Abuse is not just violence it can take many forms. these include…
- Physical Violence
- Verbal Aggression (Shouting Swearing)
- Controllling and Coercive Behaviour
- Emotional Abuse (Denying your emotional Response)
- Mental Abuse (Labelling you, name calling, confusing you)
- Sexual Abuse (any sexual act against you will)
- Financial Abuse (Controlling or denying you money)
- Spiritual Abuse (E.g. using the fear of god to control you) …. and more
Some people have some traits which make it hard to be in relationship with them and still be yourself. Narcissists, Psychopaths and Sociopaths are difficult to spot but have very similar traits. These traits include.
- Lack of Self Awareness … therefore they don’t understand the impact they have on others
- Lack of empathy… will often tell you your feelings are wrong
- Self-rightiousness… they never say sorry.
- An inflated sense of importance…
- A need to control and have things on their own terms
- Unable to tolerate difference or different views
This kind of abuse is particularly difficult to understand. When we are in a relationship with someone who has narcissistic traits life becomes very confusing and we can feel very isolated.
The abuse experienced is often emotional and mental abuse… the nature of this kind of abuse makes it very hard for you to understand what happened. How did things go from a deeply loving relationship (people often fall in love with people with these traits very quickly and deeply) to constant arguments or not being able to get thing right? It seems you are always at fault and getting things wrong.
If you have been in this type of confusing relationship there is help at hand. Here are links to two websites that offer support and understanding…
These are not the only websites and you should explore such matters further to make your own decision.
The Blame Game by Brene Brown