beyondromantic relationships. I had a
very similar experience withsome friends in college.
Experiences like this affectyour ability to stand up for
yourself because your gauge forwhen you should be standing up
for yourself versus not getscompletely distorted. You can't
tell whether you are wrong orthe other person is you usually
(14:08):
believe it's the former. If youfind yourself constantly second
guessing yourself when it comesto whether or not you should
speak up for yourself, if youfind yourself thinking, oh,
they're just joking, I'm beingtoo sensitive over and over and
over again, I urge you toreevaluate. If there's someone
(14:28):
you feel comfortable gutchecking with by sharing the
story with them to get theirperspective, someone you really
trust and who knows you andloves you, well do it. If you
find yourself not wanting toshare the instances with anyone
or distorting the truth whenyou do, that's also a data
point for you. For so long Ididn't share the details. I hid
(14:51):
things from the people closestto me because I could feel
something was off and not rightand I was ashamed before I even
rationally, consciously couldput into words what was going
on. If you find yourselfrationalizing and editing the
truth to protect your partneror whomever, and you think that
(15:12):
if you restate something intruth, the other person just
won't understand becausethey're not in your
relationship and mightinterpret something the wrong
way, reevaluate maybe theiroutsider perspective is
actually more valuable than youthink. After the last few years
as a result of this indicatorin particular, I now view
sarcasm as a red flag. I usedto love sarcasm myself. As I
(15:37):
grew older, I increasinglyrealized how harmful it can be,
and now I don't even messaround with the nuances of
sarcasm for fun versus forharm. If I'm swiping on bumble
or hinge and I see fluent insarcasm, that's an immediate no
for me. I don't want to everagain have someone say mean
things to me in a sarcastictone that when I express I
(16:00):
don't appreciate it. They canjust say, you're being too
sensitive. It's just a joke. Iwas being sarcastic. Get outta
here with that
immature. Please communicatewith me on a different and more
real level. If you need to hidebehind your sarcasm, I don't
want any part of it, and ifyou're only skilled at being
(16:22):
funny through sarcasm, you'renot funny enough. For me,
that's just facts. I wanna alsogo back to this minimization of
your accomplishments andsuccesses for a moment. If you
have someone telling you thatyour job is easy and they could
do it too, that your publicrecognition for something is no
(16:43):
big deal and doesn't need toeven be acknowledged that your
hobbies and passions are dumband a waste of time to the
point where you find yourselfholding back on even sharing
good news with this personbecause you know they're just
going to ignore it or bring youdown and just don't wanna
engage in that hassle .
Recognize that I had a friendyears ago in college who ended
(17:07):
a relationship with herlong-term boyfriend because he
didn't celebrate her enough andat the time I didn't really
understand to be honest, butafter my own experience with
this, not only not having myactivities and my mind and my
things celebrated, but havingthem actively put down, I
completely get it. If someoneis minimizing your interests
(17:29):
and achievements, they aretrying to bring you down and
make themselves feel better incomparison, and I'm not even
saying that , that they'redoing this on a conscious level
with conscious maliciousintent. Although I've learned I
tend to give people too much ofthe benefit of the doubt, so
who knows, maybe they are
either way, that it's notwhat's happening and you
(17:51):
deserve better, you deservemore. You deserve to be
celebrated and recognized andacknowledged, and it really is
a big deal. It really is a bigdeal. You really should
celebrate. It really is amazingwhat you did. Don't let someone
else make you feel like youshouldn't be proud of the
(18:13):
things you are proud of. Thereare billions of people on this
earth. Surround yourself withthe people who make you feel
good about yourself and stopwasting energy on the ones who
can't. I feel like I'm talkingas much to myself right now as
to you, which I think is a goodthing. Another indicator of
(18:34):
emotional abuse is a constantignoring of your boundaries. If
you have shared something youdon't like a behavior or
language, whatever, it doesn'teven have to be you saying,
Hey, I have a boundary againstthis, but if you've shared,
Hey, I don't like when you dothat to me or say that to me,
if you've clearly shared thatand had it either minimized or
(18:55):
repeatedly ignored and had thebehavior or language take place
anyway, if someone tries toconvince you to change your
boundary or says your boundarydoesn't make sense or even says
something like, I do it becauseI love you, you should be
worried if I ever stop doingit, not if I continue. All of
that is trash, and yes, that'sa quote throw with the F out.
(19:18):
You deserve to have yourboundaries respected. Your
boundaries don't have to makesense to anyone else, but they
absolutely must be honored, andwhen someone is incapable or
refuses to honor yourboundaries, words are
meaningless. They may say theylove and care for you, but if
their actions cannot back it upby respecting your boundaries,
(19:39):
it means nothing and youdeserve to implement a next
step based on this. Whetherthat's you cut them out of your
life, you leave them or you seeand talk to them less or you
don't discuss certain topicswith them anymore, whatever it
is, don't compromise yourboundaries. Moving on. Constant
criticism and judgment isanother indicator of abuse. If
(20:02):
someone tells you or makes youfeel like you are always in the
wrong with how you do things,how you dress, how you speak,
and that they are always rightand just trying to give you
feedback to improve, but thatfeedback is always about
telling you how you're doing.
Every little thing wrong, eveninconsequential daily actions
(20:25):
to the bigger things about likeyour relationships with friends
and family. There's somethingwrong there and it's not
something wrong with you likethis person would like you to
believe. This is verycontrolling behavior. Just
because the person isn'tphysically forcing you to do or
not do something does not meanthis is not controlling highly
(20:45):
manipulative behavior. If youfeel like you can never do or
say the right thing and findyourself walking on eggshells
around this person red flag,please don't ignore this. Do
you find yourself walking oneggshells? Do you find yourself
hyper monitoring things you sayor don't say or do or don't do
just so you don't incur thewrath of this person or a
(21:08):
barrage of criticism orjudgment? This is not a healthy
environment for you to be in.
There are so many differentways to do things that is
allowed, that is beautiful. Ifsomeone constantly makes you
feel or even outright tells youthat they're the ones who know
how to do everything right andyou and others always do things
wrong, that's a them problem,not a you problem. Stop trying
(21:33):
to satisfy their needs for howyou do or say or move or dress
or look. It's not possible andit's certainly not worth it,
and again, this can apply toany type of relationship. This
next one gets into the realm ofpsychological abuse, so
psychological abuse is moreabout affecting how you think,
(21:53):
whereas emotional is more aboutaffecting how you feel, but
there are of course a lot ofoverlaps between these. This
next one is gaslighting. Theterm gaslighting comes from an
old movie in which the husbandtried to convince his wife that
she was going crazy by slowlydimming the gaslights, but
(22:14):
telling her she was imaginingit essentially. I've never seen
it, but I know that term and Iknow that's where it comes
from, and I know what it feelslike. It's frustrating as hell
to experience it. It'sconfusing and maddening. You
literally start to questionyour reality. You know you're
right, but you can't prove it,so you start to wonder or you
(22:38):
feel frustrated about it.
Here's how this might show upin a relationship. Someone
might tell you you aremisremembering certain
conversations or details thatyou definitely remember, but
you're then being toldrepeatedly that you're not
remembering correctly orregularly being told in
conversation, that you tooksomething out of context that
(23:01):
you know for a fact was not,and again, it's when this stuff
happens over and over and overagain and it's a pattern at a
certain point, it's actuallynot about miscommunication,
which might be the problem thatyou decide you need to solve
when this happens as I did,it's not about
miscommunication, it's aboutlying and redirection. Another
(23:23):
way this could show up could bein a discussion or argument.
When you're talking about onething, you start to make a lot
of logical, rational sense andthink you'll come to a point of
clarity, but then instead theperson says, that's not even
what we've been talking about.
Again, for a long time when Iexperienced this, I thought,
(23:44):
oh, we just have vastlydifferent communication styles
and ways of interpreting theworld and words and no. You
know what recently reminded meof this and might be a good
example, is if you watchselling Sunset, Christine , on
the latest um season, I hadsome moments where you were
watching her having aconversation on the screen and
(24:06):
she would say one thing andthen when she was almost about
to be caught in, it wouldcompletely pivot and say,
perfectly matter of factly.
What do you mean that's notwhat we're talking about. We're
talking about this. What do youmean that didn't happen? I
didn't say that this happened,this, I was watching this and I
was like, oh my goodness. Sothere's a homework assignment.
(24:27):
You can go watch selling Sunsetto get one example on a related
note when someone tries to tellyou how you're being perceived
by others. That's anotherexample of this. So for
instance, if you're all outwith friends, you talk, you
chill, whatever, and then laterthe person tells you that you
totally misread everyone'sfacial expressions the whole
(24:48):
time. They actually weren't onboard with what you were
contributing to theconversation. It was
off-putting. Now, normally thiscan be really helpful feedback
and even valid depending on thesituation, who the feedback is
coming from what reason, likeif they genuinely wanna help
you be a better human orcommunicator. That's different
(25:09):
from planting seeds ofself-doubt and making someone
question their own sense ofself-awareness. If someone ever
starts to make you questionyour own level of
self-awareness, what you shoulddo is affirm or refute. You
could follow up , for example,in this case with the group of
friends themselves and saysomething like, Hey, I realize
(25:31):
I might have come across as X,Y, Z the other evening. Is that
right? Do I have a good read onthat? Ask for verification
outside of the person tellingyou this. Maybe they misread
the situation themselves ormaybe they want you to question
your sense of self, and again,they may not be doing all of
this at a conscious level, butthey're doing it. So
(25:51):
gaslighting is about gettingyou to question yourself. Your
reality, your memory. If you'refeeling confused or frustrated
or like you can never rememberthings the right way anymore,
or you used to be an excellentcommunicator and you've been
giving that feedback your wholelife, but all of a sudden you
just can't seem to beunderstood or even understand
(26:14):
the other person. Startdocumenting things that happen
as they happen as clearly asyou can journal about it. I
look back at my journal entriesfrom a few years ago now and I
can read how confused I was. Iwasn't doing it from the
standpoint of trying todocument like I'm now advising
you to do because again, whileI was in it, I didn't really
(26:37):
grasp what was happening for along time, hence the reason for
this episode now, but when I dolook back because I have
journaled for so long, I findit very valuable in general. I
can clearly see how all of thiswas happening for me and what
it was doing to my thinking andmy views and my sense of self,
and it's honestlyheartbreaking. Another
(27:00):
indicator, and again, I've hadthis also happen with so-called
friends in the past, is whensomeone uses your insecurities
or your compassion, your valuesagainst you, I think this is
pretty straightforward. If youshare your fears and
insecurities with someone whois obviously a close
relationship to you and theythrow it in your face when the
(27:22):
opportunity arises, that is notokay, that is not your person.
Those are not your people.
Another perhaps more obviousindicator of verbal and
emotional abuse is yelling andname calling . I say perhaps
more obvious because even thiswas something I hate to say can
be rationalized, right? You canchalk it up to different
(27:46):
communication styles and I usedto do a lot of research in
forums and there would bepeople saying, Hey, this is
just how I talk. I don't takeit to heart, so I would just
think, okay, some peoplecommunicate in these ways and
don't mean anything harmful byit, it's just what they're used
to. But then when you thinkback up to boundaries, if you
(28:06):
express a boundary against acertain behavior or language
and it's repeatedly ignored,that's something to look into
Also, often yelling is anintimidation tactic. Also,
words have meaning, and for me,my love language is words of
affirmation. Having insultshurled at at you will hurt
anyone, and for me it's like anactive reversal of my love
(28:30):
language. It demonstrates tosuch a lack of respect of self
and the other. In my opinion, Idon't ever wanna engage in any
kind of relationship with anyadult who does not have control
over their own emotions anddoesn't know how to emotionally
regulate. The more subtle flipside of this that also falls
(28:51):
under abuse is stonewallingmore commonly known as giving
someone the silent treatment,refusing to engage with them. A
healthier approach to this isto communicate, to say, Hey, I
need some time to cool down.
Let's talk again in two hours,or let's talk again tomorrow or
whatever time bound it . I'mgoing to take some space, but
(29:14):
to just ignore someone andrefuse to engage when they talk
to you or not allowing them totalk about a specific incident
or feeling to express, notallowing them to be heard
pretending they don't exist.
This is not emotionally safebehavior. Another layer of this
is threatening threats. Thiscan range to include everything
(29:36):
you think of when that wordcomes up, but it can also
include threatening to leave ifthere's a constant threat to
the relationship. When someoneexpresses a need or has a
differing opinion and theresponse is, let's break up, or
let's get a divorce. Thesethings can be really damaging
in a relationship. So thisbrings us to a shift in our
conversation. Why do people actthis way? Why do abusers abuse?
(30:02):
I said a couple times that theymay not be doing it on a
conscious level, likely, verylikely they're operating from a
place of their own unhealedtraumas. That's often the hard
reality of it for me and likelyfor many like me. This is yet
another reason we rationalizeaway this behavior because we
(30:23):
feel for this person who maybecan never feel this way for us,
we feel their pain. We feellike we want to fix them and
help them and heal them. Wefeel sad for them. We feel like
it's unfair. The trauma theyexperienced that contributed to
these reactions. We feel likeit's not their fault. We feel
(30:45):
like we understand them and aretherefore overly forgiving of
them at the expense ofourselves. We know we feel the
words hurt people hurt people,and we minimize our own hurt to
try to heal theirs, And we loseourselves in the process. We
(31:08):
make ourselves martyrs, andit's often fruitless because
while the intentions are good,we're not facilitating their
healing. We're not changingthem By sticking around. If
anything, we are just enablingthem. It sucks. It sucks to
(31:33):
realize this, but it's also sofreeing because you can then
shift from trying to heal theirpain and changing their lives,
to healing your own, to freeingyourself, to loving yourself.
In fact, it was the moment Ihad this specific realization,
oh, I thought by staying I washelping, but I'm actually
(31:57):
enabling that everything seemedto crash down around me. It is
the moment I realized thatnothing was ever going to
change because me staying therewas enabling this behavior to
continue, and the more I stayedand the more I tolerated and
the more I forgave, whatincentive does anyone have to
(32:18):
actually change then none.
Here's the thing, We're notresponsible for the traumas we
experienced growing up, but weas adults are responsible for
our own healing. Some peopleget this, some people continue
(32:39):
to live far too long with thevictim mentality and refuse to
engage in true healing andcontinue to blame others for
their pain, for them being theway they are for their
reactions. You cannot getthrough to a person like this.
You can only change and healyourself. You can only change
(33:00):
and heal yourself, and youcannot do so stuck in the same
environment that's keeping youstunted and causing you harm. I
hope this episode gave you whatyou needed. I hope you know now
that emotional abuse is real.
It's a valid reason to ridyourself of a relationship that
(33:21):
is unhealthy so you can createspace for one that is healthy,
ideally beginning with healingyour relationship with
yourself. I hope this gave youa better sense of or validated
how emotional abuse canmanifest what it sounds and
feels like. I asked you tolisten and to ultimately trust
(33:44):
your gut. For so long, Iignored my own intuition. I
didn't trust myself. Irationalized and rationalized.
I guilted myself into staying.
Even if you listen to this andthink, Nope, this does not fit
the description of what I'mexperiencing. If you're unhappy
in a friendship, a romanticrelationship, a work
(34:05):
relationship that is reasonenough, that is reason enough
to leave one more time, that isreason enough. Even abuse is
not the only reason to move onto leave if you're not happy.
If something doesn't fit, nomatter how it looks on paper,
(34:27):
please honor yourself, honoryour needs, honor your wants,
your desires. Life is so short.
Life is too short to ignore ordownplay what you want out of
it. I'm sending you so muchlove and support. I'm including
resources in the show notes. Ifyou need help, please seek it
out. If there's someone youknow who needs to hear this
(34:49):
episode, send it to them.
Sometimes other people's voicescan get through to our loved
ones and resonate in a way thatwe just cannot directly. So
share this. If you know someonewho needs it, take care. Tune
in for the next episode of thisseason. Remember, we're on an
every other week cadence, somake sure you hit subscribe
(35:11):
wherever you're listening, soyou never miss an episode.
Until next time.
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