Maltreatment can cause victims to feel isolation, fear, and distrust, which can translate into lifelong psychological consequences that can manifest as educational difficulties, low self-esteem, depression, and trouble forming and maintaining relationships.
Adults who have buried their history of child abuse can continue to suffer in ways that can include post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), eating disorders, substance misuse, depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, anger, guilt, learning disabilities, physical illness, disturbing memories and dissociation.
Emotional abuse is often a misunderstood form of trauma, perhaps the most damaging type of abuse, that leads to long-term consequences for adults (Heim et al. 2013).
Most physical wounds heal in time. But elder abuse can lead to early death, harm to physical and psychological health, destroy social and family ties, cause devastating financial loss, and more. Any type of mistreatment can leave the abused person feeling fearful and depressed.
It's often one of the earliest signs of an abusive relationship and can be one of the hardest forms for outsiders to detect. Emotional abuse can have lasting effects on a victim's mental health. Most survivors have said emotional abuse is worse than physical abuse because the scars run much deeper.
The 5 cycles of emotional abuse, as listed in Sarakay Smullens' “Five Cycles of Emotional Abuse: Codification and Treatment of an Invisible Malignancy” are enmeshment, extreme overprotection and overindulgence, complete neglect, rage, and rejection/abandonment.
In fact, according to one study, severe emotional abuse can be as damaging as physical abuse and contribute to depression and low self-esteem. The study also suggested that emotional abuse may contribute to the development of chronic conditions such as fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.
Staying in an emotionally or verbally abusive relationship can have long-lasting effects on your physical and mental health, including leading to chronic pain, depression, or anxiety.
Victims may have emotional outbursts, changes in mood, changes in behavior, sadness, withdrawal, aggressiveness, violence, hyperactivity, bed-wetting, low self-esteem, etc. Some of these behaviors can continue into adulthood.
Experiencing injury or violence can have a lifelong impact. People can suffer short-term effects, such as missing work or school, and long-term effects, such as chronic illness or death.
Neglect is the most common form of child abuse.
Oftentimes, people in emotionally abusive relationships may not understand that they are being abused because there's no violence involved. Also, many will dismiss or downplay emotional abuse because they don't think it's as bad as physical abuse.
We may come across people who are in toxic relationships, people who are stuck in deeply negative situations, but who remain in them due to fears, self-esteem issues, and complicated emotional trajectories.
Passive neglect – the failure by a caregiver to provide a person with the necessities of life including, but not limited to, food, clothing, shelter, or medical care, because of failure to understand the person's needs, lack of awareness of services to help meet needs, or lack of capacity to care for the person.
There are four main categories of child abuse: physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse and neglect.
An abuser is often a person who has a level of power over the person being abused and they can be well known to the person being abused. They could be a; partner, relative or family member. neighbour.
What are the consequences? Children who are abused and neglected may suffer immediate physical injuries such as cuts, bruises, or broken bones. They may also have emotional and psychological problems, such as anxiety or posttraumatic stress.
Is Emotional Trauma A Brain Injury? According to recent studies, Emotional Trauma and PTSD do cause both brain and physical damage. Neuropathologists have seen overlapping effects of physical and emotional trauma upon the brain.
Sadly, adults who experienced severe abuse as children show critically impaired neural connections in the brain. Parts of the brain associated with the regulation of attention, emotion, and other cognitive processes suffer.