If you are reading this, and you don’t feel good about yourself, then you need to ask yourself, have you been blinded by emotional abuse? One of the hugely unpleasant things about emotional abuse is this, it catapults you into an alternative reality. An emotional abuser will, of course, tell you – over and over again – that this alternative reality is reality.  It is the abuser’s best interest to make you see reality through his eyes.  Hence my question, have you been blinded by emotional abuse?

In this article, I want to look at 3 crucial ways in which, I’m guessing, emotional abuse has blinded you, too.  Because life becomes much, much better once the blinders are off.

#1 Have you been blinded by emotional abuse… to reality?

January has long been my favorite month – despite the fact that I hate the cold and the short dark days. However, it seems a small price to pay in order to put some distance between myself and the unreality of the Holiday Season.

Emotional abuse blinds you to so much that is truly important.

The Holiday Season is the time when the media most insistently peddle a fantasy about perfect, happy families.  Lucky them, I say. But let’s remember that these happy families are a small – maybe even tiny – minority.

We live in a world where relationship breakdown is as common as muck, loneliness has reached epidemic proportions, domestic violence will affects 1 woman in 4 (and that is a very conservative estimate), mental health and financial problems are widespread, and family estrangement is escalating.

What better time for the media to peddle the dream of the perfect family?

The specialist subject of the emotional abuser

Of course, the media are not alone in undermining your sense of reality.  That is the specialist subject of the emotional abuser.

Have you been blinded by the emotional abuse of a partner who tells you, approximately that,

• He is Official Spokesman for The Real World.
• You have no worthwhile place in it.
• The Real World is a mean and horrible place filled with contempt and hostility.
• Life is pointless.
• You are one of life’s signal failures –you have failed, dismally, to make him happy.

(Real reality check – who could possibly make someone happy who has such a miserable, vindictive view of the world as an abuser has?  Just saying)

#2 Have you been blinded by emotional abuse to… your abuser’s true nature?

This week, a lovely client of mine said to me,

“Maya Angelou said, ‘When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.’ It’s important to always be able to walk away when the person’s words, actions, or absence of actions hurt.”

I don’t suppose you would be in a rush to disagree with that.

However, as I replied to my client, the problem faced by people who grew up with abuse, even before they met with an abusive partner, is that they place their trust in the wrong thing.  They believe in the abuser’s innate goodness (aka “potential”) rather than that person’s behavior.

So, when an abuser behaves like the jerk that he is, they tell themselves,

The “Wonderful Man” myth.

“Yes, he may behave like a jerk now but he has the heart of a Wonderful Man.”

No, he does not.  He really doesn’t. He has the heart and soul of a jerk. 

(I accept that it may not sit well with you to write off a fellow human being.  In some ways it doesn’t sit well with me. But I am not asking you to discount his humanity. I am only asking you to respond to a threat of severe danger appropriately.  By putting as much distance between yourself and the danger as possible.)

Being around this Spokesman for The Society of Wonderful Men (so “Wonderful”, in fact that they never have to do ANYTHING to prove it) will prove seriously damaging to your emotional, spiritual, and even physical and financial well-being.

Why so?

Because they are expert brain-washers.

#3 Have you been blinded by emotional abuse to… who you are?

An emotional abuser is always quick to tell you what a failure you are as a human being.

I remember a time when the wasband turned his icy gaze on me and said, “You’re starting to look old.” Not the kindest thing he could have said.  However, when he said it, he

• Displayed a splendid case of middle-aged spread.
• Had lost most of his hair.
• Had sprouted lush ear and nose hair.
• Had lost his 20/20 vision and become totally dependent on glasses that he wore constantly on a band around his neck (and festooned with whatever he ate).
• Fell asleep the moment he sat down on a chair or sofa. (This, I have to say, was not all bad.)

Now, the wasband was not only several years older than me, he also looked rather older than his chronological age.  However, the point of the story is not his age but the fact that he was blaming me for failing to defy time. When he had morphed into perfect Retirement Home material – when retirement was still a distant blur on the horizon.

An emotionally abusive man will feed you any old damaging lie that he can use to hurt you, confident in the belief that you will buy it.

The Awful Human Being Story

Hence, an emotional abuser will tell you the Awful Human Being Story.  Plus, he will project all the awful, depressing feelings that he secretly has onto you.

The sad, SAD thing is that you believe him. That belief blinds you to all evidence to the contrary.  (And, if you are telling yourself, “But there really isn’t any evidence to the contrary,” that just goes to show how effectively he has blinded you to who you truly are.

If there is one thing that my work with emotionally abused women has taught me, it is this – all emotionally abused women believe their human worth is far lower than is truly the case.  But how could it be otherwise?

On the one hand, they have Mr Wonderful telling them what unworthy human beings they are. So, they believe him – and they strive, the best way that they can, to improve themselves. Sure, they don’t ever experience much improvement – for as long as Mr Wonderful’s opinion holds sway in their life.  However, that doesn’t mean that it is not happening.  The non-abusive people in their lives will register it, even if they cannot.

An emotional abuser depletes you

On the other hand, a lot of the time they are so depleted by abuse that they lack the energy to do the things that might show them who they truly are.  An emotional abuser depletes you to the point that you feel totally paralysed.  And feeling paralysed does wonders for keeping your self-worth at rock bottom.

Happily, how you feel is not who you truly are.

Have you, too, been blinded by emotional abuse?  If you have, you do not see your world through your own eyes. You can only see it through your abuser’s eyes.  That is very destructive for you – for as long as it continues.  But it can always change.  If you know that you need help to upgrade your self-worth – or even believe that it might be possible to do so, get in touch.