Emotional violence in the family: how it happens and how it manifests itself

The AST publishing house published the book “Where I end and you begin. Boundaries and codependency in personal relationships. Its author, Pia Mellodi, is a specialist in working with childhood trauma. She has written a guide for those who want to get out of destructive family relationships, rediscover the path of self-acceptance and avoid fatal mistakes in raising a child in the future. We publish an excerpt from Chapter 12 on the trauma of emotional abuse.

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emotional abuse, is probably the type of violence that occurs most often. This manifests itself in verbal abuse, social abuse, neglect or ignorance of addiction needs.

verbal abuse

Verbal abuse occurs when a parent allows himself to verbally abuse the child, shouting, calling him names, resorting to sarcasm or ridicule. Obviously, this is one of the most powerful forms of emotional abuse.

When parents allow themselves to yell at their children, they don't realize it's an over-impact on their fragile little ears. It is very important for a child to hear his parents, but not when they scream. When a parent starts screaming, the child will often plug their ears to stop them from hearing, and this is a natural survival mechanism. We must always remember that for small children their parents are something grandiose and omnipotent, so hearing a parent scream is very scary for them. In a dysfunctional family, the parent may first

shout on the child, and then often there is physical abuse, because the child "did not obey."

All sorts of name-calling, along with screaming, makes verbal abuse even more toxic. My name is Pia. It's not "stupid", not "fat", not "whore" and not "stupid". It's just Pia. When they call me by my first name, treating me with respect, I feel my own value. I react differently to name-calling.

Ridicule or mockery of children is perpetrated by parents, who, it seems to me, indirectly vent their own anger in this way.

When a child is mocked, he loses his defenses, completely not understanding how to avoid bad attitude towards himself, especially when it is a very small child.

Hearing verbal abuse in your presence can be just as negative as witnessing physical or sexual abuse. The fact is that children have not yet developed enough boundaries. Even if they know that this tirade is not directed at them, they still have the feeling that it affects them too.

The Meadows Center has several soundproofed rooms that host therapy groups. This is very important because in the process gestalt therapy people can express their feelings through screaming, crying, and other loud noises. Isolation is also important because some patients who were verbally abused as children are retraumatized by experiencing sharp bouts of shame or spontaneous regression when they just hear some sounds coming through the ventilation system. This shame may be due to the fact that in childhood such a person often heard a parent yell at one of the family members.

social violence

The child learns early enough who he is and how to act in certain situations (for example, dress, call on the phone, and so on), from his parents. Between the ages of four and six Friends children begin to play a huge role for him, because they can also teach him a lot: who he is, what children his age usually do, and how to build relationships with other children. Social abuse occurs when parents directly or indirectly prevent their children from interacting with their peers.

This can be shown directly when something like this is said: “There is a certain secret in our family, therefore, no one should come here lest it be opened" or "We would not like to make dirty linen out of hut. No, you can't invite your friends here. It is not safe. Be with us, that's enough. And we also do not allow you to go to anyone.”

Indirect violence occurs when a child cannot invite anyone into his home, rejoicing in the company of others.

An example here is parents who have absolutely no control over their own addictions. Their children are forced to stay at home, cook and clean, so they have absolutely no time to be with their peers. And even if the parents do not openly say to them, “You must not bring other children here,” the child under no circumstances will ever dare to do so because of the possible consequences. These children may have an alcoholic father, so they never know what to expect upon returning home, it is quite possible that he will lie drunk on the sofa in the living room. When it comes to sexual addiction, the father may show unambiguous signs of attention to the girls who come to the house, who are friends of his children. A mother may also try to seduce her daughter's boyfriends. Or the father may constantly take it out on others, and the children never know when he will slap them, or hit them, or simply begin to ridicule that he sometimes allows himself in the presence of others.

Some physical defect or mental illness can also pose a problem. For example, if the child's mother is disabled and uses a wheelchair, she may be broadcasting an indirect (or direct) message: "Don't embarrass me by bringing your friends home." In a functional family, children will be helped to adapt to the physical handicaps of the mother, explaining that the mother just likes it when her children's friends come to the house (if this is true). In such a family, the child is even explained that he should answer other children's questions about the wheelchair.

Neglect and abandonment

Of all types of violence, neglect and abandonment should be treated with particular care in our culture, especially codependents, who find it difficult to piece together the disparate parts of their own history.

Personally, I view the violence associated with neglect and abandonment from two perspectives. The first perspective is to clarify how well the needs of the patient were met depending on when he was a child. The second is the analysis of certain dependencies in significant others (persons who took care of the child) in order to understand the role these addictions played in the patient's neglect or abandonment when he was child.

Dependency needs include the following:

• food;
• cloth;
• health care;
• shelter;
• physical contact;
• emotional needs (time, attention);
• sex education (information and recommendations);
• education;
• financial education (information and recommendations);
• spiritual sphere (information and recommendations).

When any of the above addiction needs are ignored or neglected, the child is abused. Satisfaction of emotional needs seems to be especially important for a child to develop in the process of growing up. When parents meet their children's emotional needs, they contribute to their positive self-knowledge. Functional parents broadcast to their children, automatically and non-verbally, "You are very valuable." The satisfaction of emotional needs also helps the child learn to act according to family principles.

Children need to understand how to process information and approach solving certain problems in life. Obtaining such information, as well as knowledge and experience, is all a vital need.

So, since we have seen that emotional abuse often leads to codependency, it is easy to guess that the satisfaction of this need is extremely important for a child.

Neglect means that the above emotional needs were not properly met and the child was shamed all the time. For example, if a father does not teach his son how to be a man (talking about the expectations of a man in our culture: work, money, appearance, relationships with other people), the son feels inadequate, feeling his own ignorance in such questions. If we are talking about neglect, then in most cases, of course, attempts were made to meet the emotional needs of the child, it just was not enough.

In case of abandonment, these emotional needs never satisfied at all. This happens when one or both parents are unavailable to the child. One or both of them may not be physically present at home, or they may be physically present but not emotionally present. Children may be ignored in their own home, simply ignored, because the parents are busy with completely different things or strangers.

Abandonment of a child can take place in the event of a divorce. The parent leaves the family and can only visit the child for a short time, transferring money for his maintenance (for food, clothes, housing and medical care), but he is not physically around so that he can raise a child or devote his time to him, shaping his future landmarks.

Sometimes it is an unbearable burden for parents to take care of their children - this can manifest itself in them both consciously and unconsciously.

They may feel that sending their child to boarding school when they are very young is the best decision possible. But being away from home at such an early age for a child is a clear dissatisfaction with his needs (even if parent does it without any ulterior motive), because in this case the parent does not give the child proper time and attention, except for short visits of the child home.

Abandonment can occur due to death, illness or accident. Also, if a parent commits suicide, threatens suicide, or attempts suicide, but she is unsuccessful, the child may face a serious problem of abandonment, with which he subsequently will have to work. The fact that the parent physically leaves the family can also lead to abandonment. It may happen that one day the child wakes up, and the father or mother is no longer around. The child may feel abandoned repeatedly by one or the other parent.

A good friend of mine - her mother had seven children - told me about how her mother regularly left them alone. When one of the children dared to express any need related to the manifestation of attention and care on her part, she lost all control over herself, immediately resorting to physical strength (her high-heeled shoes were often used). When this did not help, she could simply get up and leave without saying anything, sometimes being absent for two or three days. All this time the children were left alone until father didn't come home from work and start taking care of them.

Neglect and abandonment as a result of addiction

Addictions of various kinds, such as chemical addiction (drug or alcohol addiction), sexual addiction, compulsive gambling, religious addiction, eating disorders behaviors, uncontrollable spending, workaholism, and love addiction can lead to parents not taking care of their children properly or even abandoning their.

Love addiction is the need for positive reinforcement (what is called love) from a significant “other” so that a person can feel comfortable and “steady”. Human, addicted to love, ready for anything - no matter how harmful or humiliating for himself - to deserve it positive attitude, and going through a painful "withdrawal syndrome" without getting that positive reinforcements. A person can be lovingly dependent on another adult, a parent, or their own child. If a parent has a similar love addiction (it can be anyone), an obsessive the parent's focus on the object of this addiction leads to neglect of their own children and rejection of them. And even if object such dependence is the child, the true needs and desires of the child are ignored.

Workaholism - parents are too busy (with one or another project at work or at home: it can be a hobby, repair and etc.) […] — affects the development of the child just as negatively and extremely destructively as all other forms of dependencies. But this is much more difficult to deal with, because in our culture it is strongly supported. However, if the father or mother is dependent on work, the emotional needs of the children remain unmet.

Some eating disorders can cause a parent to be unable to properly care for a child.

Suffering bulimia the mother, who is currently forced to be in the bathroom due to vomiting, is not available to her children. And even if she tries to cleanse herself with physical exercises, she is always absent, busy only with her own body.

The obese parent is usually lethargic and unable to physically play with the children. In addition, the unsightly appearance of an obese parent (like any other physical deformity) can lead the child to be ashamed of him. In such situations, the child needs to somehow clarify this, and not expect from him that he himself will somehow cope.

Similarly, a mother who suffers from an eating disorder (too thin or overweight) or considers herself fat when in fact it is not at all like that - in fact, she does not understand very well what she looks like, she can also consider her children fat and find fault with them about diet and the need follow up weighing, while in reality their weight is quite normal. I've had clients with eating disorders tell me they always thought they were fat as kids. I asked them to bring some photos to see if it was true. And when they brought me these photos, many of them were shocked themselves, confessing to me: “Is it fat? So what did my mother mean then?”

Somatic and mental illness of parents

Although physical and mental illnesses are not classified as addictions, their impact on the family is no less devastating. If a parent is mentally (disconnected from reality) or physically ill, that parent is often emotionally unavailable to the child, whether they are at home or elsewhere.

Or another example of when the parental intention, in essence, turns out to be unimportant. Of course, no one wants to be sick, whether it is somatic or psychic. But illness can create the same problems in children's lives as other forms of abuse when a parent is so is illthat he is simply not able to take care of his children.

parental codependency

So, […] co-dependent parents themselves may suffer from addiction, have one or another somatic or mental illness (as a way of avoiding reality) because they are unable to bear pain. […]

In addition, parent codependence can lead to neglect or neglect of children […]. Since the codependent parent experienced abuse long before he embarked on the path of healing, he does not know how to raise a child to meet his needs. All he can do is continue to follow his dysfunctional path, "serving" and caring for others. Very often this extends to other people outside the family. Then the parent loses his last strength, not being able to meet the needs of the child in his family. There is his complete burnout when he tries to "take care of everyone." This can lead to open anger and frustration, absolute emotional or mental burnout, or the person can withdraw into themselves. Any of these reactions can lead to children being abandoned or neglected.

The book "Where I end and you begin" will help analyze your childhood experience, teach you how to build healthy borders with others and better understand their real needs.

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