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Emotional abuse is "any act including confinement, isolation, verbal assault, humiliation, intimidation, infantilization, or any other treatment which may diminish the sense of identity, dignity, and self-worth." This is also known as psychological abuse.
Humiliation, negating, and criticizing
Name-calling and derogatory nicknames. Blatantly calls you “stupid”, “a loser”, or other insults. Maybe they use terms of “endearment” that actually highlight things you’re sensitive about and ignore you when asked to stop.
Character assassination. Includes the word “always” (always wrong, always late, etc.).
Yelling, screaming, and swearing in order to make you feel small.
Patronizing. Belittling you with mock pity.
Public embarrassment. Picking fights, sharing your secrets, making fun of you in public.
Dismissiveness. Can include snarky replies (e.g., “Who cares about that?”) and/or dismissive gestures (e.g., eye rolling, smirking).
“Joking”. Reacting strongly to your discomfort with something they’ve said with phrases like “It was just a joke”.
Insulting your appearance. Phrases like “You’re wearing that?”, or saying that they’re lucky they chose you because no one else would have.
Belittling your accomplishments. They may shrug them off, say they don’t matter, or claim personal responsibility for your success.
Putting down your interests. Suggesting your hobby is a waste of time, feeling offended that you’d do something without them involved.
Pushing your buttons. Repeatedly doing something that they know annoys you, ignoring your requests to stop.
Control and shame
Making threats.
Monitoring your whereabouts. Always needing to know where you are, maybe even showing up without notice to the place you said you’d be at.
Spying on you digitally. Demanding to have all of your passwords or making you have no passwords. Repeatedly checking your email, social media, texts, etc.
Gaslighting. Denying that specific events, arguments, or agreements happened. This can leave you questioning your own memory.
Making all the decisions or insisting that they make all the decisions. Controlling as much of your life as they possibly can.
Controlling your access to finances. Financial abuse. Making you have to ask them for money. Making you account for every bit of money you spend.
Emotional blackmailing. Attempting to get you to do things by manipulating your feelings. They may play the victim or guilt-trip you.
Lecturing you constantly. Making it clear they consider you inferior by listing out your mistakes and dragging it out as long as possible.
Giving direct orders. They expect you to do everything they say with no question.
Having frequent outbursts. Getting enraged that you didn’t or did do something, no matter if you knew to do it or not.
Feigning helplessness. Making you think they don’t know how to do something so you do it instead of them.
Unpredictability. Getting enraged one minute and taking you on a romantic dinner the next.
Walking out. This is a control tactic that leaves you absolutely helpless. Parent/partner leaving an outing without you. Employer walking out in the middle of a meeting.
Stonewalling you. During an argument or disagreement, they shut down and refuse to respond to you.
Accusing, blaming, and denial
Jealousy. Accusing you of flirting/cheating or insisting that if you loved them you would spend all your time with them.
Using guilt. Guilt-tripping you into doing things.
Unrealistic expectations. They expect you to meet every expectation they have set, no matter how unreachable they are.
Goading and blaming. Making you upset on purpose and then twisting the blame back to you.
Denying the abuse. On par with the gaslighting, will deny any inclination that they could do any harm to you.
Trivializing. Accusing you of overreacting or misunderstanding when you tell them they’ve hurt your feelings.
Blaming you for their problems. When things go wrong, they always blame you.
Destroying and denying. Destroying your belongings and then denying that they did it.
Emotional neglect and isolation
Dehumanizing you. Making you feel inferior or subhuman.
Keeping you from socializing. Changing plans or begging you not to go out with friends.
Invalidating you. Not caring about your needs, boundaries, and desires, and making you feel bad for having these things.
Trying to come between you and your family. Telling family you don’t want to see them, making excuses as to why you can’t make it to family functions, telling you your family doesn’t care.
Using the silent treatment. Ignoring your attempts at conversation.
Withholding affection. Refusing to have contact with you if you offend them.
Shutting down communication. Waving you off, changing the subject, or ignoring you when you want to talk about something.
Actively working to turn others against you. May tell others that you’re lying, having a psychotic break, or having an emotional breakdown.
Denying support. When you need emotional support they shut you down, tell you to deal with it, and/or insult you.
Interrupting. Getting in your face and/or taking away whatever you’re doing to make you acutely aware that your attention should be on them.
Disputing your feelings. Whatever emotion you’re feeling, they insist you shouldn’t be feeling like that.
This is not a comprehensive list.
These signs of abuse are the same as the signs of “narcissistic abuse” which are paraded around the internet. “Narc abuse” people fuck off.
SOURCE
How to Recognize the Signs of Emotional Abuse - Healthline