8 Steps to Heal from Emotional Abuse
Take the Necessary Steps to Stop the Abuse
Make the necessary changes so your marriage or committed relationship is healthy and you can live with dignity, freedom, and respect. If peace and respect cannot be achieved… you should consider separating from your partner.
No one can solve your abuse problem unless you are a full participant! This is why solving your emotional abuse problem must start with you!
The decision to free yourself from relationship abuse must be yours!
Slow and steady progress towards a more respectful life with your partner is definitely worth the effort, time, and sometimes money spent to pay for relationship counseling.
1. Make a Commitment to Yourself
The journey to healing from emotional abuse starts with you. Apply the seven steps below to heal from emotional abuse and begin the healing process.
Keep the Commitment to Yourself with you at all times. Read it several times a day so you will be reminded of your human rights and that you need to take care of yourself. Some of you may be able to share the commitment to yourself with your partner so he or she can use it to stop their abuse.
2. Stop the Abuse
Common effects of emotional abuse are anxiety and depression. Anxiety and depression come from being criticized, being a target of anger, being threatened, and insulted. Anxiety and depression are natural responses to being emotionally attacked and being unable to control one’s life.
The most essential treatment for anxiety and depression caused by abuse is to stop being abused! Your anxiety and depression are a natural reaction to living in fear, pain, and feelings of helplessness. Unfortunately, many doctors and mental health professionals do not realize the after effects of emotional abuse. And because of this, wrong treatments are often prescribed.
If you are being abused, taking pills or undergoing cognitive-behavioral therapy will do little to restore your mental health, lost confidence, and unhappiness.
You need to deal with the effects of emotional abuse in your marriage or committed relationship before you can make progress healing from anxiety or depression.
Like a person who has his or her hand squeezed tightly in a vice, taking painkillers will do little to solve the problem. His or her hand must be freed from the vice. This is the only effective solution.
So too, with an abusive relationship. You either need to fix your relationship or get out of it. If you are in an abusive relationship, you need to stop the abuse, otherwise you will continue to suffer from mental health problems.
3. Rebuild Your Self-esteem
Make a list of all the things you have accomplished, your talents, and what other people like about you. Keep this list with you at all times. Read it to yourself several times throughout the day. Doing so will remind you that you are, ‘a good person.’
Nobody has to be perfect. Nobody is perfect. However, know that the sum total of you is Good Enough! Knowing that you are GOOD will help bring back your natural, strong, and healthy self-esteem or at least return it to where it was before your partner abused you.
Emotional abuse causes a weakening of self-esteem and confidence. One of the hallmarks of mental health is strong self-esteem and confidence. These character traits can only develop and exist when a person’s social environment is imbued with respect, love, and sensitivity.
In a relationship frequently shattered by abuse, the necessary emotional ingredients to build and maintain healthy self-esteem and confidence are missing. The after effects of emotional abuse will eventually change a victim’s character.
One of the common strategies abusers use is to degrade their victims and break their will. The abuser hopes that a weak and insecure partner will not resist the tyranny he or she wishes to impose.
A victim repeatedly exposed to being degraded and shamed will naturally suffer a loss of confidence and self-esteem. Emotional abuse is brainwashing!
The abuser looks to alter what his or her partner knows about himself or herself and replace that information with ‘other’ information that gives the abuser more control. Instead of ‘lovable,’ you are now ‘unlovable.’ Instead of ‘capable,’ you are now ‘incapable.’ Instead of ‘smart,’ you are ‘stupid.’ And so it goes…
At some point, you become so changed by the abuse you no longer recognize yourself!
Instead of being the strong, capable person you were in the past, and as others knew you to be, you are now passive, weak, and reclusive.
Self-esteem is often very localized. You may be very accomplished and respected in your chosen profession. In this niche, you may have healthy self-esteem and be very confident. However, you are transformed into the opposite when it comes to family relationships, unsure of yourself and weak.
4. Restore Your Sense of Safety
Emotional abuse reduces feelings of safety. Solve the emotional abuse problem, and you will begin to feel safe! Yes, it is that simple. Stop the abuse and safety will gradually return.
You need to either find a way to get your partner to stop abusing you, or you need to end your relationship with him or her. There is no other way to feel safe.
The cornerstone of every healthy relationship is feeling safe when you are with your partner. Sadly, feeling unsafe is one of the most obvious effects of emotional abuse in a relationship.
Your abuser puts you down, criticizes you, insults you, threatens you, and more. Feeling unsafe are normal after effects of emotional abuse. Under such circumstances, it is impossible to feel safe.
As a victim of abuse, fear of your abuser has taken over your mind. Likely you fear your abuser coming home, the critical comments, the threats, the rejection. It is understandable why you feel unsafe, being trapped, not knowing how to avoid these terrifying emotional attacks.
Safety is a human right, a God-given right, we are all entitled to it freely and unconditionally.
5. Decide Who Deserves Your Trust
Remind yourself that not trusting your abuser is logical, it makes sense. However, you can trust others and you should do so. It is your abuser that you cannot trust!
You can trust others to be your friend, provide professional services, help you as needed, and be a confidant.
Use the Worksheet provide below to list the people in your life that are either trustworthy or untrustworthy.
Hopefully, there will only be one person on the left side, and that is your abuser. However there may be others in your life that you deem to be untrustworthy. On the right side there will likely be a long lists of names.
Maintain a close and trusting relationship with all the people on the right side of your list. This is a good antidote to a ‘trust deficiency’ victims of emotional abuse may have as a result of the abuse you have been suffering from.
Emotional abuse destroys your trust in others. You were born trusting! However, if someone hurts you repeatedly and shows no remorse… how can you continue to trust them?
Trust is necessary for every healthy and successful relationship. Relentless emotional attacks without remorse are an everyday occurrence in emotionally abusive, verbally abusive, psychologically abusive, sexually abusive, and mentally abusive relationships.
When somebody disrespects you, criticizes you, disregards your feelings, how can you trust them? How can you trust someone who has so little regard for your well-being? You cannot.
The victim experiences the abuser as a person not to be trusted, which is often then extrapolated into the belief that no one can be trusted. When this occurs, the victim’s isolation is expanded to all spheres of his or her life.
Not being able to trust anyone can cause the victim to feel extremely alone and trapped. Not being able to trust others, it is not uncommon for a victim of emotional, verbal, sexual, mental, or psychological abuse to fear reaching out to others for help, and so he or she doesn’t. This makes it difficult for a victim to get outside help as needed.
6. Rekindle the Love
Abuse plus Love… forget about it… they don’t go together! If you are being abused, there is no healthy love! I don’t need to tell you how important love is to a relationship… it is everything. You know that. Abusive relationships have no love… they only have fear, hurt, and disappointment.
Emotional abuse is bad relationship chemistry! If the abuse ends, it is possible to recover the love over time… maybe. The mind has a talent for holding on to negative memories. It is possible to recover from emotional abuse and feel loving toward your partner, but it is not guaranteed. Love is like a delicate flower, it needs to be taken care of. Taking care of love is the best way to ensure it stays healthy and strong and does not die.
If emotional abuse has caused your love to wither, know that you are running out of time to solve your abuse problem before it becomes too late to change things around for the better. Once an egg falls and smashes, it can never be put together again, often the same is true for love.
The sooner you can solve your emotional abuse problem, the sooner you can get to work to see if you can rekindle the feelings of love you once had. Upon recovering from emotional abuse, seek ways to enhance your relationship and rekindle your love for each other.
The following are some examples of what you and your partner can do together that will create positive feelings, memories, and a happy future:
- Learn a new hobby such as playing tennis
- Go on trips
- Go out to eat (you and your partner, without other couples, or with the kids)
- Go to a movie
- Exercise together
- Go to a class or lecture
- Watch a movie or TV
- Play board games
- Participate in religious activities
- Cook together
- Organize a party or family gathering
- Give each other massages
- Take turns reading a book out loud
- Go shopping
- Go for walks
- Work as a team on home improvement
7. Rekindle the Love
Abuse plus Love… forget about it… they don’t go together! If you are being abused, there is no healthy love! I don’t need to tell you how important love is to a relationship… it is everything. You know that. Abusive relationships have no love… they only have fear, hurt, and disappointment.
Emotional abuse is bad relationship chemistry! If the abuse ends, it is possible to recover the love over time… maybe. The mind has a talent for holding on to negative memories. It is possible to recover from emotional abuse and feel loving toward your partner, but it is not guaranteed. Love is like a delicate flower, it needs to be taken care of. Taking care of love is the best way to ensure it stays healthy and strong and does not die.
If emotional abuse has caused your love to wither, know that you are running out of time to solve your abuse problem before it becomes too late to change things around for the better. Once an egg falls and smashes, it can never be put together again, often the same is true for love.
The sooner you can solve your emotional abuse problem, the sooner you can get to work to see if you can rekindle the feelings of love you once had. Upon recovering from emotional abuse, seek ways to enhance your relationship and rekindle your love for each other.
The following are some examples of what you and your partner can do together that will create positive feelings, memories, and a happy future:
- Learn a new hobby such as playing tennis
- Go on trips
- Go out to eat (you and your partner, without other couples, or with the kids)
- Go to a movie
- Exercise together
- Go to a class or lecture
- Watch a movie or TV
- Play board games
- Participate in religious activities
- Cook together
- Organize a party or family gathering
- Give each other massages
- Take turns reading a book out loud
- Go shopping
- Go for walks
- Work as a team on home improvement
8. Restore Intimacy
Sexual desire has physical and emotional components. Emotional abuse destroys desire for sex with your partner. When emotional abuse enters a relationship, the sexual nature of the relationship may become strained, even though physical attraction remains present. This is in part due to the broken trust between the victim and the abuser, as sexual acts involve trust between two caring partners.
If your marriage or relationship has been marred by abuse, probably your relationship will be sexless, unless sex is being forced, which is another form of abuse.
If you are to have a healthy and satisfying sexual love-life, you need to have a healthy and satisfying emotional relationship that includes safety, trust, friendship, and love.
Stop the abuse that’s going on in your relationship. There is no other way around it. If your partner complains of the lack of sexual intimacy, explain to him or her that every type of abuse is a sexual killer.
When the abuse stops, and you have healed from the abuse, and your relationship has recovered from the abuse, only then is there an opportunity to restore the sexual intimacy that you and your partner once had.
After the abuse has ended, it can take a long time until the recovery is fully complete and a normal sexual life to resume. Both you and your partner need to be patient.
Allow Your Partner Help You Heal
If your partner has stopped abusing you and he or she is remorseful and wants to make amends, asking him or her to participate in your healing is good for both of you.
When your partner, who has abused you, can participate in your healing, this is very helpful because it gives him or her an opportunity to do penitence and help undo the damage that he or she has caused. For example, for him or her to participate in counseling.
Working together helps rebuild trust, safety, and love. If your partner helps you heal, it makes it much easier for you to eventually forgive him or her for their abuse. Hopeful, your partner will leave his or her abusive ways behind, and the two of you will move forward and live a great life together as a happy couple.
You are Not Alone
To be silent is what your abuser wants. Don’t cooperate!
If it is helpful… speak out… speak to others to get their help to stop the abuse. If needed, speak with trusted family members, close friends, authorities, or trained relationship specialists so you can get the help you need to stop the abuse. There is no need to feel shame identifying and reporting abuse; you did nothing wrong!
Domestic Violence
If there is violence, hitting, pushing, etc., you need to separate immediately from your abusive partner. The decision to return and live together should be made only after you are certain the violence will NOT reoccur.
Note: If you are currently being physically assaulted, call your local police.
National Domestic Violence Hotline & Other Abuse Resources
USA
Canada
- Department of Justice
- Public Health Agency of Canada
