The signs that abuse is going on might not be immediately obvious, but over time, they will become noticeable. Learn the signs of things like emotional abuse, what to do to end it, and how to help victims of abuse.
Abuse. The word is used a lot, but not everybody knows what it means to be abused. Abuse destroys trust, relationships, and can even destroy lives. Find out what abuse is and the signs of different kinds of abuse. Find out how to spot an abuser and what you can do to end abuse. If you or someone you know is abused, you don’t have to stay in an abusive situation. Reach out for help here: Domestic Violence Support | National Domestic Violence Hotline (thehotline.org)
What is Abuse?
Abuse is intentional mistreatment of someone to gain some sort of benefit. Abuse inflicts pain and suffering, sometimes for the enjoyment of the abuser, or it can be used to take advantage of someone. Abuse can be physical, or emotional, and can include things like rape, beatings, using somebody for money, psychological manipulation, using scare tactics to keep adult children from leaving home, and even lying.
Abuse isn’t uncommon either. Just in The United States, it’s estimated that one in five people will be abused at some point in their lives. One in three adult women are abused and one in five adult men are. It is estimated that one in ten elderly adults who live at home are exploited financially or neglected. Children are not immune to abuse either. In 2022, National Children’s Alliance stated that over 550,000 children in America were abused.
Is All Abuse Intentional?
Can somebody abuse you and not realize they are doing it? Some people who are under the influence of substances can be unaware of what they are doing . Some people with psychiatric problems or who have experienced severe trauma can be unaware when they are being abusive. Maybe they don’t mean to cause harm, but their actions still do. Sometimes, it is indicated to an abuser that they are causing harm, but they don’t stop the abuse.
Sometimes, they don’t want to because they fear losing control of their victim. Sometimes, they refuse to believe their actions are causing harm. Other times, they say it was “for your own good”. Some abusers were abused themselves and are repeating the abusive patterns they suffered through. Some abusers latch onto victims like parasites, using them to sustain a life they feel they can’t on their own. Even if an abuser said they did not mean to be abusive, it still hurts to be abused, and abuse is inexcusable.
Kinds of Abuse
What things are abuse and what are signs it's happening? Abuse is a that knowingly causes harm. Physical abuse can include violence, the use of chemical restraints, neglect, deliberately withholding necessary things, sexual abuse, and just being controlling. Emotional abuse often entails harmful words from insults to being overly critical to somebody. Emotionally abusive people can downplay your accomplishments, threaten you, gaslight you, and terrorize you.
Physical Abuse
Physical abuse is anything that causes intentional physical harm. Physical abuse does not necessarily cause injury, but it does cause pain. It's not just done to hurt people. It's usually done to control people. Being beaten as a child isn't the only form of physical abuse. Domestic violence as well as workplace aggression is physical abuse.
Violence
Violence is intentional use of physical force against someone else and has a risk of causing death or injury. Slapping, punching, shoving, scratching, burning, and pinching people are common forms of physical violence. Violence doesn't just cause physical injury, but emotional injuries like post-traumatic stress disorder, borderline personality disorder, and anxiety disorder. You can get help for anxiety the spiritual way here: Spiritual Help for Anxiety
Chemical Restraints
Chemical restraints are using substances to limit someone's ability to do things. Deliberately feeding somebody something that they are allergic to is a chemical restraint. Sedating people against their will is a chemical restraint. Pouring alcohol into a recovering alcoholic's drink to try and get them to drink again is chemical restraint. Chemical restraints undermine people's dignity and limits their freedom.
Neglect
Neglect is not meeting someone's needs. Not keeping up with a pet’s grooming is neglect. Not feeding your children properly is neglect. Not picking up the medication for someone you're supposed to be taking care of this neglect. Some people think that neglect is different than physical abuse, but others say that it is a form of physical abuse because it causes physical harm. It can destroy trust in a relationship because it causes pain, illness, and suffering. You can learn to trust again though and you can read how here: Learn to Trust Again After Relationships
Deliberately Withholding Things
Hiding your significant other’s car keys because you don't want them to meet their mother for lunch is abuse. Taking your teenager's phone if they don't break off a relationship with your ex is abuse. Ignoring your new puppy and withholding the attention that it needs because you don't want to be bothered is abuse. Deliberately depriving people or pets of things that they need and deserve is abusive and should never be done.
Sexual Abuse
Sexual abuse is a sexual act that occurs without the victim's consent. This is also known as sexual violence, and it includes things like touching someone sexually without their permission, rape, adults using children for sex, and adults performing sexual acts in front of children. All sexual acts should be consensual. Anytime they're not, it's abuse. Read about the Zodiac Signs and sex here: Sex and the Signs
Being Controlling
When we are in a relationship, sometimes we ask the people who we love to do things for us. Sometimes we need the people who we love to do things for us. But placing unreasonable demands on those people, and threatening them if they don't do what we want them to, is being manipulative and controlling and it is abuse. An example of being controlling in a relationship is telling your spouse that they have to give you their entire paycheck and they're not allowed to buy anything for themselves. Being controlled is embarrassing, emotionally hurtful, and compromises relationships.
Emotional Abuse
Emotional abuse, also known as psychological abuse, or psychological violence, is a pattern of behavior that embarrasses, emotionally hurts, or instills fear for the purpose of controlling somebody. People will often use their words to do this, but they don't have to. Insults, being overly critical, and downplaying people's accomplishments are all emotionally abusive. Threatening people, gaslighting them, and terrorizing them is emotional abuse also.
Insults
“ Suck in that big belly because nobody can stand looking at that.” Has anybody ever talked to you in this way? Regular insults from people that you're in relationships with is abuse. When the people who you love and are close to say nasty things to you all the time you will internalize these insults and start to feel bad about yourself. This is abuse. When somebody talks to you that way it's enough to make you want to get revenge, but is revenge the answer? Find out here: Getting Revenge- Is It Worth It?
Being Overly Critical
Some people are just highly critical, and they use that to propel themselves to higher levels of personal excellence. Then there are people who are impossible to please and they're constantly nitpicking everything that you do. If somebody is constantly commenting on your appearance and how it's not up to their standards, how they disapprove of the foods you eat, how they think that you walk too fast or too slow, and how loudly you breathe, they're trying to control every little thing that you do and it is abuse. It can make you overly self-conscious and shred your self-esteem.
Downplaying Accomplishments
We all do things that we're proud of. The people who we are in relationships with are supposed to celebrate those achievements with us, not belittle them. The accomplishment of graduating at the top of your class is a big deal. When someone who's close to you points out that you were in a very small class, and you might not have been at the top of the class if there had been more people, they're trying to make you feel bad about yourself. Other examples of downplaying accomplishments is telling people that getting 97% on a test wasn't good when they could have gotten 100, when losing 40 pounds wasn't enough and they should have lost 60,or you disapprove of their ordination because you dislike their religion.
Threats
Threats are used to control people. If somebody you know threatens to do something harmful to you if you do something that you want to do that does not in any way affect them, they're threatening you to try and force you to do what they want you to do instead. Examples of this would be your boyfriend not speaking to you because you had dinner with your best friend who he dislikes. Another example Is someone threatening you with physical violence if you wear clothes they dislike.
Gaslighting
Gaslighting means telling someone that what they know happened never happened. Gaslighters are lying to try and manipulate your memories of things to suit themselves. Some gaslighters will say that the events didn't happen the way you remember them as happening, and some gaslighters will deny that anything ever happened at all. This is harmful because it has you questioning your memory, sanity, and self-worth. Your memory is fine, despite what a gaslighter says. You can read all about the memory here: The Mysterious Power of Memories
Terrorizing
Some abusers terrorize their victims. They stalk them, insist on being with them constantly, and sometimes they leave reminders of their presence. For example, one woman decided to divorce her violent husband. He responded by following her to work, showing up at her parent’s house, and attacking her at different times during the day wherever she went. He was given a restraining order by the courts, and he violated that. He wanted to punish her for leaving him, and thought that he could spend all of his time abusing her for it. Terrorizing people is illegal, and the ex-husband ended up in a lot of trouble with the local police.
How to Spot an Abuser
Abusers can be very difficult to identify. This is because quite often, they carefully select who they want to abuse, and then treat everybody else quite well. They abuse their victims in private, and when the victims come out with the terrible things that the abuser did to them, people quite often don't believe the victim. Eventually however, abusers accidentally out themselves. If they start bashing the person who said they victimized them you might want to question whether they're telling the truth or not. If the alleged victim has shown signs of trauma, you might want to look into their story further. Not all abuse is physical, so lack of bruises, blood, and injuries don't necessarily indicate lack of abuse. If somebody behaves fearfully, they might be an abuse victim. If somebody has no self-esteem, and behaves in a subservient way around somebody who pushes them around publicly- it might be abuse.
How to End Abuse
If you or someone who you know is the victim of abuse it's time to end the abuse. Sometimes you can just leave your abuser and never go around them again, but sometimes it's a lot more work than that. Sometimes the abuse has to be reported to the authorities so that the abuser can be brought to justice. The victim needs to be brought to safety immediately and the victim must be supported physically and emotionally.
Report It
Abuse needs to be reported to the proper authorities. Whether it is abuse on the job, abuse in school, abuse in public, or abuse at home, abusers only stop when somebody stops them. Some abuse victims are afraid to report their abuser because they're afraid that their abuser will retaliate against them. Studies have shown that about 50% of abusers violate restraining orders, so the victims have a reason to be afraid. An abuser will never stop abusing you or be brought to justice unless they are turned in. You might decide it is worth it to take a chance to end the abuse and turn them in.
Get the Victim to Safety
It is extremely important to get the victim away from the abuser. Now is not the time to worry about forgiveness or reconciling for families. It is the time to protect the victim and get them to wherever it is that they're safe. They may need a place to live, or they may need you to help them to keep their abuser away from them. Do whatever it takes to keep the victim safe. A little magic can give you strength to leave an abuser. Read more here: Making Your Own Reality Using Magic
Support the Victim
Once the abuser is away from their victim, and the victim knows they will never have to worry about their abuser hurting them again, then the healing begins. They might just need a friend to spend time with. They might need you to encourage them to get therapy. Sometimes, just knowing they have a friend to be emotionally supportive is all an abuse victim needs to become an abuse survivor.
Abuse happens every day, and it's not always obvious what's happening. If you are abused, you are not powerless. You can stop the abuse by reporting it, getting away from your abuser, and then getting whatever emotional support you need to heal. Abuse doesn't have to last forever, even if it feels like your abuser has so much power you can't get away from them. You will escape. You will heal. You will thrive.
Psychics don’t replace councilors when you're healing from abuse, but they can give you emotional support. Don't hesitate to reach out to us anytime any day if you need support.
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