Emotional Abuse is VERY evident in most of the common bullying tactics, which degrade or insult or threaten people with intention to make them feel hurt or feel angry or feel scared.
Emotional Abuse is VERY evident in the sadistic aim to make a person feel so hurt that they angrily react, so that the abuser can make the victim look like the bad guy.
Emotional Abuse is VERY evident in the sadistic aim to intentionally upset a person and then openly degrade them for feeling hurt or angry or scared.
Emotional Abuse is VERY evident in the sadistic aim to make a person feel unloved by a parent or sibling or other loved one. This is an extremely hurtful and cruel form of Emotional Abuse, especially when it is done to a child.
Emotional Abuse is VERY evident in the sadistic aim to intentionally traumatize a person, in order to manipulate or control them. This is an extremely hurtful and cruel form of Emotional Abuse.
Emotional Abuse is VERY evident in the intentional suppression of natural feelings of sadness or grief. This form of emotional abuse is VERY wide spread and is even often thought to be the right thing to do. Most of us do it to ourselves as well as others, to some degree, which is often done through distracting ourselves and others from the natural grieving process. And it is often done with statements like, "don't cry" and "crying is weak" and "you are too sensitive" and "don't take it personally," as if the victim is feeling or doing something wrong. The person who has and expresses natural human feelings is NOT the one who is wrong in these situations... the ones who are doing wrong are those who tell people that their feelings are wrong and that they should suppress them. This is often NOT done with the intent to harm, but the effect is still VERY harmful - it’s still Emotional Abuse. More awareness, about how important it is to not suppress the natural grieving process, that releases our pain and unblocks our hearts, is probably all that is needed to stop most cases of this form of Emotional Abuse. But laws should be set up to stop the abusive intent to force a person to suppress feelings, especially when it is done to make a person more controllable and less caring.
Emotional Abuse is VERY evident in the intentional suppression of natural feelings of sadness or grief. This form of emotional abuse is VERY wide spread and is even often thought to be the right thing to do. Most of us do it to ourselves as well as others, to some degree, which is often done through distracting ourselves and others from the natural grieving process. And it is often done with statements like, "don't cry" and "crying is weak" and "you are too sensitive" and "don't take it personally," as if the victim is feeling or doing something wrong. The person who has and expresses natural human feelings is NOT the one who is wrong in these situations... the ones who are doing wrong are those who tell people that their feelings are wrong and that they should suppress them. This is often NOT done with the intent to harm, but the effect is still VERY harmful - it’s still Emotional Abuse. More awareness, about how important it is to not suppress the natural grieving process, that releases our pain and unblocks our hearts, is probably all that is needed to stop most cases of this form of Emotional Abuse. But laws should be set up to stop the abusive intent to force a person to suppress feelings, especially when it is done to make a person more controllable and less caring.
Severe levels of Emotional Abuse should become prosecutable crimes, because it often causes far worse long term damage,
to the victims wellbeing, than most physical abuses do.
In some parts of our world, victims of Emotional Abuse are blamed for having feelings; for taking it personally, for being sensitive, for feeling hurt, for feeling scared, for feeling angry...etc., and this is too horribly wrong for us to let it continue. Along with the awareness of what Emotional Abuse is and haw harmful it is, must also come more awareness of how important it is for us to all retain our full range of natural human feelings, instead of suppressing them.
Being sensitive is not wrong, but being hurtful is.
Having natural human feelings is not wrong; our full range of natural feelings are needed for the process of growing and evolving into more healthy and whole and compassionate human beings. The most sensitive people are usually the most caring and compassionate people. The problem is NOT that they are "too sensitive" - the problem is that other people are often too INsensitive - too UNcaring - too heartless. We actually need more heart - more sensitivity in our world, not less, and this is evident in the state of our world. Please read my "Embracing Feelings and Healing" book, which is on the Barnes and Noble website, if you want to learn more about how to become more sensitive and more caring.
PLEASE HELP EXPOSE AND STOP ALL FORMS OF EMOTIONAL ABUSE
Please share this information with as many people as you can.
What I share here is based on what I've experienced and witnessed. If you have experienced other forms of Emotional Abuse, please share them in a comment and I will consider adding them to my listings here, so that more victims can be validated.
I have experienced extreme levels of both emotional and mental abuse in my family of origin. In fact, I've been under attack around the time of creating this blog. So please excuse my mistakes and the fact that this blog is not finished. I need more distance from the abuse, and time to process it all better, before I share more. But I hope what I have shared thus far will help validate victims of both emotional and mental abuse.
I did a web search and found no accurate descriptions of Emotional Abuse and very little about it. The fact that there was so little on the web about Emotional Abuse is, to me, a sign of how rampant it is and how few people realize how damaging it is. Please do help spread the word. You are welcome to freely share the information I have on this blog post. Just please do so without plagiarizing - without taking credit for it and without gaining anything from it.
I will soon share more in the pages on the right side of this blog.
Update 7-28-2024; The Directive to a will used for Mental Abuse
The first part of this situation is on this page;
https://exposingemotionalabuse.blogspot.com/p/mental-abuse.html
Severe levels of mental and emotional abuse were recently carried out in a directive to my father's will, and in an old letter he angrily wrote against me in 2007. My sisters sent both to me right after my father's death in January of 2024. The directive mimicked the old letter and showed that he was vengefully cutting me out of his will, but that my siblings could decide if they want to share their inheritance with me "IF" I get "treatment" for the "illness," that my sister's hate proclaimed that I have since early 2003. In this set up I only get an inheritance IF I consume either psychiatric drugs or check myself into an asylum and get damaging shock treatments. And even then it is up to my sisters if i get it or not. It appears that this whole current situation was orchestrated by only my sisters, just to mentally abuse me right after my father's death, and deprive me of an inheritance...
Around August, 25 2021 my father and I were doing well. I was even setting him up with a healthier diet plan to help him with a memory problem he was having...etc. A few years before this, we had both reached a place of forgiveness for the past problems between us, which had been raised by my sisters in 2003. But on Sept 28, 2021, a new directive to his will was created. Absolutely nothing bad had happened between my father and I in that month - in fact things were even better than they had been since we reunited around 2012. But, in that month, it appears that my sisters found out that my father and I were getting closer and this is something they do not allow. It appears that my sisters either edited the directive and had him sign it without reading it, or they emotionally abused him with more fabrications and the raising of the old and buried issue between us, in order to turn him against me and have him drawn up a new directive, I feel certain that my father did not do this on his own in 2021.
In the documents, which my sister sent me right after my father's death, there were also lies about other things; in one they state that I had accused my other family members of horrible things...etc., which was not true. This part was emotional abuse being inflicted upon my uninvolved siblings; it was a lie told, in order to make them feel accused and hurt by me and to keep them angry with me and keep me away from the family.
I never accused anyone but my father, and I even only did that AFTER he (with my sisters) spent four years slandering and mentally abusing me and even hurting my children through trying to turn them against me. It was in the 2006/2007 winter and I confronted only him with just one sentence and nothing else. In 2007 he appeared to be doing this, in order to cover up his own past mistakes, which my sisters appear to have exposed in the emails they wrote from my account, and convinced him were from me. Its a horrid scenario, for both my father and I. To say that it has been extremely painful and devastating does not say nearly enough.
FYI; I actually HAD sought professional help and was NOT found to be ill, and they KNEW this BEFORE even starting what I call their "insane game" against me in 2003. This form of mental abuse is a very sadistic form of targeting where they pretend its out of concern for me, but its really the opposite - its pure jealous hate that motivates them and its been there since we were young children. (I'm Cinderella. :-( And in one of my sisters, its sometimes also her projections of her own problems and "evil" behaviors; she sometimes pretends to be me and pretends that I am her. We have always been complete opposites; I was the one who always had a big heart and did not want to hurt anyone. I still am, and unfortunately she still isn't. In fact she has gotten even worse, because people have let her get away with her cruel games way too much, which is not good for her either.
Update 7-29-2024; (Revised on 8-6-2024)
I feel that what happened to me, in my family, is a story that must be shared, for the sake of the safety and well being of all victims of this sort of thing, including myself.
I had to remove myself from the ongoing mental and emotional abuse in my family, so that i could process my feelings and do a better job with explaining things - including more of the factual details and less of the defensive emotions. I am still in this process, and puzzle pieces are still clicking into place, so its going to take some time for me to fully accomplish this. But the short article below shares what appears to be the true core of the mental abuse I experienced in the worse part of my family situation....
In the Root of the Mental Abuse
Just before my sisters launched into fabricating things, in order to convince people that I am insane and should be shoved into an asylum for "treatment," my father had been bragging about me being spiritually "gifted," and my sisters had read the things I'd written about psychiatric pharmaceuticals blocking people's Hearts and spirituality.
In the fall of 2002, directly after my father started bragging about my prophetic dreams being a "gift" I had, both of my sisters started going to a spiritual meditation type group in Boston. They were trying to be spiritual too, and had even asked me to talk to the group leader and let them know what I thought of her. I talked to the leader and then told my second oldest sister that the leader was skipping over the most important part - the Heart, and that this was not good. After I said this, my sister angrily spit out, "You just don't want us to be spiritual too!" This is the sister that has a habit of projecting her own bad intentions and bad behaviors onto me, and this statement was no exception. The truth was that SHE did not want me to be spiritual, and that SHE wanted to be the one who is. Actually, BOTH of my sisters VERY obviously felt this way. They had always been hatefully jealous of me, but this is when they flew into the darkest depths of it.
Within a month or so, and after sending her son to get the password to my email account, my sister started playing mean games, which included writing emails from my account, in order to turn my father against me and convince him and other family members that I am insane and should be forced into an asylum. The push for this appears to primarily be both of my sisters hatefully trying to block my spirituality and heart with the "treatment" they heard would do the job. It would also make people think less of me, which has been one of their goals, through most of our lives; first they were jealous of the depth of my heart/compassion and of me being thin and athletic, and then in 2003 it was also the spiritual "gift" that my father boasted of me having.
As my sisters jealous hate aimed to have me forced into an asylum, one of them even called the psychologist (that I'd been seeing) and tried to turn her against me. Then she told me that I was insane and that my psychologist even agreed with her. But this was proven untrue. The psychologist wisely saw the truth and told me that my sister was a danger to me and that I should stay away from her.
It appears that they tormented my father, in the emails they wrote from my account, and then showed to him, taunting him about some of his wrong doings - things that I did not even know about, at that time, but that my sisters knew. It was confusing as hell for while there. I didn't even know any of this was happening until my father suddenly called and started angrily blasting me, like he never had before. That was one of the toughest days of my life, not only because I was so blindsided, and blasted for things I did not do and knew nothing about, but mostly because of the pain I heard in his voice. What they did to him, with those emails, was horribly cruel. I told him that none of it was done by me. But he didn't believe me. :-(
My father then joined my sister's crusade to convince me and other family members, including my children, that there was something wrong with me - that I was insane. While he was doing this, my sister was repeatedly leaving messages on my phone, in her fake 'nice' voice. Most of the time she said things like, "come back to New Hampshire. We love you and just want to get you the help you need." And literally every time my father and I spoke, he said things like, "Sharon, there is something wrong with you." This went on for about a year and a half - until I changed my phone number and cut off communication with the whole family, in order to prevent them from shoving me into an asylum and from continuing to mentally abuse me. My sisters had the whole family manipulated against me and there was nothing I could do about it, but protect myself. Words can't describe how painful all of this was for me, especially since this all started within a few months after my youngest brother's sudden death.
Now, in this year of 2024, both of my sisters have just used my father's death, in order to continue both emotionally and mentally abusing me. They did this in a directive to his will as well as in emails. I feel that the directive was written by my sisters without my father even knowing about it, because he and I had found peace and forgiveness and were getting even closer than we had been, since we'd reunited in 2012, within just one month before the date of this directive. But it is possible that my sisters found out about my father and I getting closer and had again emotionally abused him into going against me and dictated that part of the directive, after re-raising the old buried 2007 issues and possibly also fabricating even more things. Either way, I feel certain that he didn't write that part of the directive of his own free will, even IF he was involved in it at all. This part of the directive has a completely different tone from the parts that he did write by himself and of his own free will - and the tone of the parts that are against me, perfectly match my sisters hate and manipulativeness and ill intentions toward me. I have no intention of contesting the will, in order to get money from them. But I do want the real truth to be known, because I want my sisters to stop succeeding with manipulating people against me, and I want to them to never succeed with forcing me into damaging "treatment" in an asylum.
The directive states a couple dishonest things that were obviously there just to manipulate my other siblings against me. But the mental abuse part says that I have to get "treatment" for the "illness" (That I've never been diagnosed with, and that my sisters know I do not even really have.), in order for me to have the opportunity to get my inheritance. The directive also states that, even after I get the "treatment," it is left up to my sisters/siblings if I get any inheritance at all. This directive makes it obvious that this is not about me getting the psychological help, (that they and my father knew I had already gotten BEFORE this directive was written) - its obviously about forcing the "treatment" that my sisters know will destroy or block the spiritual "gift" and deep heart that they have been so hatefully jealous of, and obviously still are. This directive actually makes their hate and vengeance and real focus very clear. It spells it right out, literally.
I am, of course, not going to give them what they want. Nothing is worth losing my sanity and freedom for...etc. Losing the inheritance does not feel like much of a loss, because I have not expected my sisters to let me have it, since one of the things they VERY OBVIOUSLY did, in the 2003 emails they wrote from my account, was to make my father lose trust in me and choose them, instead of my older brother and I, as executors of his will. My two older sisters have always been into hurting and depriving me and this has not changed and has even gotten worse since 2003; I am still "Just Anotha Cinderella" :-(
And just for the record; natural spirituality is not something that can be learned in any group or class; Its something we are ALL born with and just need to keep our Hearts open to, (or re-open our hearts to) through not doing or consuming things that block our Hearts and instincts and intuition...etc., like I had said from the start. And Heart truly is the most important part of our natural spirituality, because its the part that contains the Light/Love. And re-connecting to that Love/Light is a healing/grieving process, which is actually what my work has been about since the late 1980s - healing and opening our Hearts to deeper levels of Love/Light. The truth is that, through years of hard work with a good psychologist and support groups...etc., I had become the most functional member of my family. My sisters knew and resented this just before they launched into the mental abuse and manipulations that portrayed me as the complete opposite.
My first full "Embracing Feelings" book, which was completed in 1999, was for my family more than anyone else. I wish my sisters had done the grieving work, and found their hearts, and gained enough love for themselves to stop hating me. But it appears that they both went and stayed in the complete opposite direction. Instead of letting themselves be helped by the first manuscript to my "Embracing Feelings" book, they hated me even more for it. :-(
The article I wrote a couple decades ago, about us ALL being "Gifted", was actually inspired by my sisters not realizing and honoring their own natural "gifts" so much that they hated me for having mine. It is sad that they are still stuck in that dark place where they seem to unconsciously also hate themselves. Its a VERY sad situation for all of us, and has been a dangerous and devastating and extremely painful situation for me. And I should not be hurt by it anymore, AT ALL, because I already have been far too much and for too long.
The article I wrote a couple decades ago, about us ALL being "Gifted", was actually inspired by my sisters not realizing and honoring their own natural "gifts" so much that they hated me for having mine. It is sad that they are still stuck in that dark place where they seem to unconsciously also hate themselves. Its a VERY sad situation for all of us, and has been a dangerous and devastating and extremely painful situation for me. And I should not be hurt by it anymore, AT ALL, because I already have been far too much and for too long.
I want to remain free and to not continue being hurt by my sisters, or anyone who has been manipulated against me.
P.S. The directive to my father's will also stated that I had to be closer to the family, in order to get an inheritance too. And my sister sent emails, through her daughter's account, both before and after my father's death, which were so severely dishonest and emotionally abusive and mentally abusive that they made sure I would not ever feel comfortable or safe being fully back in the family. These emails BOTH inconspicuously delivered the threat of the family forcing me into an "asylum" for "treatment" if I get closer to it. So they make sure I stay away and then blame me for it, but this sort of misplaced blame, after their manipulations, is nothing knew.
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Updated 8-13-2024
In January 2024, my father died in my sister's home in Ohio, after about a year of being held there against his will. He had wanted to return to his own New Hampshire home, and he had needed to be able to freely and privately communicate with ALL of his children through his final months, but my sisters prevented this through keeping him in Ohio against his will, and through raising discord in the family, which included severe levels of emotional abuse and manipulations aimed at sabotaging what remained of his relationships with some of his other loved ones. The levels of heartlessness and dishonesty and greed, that now exists in my family, was shocking. And my father dying in the darkest trenches of it, with his most important needs and wishes being disregarded...etc., was VERY disturbing, to say the least.
I tried hard to have my father returned home, and provided with the proper levels of care, but I stood too alone with the task, and my sisters and their puppets were hitting me with hate filled rounds of mental and emotional and verbal abuse, through the process. It was hell for me, but my father appears to have experienced worse. :-(
I felt relief after hearing of my father's death, because it meant that he is now finally free and in a far better place. My grief has been for the hell he went through in his life, especially in his final year. I still feel sickened by it. I hope my two older sisters and their puppets find their hearts, although it is now too late for too much.
I could not have a positive closure in my family, because my sisters had taken complete control and they deprived us of a wake; there was no wake for our father. And I did not go to the delayed family funeral in June, because I knew it would not be a peaceful or comforting or emotionally safe environment for me. But I plan to have my own private memorial/closure, as soon as I am able to.
P.S. Prior to this I had remained mostly separate from my family, due to some of them being involved in cruelly targeting me. And returning to try to help my elderly father proved to be futile and very hurtful to me. :-( The heartlessness and cruelty have gotten worse in the past couple decades - the opposite of what I had hoped to find.
