Emotional Abuse
My first memory, I was very little in my crib. I had a lot of fear about something. I was screaming a long time. No one ever came.
I have heard memories of crying in the crib and no one coming, over and over again. The resultant wound story is generally: “I am not wanted. I’m not welcome. I’m all alone. I have no place here in the world.”
A very similar wound story can be the result of a child being born prematurely or needing to be in the hospital at a young age for a week or more. Until recently, the child would be alone most of the time, with very limited parental visits. The physiological impact of not being held or touched generally results in feeling unwanted, not welcome, and alone. These days, it is generally possiblefor a parent to stay in the room with a child requiring extended hospitalization, though not for infants in a neonatal intensive care unit.
My parents were shouting at each other all the time, lots of fights. My mother told me they were fighting because of me. I felt that their fighting was my fault, that it would have been better if I had not been born.
Sitting at the table, I would have to finish my plate. My father would say that I have to sit there until it’s done. I would sometimes put something in my mouth and go to the toilet to spit it out, but after a while they would go with me to the toilet to watch me. The dinner table was like hell for us. We always ate in fear of my father; there was so much tension it was hard to eat.
Generally, my mother would say, “wait until your father comes home” -- to punish me. I felt tense and fearful all day. He didn’t hit me but was very intimidating. He punished by being so disapproving: “How can you be so stupid?” I would feel terrible about disappointing him and not having his approval.
My mother said, “Why can’t you be more like your sister?” This has come up for me a lot. I felt that I was not good enough by being myself, that I needed to be someone else for people to love me or care about me. This has been with me my whole life.
Mother and father fought a great deal, at night. I would hear them fighting, always her yelling at him. I was always afraid that he would walk away — the end of the world.
For many children just listening to their parents fighting fills them with fear and anxiety, as the child feels the intensity of their anger. It can feel to the child like their world is falling apart. Often the child wants to do something to fix it, but, of course, cannot, adding feelings of powerlessness to the wound story.
In the many stories I heard of paternalistic families where the father ruled, the child would often be told, after the father came home from work, “Be quiet, your father is reading the newspaper, or watching TV, or eating, or relaxing.” The child is only acknowledged in being admonished or punished. I have found that in these situations, the child is longing to be seen and valued, while feeling, “I am not loved. I am not worthy of being loved.” Not infrequently, there is both the mother’s stony face, and the unavailable father.
I could see other people being loving and affectionate with their children, but we were not like that. My parents never hugged me or kissed me. They hardly ever really talked to me. I thought there was something wrong with me. Later in my early teens, I was sick and spent time in the hospital. My father came to visit me. It was the only time I had his full attention. I felt being sick is good sometimes because you get attention. Later in life, I was married to an abusive man, an alcoholic. He was verbally abusive. I felt there was not enough I could do to make him happy. My tendency has been to like older men, still looking for my father to love me.
In some families, it is not permitted or allowed to discuss, share, or even acknowledge family problems or issues. In these situations, the child is often told that their feelings are wrong or invalid.
Everything was a big secret. Nobody talked about anything. I always felt unsafe. There was no one I could trust. My father worked a lot and was almost never there. I think he couldn’t stand the situation, and he and my mother fought a lot. Sometimes he would ask her what happened if he were to come home when I was crying. She would say something that was not true, but I would be afraid to correct her. He never asked me.
There was no physical love, no touching, in our family. I could feel something was wrong, but nobody talked about it. I felt that we were a kind of alien family; we did not do the things other families did, like go on picnics. I always felt something was really wrong.
Another form of emotional abuse can result from the parent fearing that the child will not be able to do well in the world. This can occur with a genuinely loving parent where it might not seem fair to consider their fear abusive, but the result in the child grow- ing up in fear of not being good enough and not able to succeed in life is still pretty much the same. However, more commonly, this kind of wound comes from an angry, self-righteous parent:
My father was always yelling at me about schoolwork, how I cleaned my room, the clothes I wore, helping my mother around the house — none of it was good enough. When I was twelve, sitting down to dinner, which was always torture, he stood up and shouted at me, “You do not even deserve the food on your plate.”
It didn’t matter what I did, my father always told me how I could have done it better. In high school, I scored the only goal in a soccer game, winning the match for my team. I proudly went up to him, thinking, ‘finally, I did something good,’ but he immediately began to explain to me how I could have done it better. I knew then that I could never please him, never be good enough.
My mother was a loving, delicate, single parent. When I brought home a bad report card, which they always were, she would sigh, and sometimes cry, but she never reprimanded me. However, I felt guilty for making her cry and powerless to do anything about it, and I absorbed her fear.
I have heard memories of crying in the crib and no one coming, over and over again. The resultant wound story is generally: “I am not wanted. I’m not welcome. I’m all alone. I have no place here in the world.”
A very similar wound story can be the result of a child being born prematurely or needing to be in the hospital at a young age for a week or more. Until recently, the child would be alone most of the time, with very limited parental visits. The physiological impact of not being held or touched generally results in feeling unwanted, not welcome, and alone. These days, it is generally possiblefor a parent to stay in the room with a child requiring extended hospitalization, though not for infants in a neonatal intensive care unit.
My parents were shouting at each other all the time, lots of fights. My mother told me they were fighting because of me. I felt that their fighting was my fault, that it would have been better if I had not been born.
Sitting at the table, I would have to finish my plate. My father would say that I have to sit there until it’s done. I would sometimes put something in my mouth and go to the toilet to spit it out, but after a while they would go with me to the toilet to watch me. The dinner table was like hell for us. We always ate in fear of my father; there was so much tension it was hard to eat.
Generally, my mother would say, “wait until your father comes home” -- to punish me. I felt tense and fearful all day. He didn’t hit me but was very intimidating. He punished by being so disapproving: “How can you be so stupid?” I would feel terrible about disappointing him and not having his approval.
My mother said, “Why can’t you be more like your sister?” This has come up for me a lot. I felt that I was not good enough by being myself, that I needed to be someone else for people to love me or care about me. This has been with me my whole life.
Mother and father fought a great deal, at night. I would hear them fighting, always her yelling at him. I was always afraid that he would walk away — the end of the world.
For many children just listening to their parents fighting fills them with fear and anxiety, as the child feels the intensity of their anger. It can feel to the child like their world is falling apart. Often the child wants to do something to fix it, but, of course, cannot, adding feelings of powerlessness to the wound story.
In the many stories I heard of paternalistic families where the father ruled, the child would often be told, after the father came home from work, “Be quiet, your father is reading the newspaper, or watching TV, or eating, or relaxing.” The child is only acknowledged in being admonished or punished. I have found that in these situations, the child is longing to be seen and valued, while feeling, “I am not loved. I am not worthy of being loved.” Not infrequently, there is both the mother’s stony face, and the unavailable father.
I could see other people being loving and affectionate with their children, but we were not like that. My parents never hugged me or kissed me. They hardly ever really talked to me. I thought there was something wrong with me. Later in my early teens, I was sick and spent time in the hospital. My father came to visit me. It was the only time I had his full attention. I felt being sick is good sometimes because you get attention. Later in life, I was married to an abusive man, an alcoholic. He was verbally abusive. I felt there was not enough I could do to make him happy. My tendency has been to like older men, still looking for my father to love me.
In some families, it is not permitted or allowed to discuss, share, or even acknowledge family problems or issues. In these situations, the child is often told that their feelings are wrong or invalid.
Everything was a big secret. Nobody talked about anything. I always felt unsafe. There was no one I could trust. My father worked a lot and was almost never there. I think he couldn’t stand the situation, and he and my mother fought a lot. Sometimes he would ask her what happened if he were to come home when I was crying. She would say something that was not true, but I would be afraid to correct her. He never asked me.
There was no physical love, no touching, in our family. I could feel something was wrong, but nobody talked about it. I felt that we were a kind of alien family; we did not do the things other families did, like go on picnics. I always felt something was really wrong.
Another form of emotional abuse can result from the parent fearing that the child will not be able to do well in the world. This can occur with a genuinely loving parent where it might not seem fair to consider their fear abusive, but the result in the child grow- ing up in fear of not being good enough and not able to succeed in life is still pretty much the same. However, more commonly, this kind of wound comes from an angry, self-righteous parent:
My father was always yelling at me about schoolwork, how I cleaned my room, the clothes I wore, helping my mother around the house — none of it was good enough. When I was twelve, sitting down to dinner, which was always torture, he stood up and shouted at me, “You do not even deserve the food on your plate.”
It didn’t matter what I did, my father always told me how I could have done it better. In high school, I scored the only goal in a soccer game, winning the match for my team. I proudly went up to him, thinking, ‘finally, I did something good,’ but he immediately began to explain to me how I could have done it better. I knew then that I could never please him, never be good enough.
My mother was a loving, delicate, single parent. When I brought home a bad report card, which they always were, she would sigh, and sometimes cry, but she never reprimanded me. However, I felt guilty for making her cry and powerless to do anything about it, and I absorbed her fear.
