Emotional abuse can take on many different forms. This can make it really difficult and scary to identify. Even if you think your partner is abusive, you may wonder how to respond to emotional abuse in the first place.
These 11 steps will give you the tools to respond to emotional abuse while taking care of yourself and practicing self-compassion.
What are the signs of emotional abuse?
In relationships, emotional abuse can look like verbal abuse, intimidation, control, and more. Important signs to look out for include low self-esteem, constant criticism from your partner, and silent treatment.
While there are many more signs for you to identify, your concern should be asking yourself whether you feel supported in your relationship. Healthy relationships leave space for communication, accountability, and growth.
Notice when you are the one putting in all the effort and your partner refuses to change habits that hurt you. It’s common for a victim of emotional abuse to question whether their experience is truly abuse, especially when there is no evidence of physical abuse.
However, you should always trust yourself and take the important step of determining how to best care for your emotional well-being. Use these 11 tips to help you decide what’s best for you and how to make sure you protect yourself from future abuse.
HOW TO RESPOND TO EMOTIONAL ABUSE:
1. Take care of your needs and prioritize yourself
Whenever we talk about an emotionally abusive relationship, the first thing we need to establish is that you have to prioritize yourself. Your situation will be unique based on how long you’ve been in the unhealthy relationship and how extensive the abuse was.
For some, it may be difficult to differentiate between reality and psychological abuse from your partner. Regardless of the circumstances, any time you experience physical abuse, verbal abuse, or emotional abuse from a partner, you have experienced abuse.
Your trauma is real and you need to treat it like it’s real. So, that’s why the first step towards responding to emotional abuse is prioritizing yourself. Your needs come first the moment you notice red flags and recognize any kind of abuse in your relationship.
Abusive behavior can take on many different forms, yet it’s still valid in every one of them. Trust yourself the moment you feel like something isn’t right and work through the rest of the tips on this blog to address your needs and protect yourself from further abuse.
2. Acknowledge if you’re in immediate danger and act
If you are in immediate danger, then you need to act as quickly as you can. If your partner is threatening physical violence or has a history of physical violence, this is a good indication that you need to act as quickly and safely as possible.
It’s hard to leave an abusive relationship for many reasons. But, it can also be dangerous. No one can tell you the best way to get out of an abusive situation because they don’t know what it’s like to be in that relationship. So, you need to make the right decisions for you.
If staying in the house and placating your partner while communicating with someone on the outside is the safest option, then stay. If packing the essentials and running out the door is the safest option, then do that.
The primary concern, when your partner has threatened, is to stay safe by any means necessary. If you are in immediate danger, please refer to the Domestic Abuse Hotline, as well as other life-saving resources for the steps you need to stay safe.
3. Remember to breathe because this is a scary process
No one should ever experience abuse. It always causes emotional trauma and it leaves long-term effects. You can overcome the emotional pain of trauma, so you aren’t forever doomed if you’re experiencing emotional abuse.
But, the moment that you realize you’re in an abusive relationship, your life changes. You’re scared and you may have no clue what to do next. The only thing you have to do next is breathe. It may sound way too easy and simple for a situation that is terrifying and painful.
And that’s why it’s so effective. You are going through a lot right now and you’re likely questioning much of your life, what step to take next, who to talk to, and how to act around your abuser. Something shifts the moment you acknowledge you’re dealing with abuse.
So, breathe through the change and ground yourself in the present. Slow down your breathing and fill up your chest slowly. Exhale slowly. No matter what you do next, you are going to be more capable of handling it if you slow your mind and body down to think clearly.
You’re experiencing something that would cause anyone to freak out, but you need to think clearly for your own sake. That’s why you can’t ignore this step.
4. Develop a safety plan with a mental health professional
Safety planning is essential to exiting an unhealthy relationship. Even if you don’t have access to a family therapist or other mental health professional, you can create a safety plan on your own with a trusted friend or family member.
While it’s important to understand that your top priority should always be to leave an abusive relationship, it’s more important to prioritize safety at all costs. It may not be feasible to leave your romantic partner right now.
If that’s the case, you need to formulate a safety plan for your well-being. This safety plan will include information like what type of behavior to look for and how to respond to that behavior. Real-life examples might include your partner yelling or throwing objects.
The safety plan will remind you that you can call a loved one, call 9-1-1, or grab the bag you packed in anticipation of this and leave. Safety plans are personal and generally created in conjunction with a trusted friend or family member to help you carry out the plan.
5. Work through any feelings of shame
Shame is one of the most common feelings we experience because we’re taught to feel it. We learn to feel more shame based on our identities.
For example, women, queer people, people of color, and other marginalized groups are taught to feel shame much more deeply than those with privilege. So, it’s natural to feel shame, especially when it comes to identifying an abusive partner.
You may feel shame that you’ve stayed for so long or that you suspect abuse in someone people admire. Your partner may hide their abuse around other people, so you’re afraid to tell someone because they may not support you in leaving.
You may even feel shame because you don’t want to leave your abusive partner even though they’re abusing you. It’s not your fault that you’re feeling shame. But, you do still need to work through those feelings for your own safety.
Whatever actions you take to protect yourself and your mental well-being, you do still need to act with a clear mind.
This means getting curious about your shame and where it comes from. The more that you ask questions about it, the more you can understand it and act without shame influencing your decisions.
6. Notice the pattern of behavior that forms around the abuse
If you cannot leave your abuser immediately, then your next step is to identify ways of protecting yourself. In this case, you do whatever you need to do to stay alive and eventually leave safely.
If you think that telling your abuser what they want to hear is the key, then do that. If you think staying completely silent around them is the key, then do that. Take no chances. When you consider ways to protect yourself, think about their behavior.
You likely already have learned what their triggers are to avoid them. Ask yourself what usually causes outbursts. Remember, as you think about patterns in their behavior, there is ultimately nothing you can do to change their behavior.
They are responsible for their behavior and only them. You can recognize patterns and predict when they might engage in various forms of emotional abuse, but you can’t stop it.
If you do successfully keep them from getting upset and abusive, that’s good and it also is not guaranteed to happen again. Abuse can be predictable, but that does not mean it’s controllable.
7. Set clear boundaries with your abuser
Boundaries are a difficult issue when you’re talking about an emotional abuser. While it’s unfair to claim that abusers have no capacity to care about their partner, it’s also unfair to claim that they can care enough to respect boundaries.
When someone introduces violence, whether that’s emotional or physical, into their intimate relationships, they’ve lost trust. Trust is the foundation of every healthy relationship, which is why boundaries are crucial to healthy relationships.
Boundaries help us explain to people how they can love us better. Unfortunately, people don’t always respect our boundaries. This means that they are actively treating us in ways that we have told them hurt us.
It’s important to set boundaries for ourselves and maintain them even if the other people in our lives don’t respect them.
This is especially true for abusers. Set boundaries with your abuser and communicate with them even if they don’t respect them. You’ve given them the chance to respect your boundaries, and you need to enforce them regardless of how your abuser responds to them.
8. Attend a support group to meet other people with a similar experience
One of the hardest parts about escaping difficult situations is having no one around you who understands. You get out of an abusive relationship, and you have no one to talk to. Yes, you can talk to loved ones who care.
But, they won’t understand your own experiences even if they want to support you. That’s why support groups can be so meaningful. They can remind you that you’re not alone and what you’re feeling is normal.
Although people who attend the support groups will likely experience different types of emotional abuse, they will understand what it’s like to question your own perceptions. You can speak freely about the effects of emotional abuse without judgment or surprise.
You can be honest about loving your partner despite the power imbalance. A support group is the perfect place to realize that your experiences are shared by others and that you can rely on the support of people who understand to help you grieve and heal.
9. Give yourself the space and time to go through the healing process
You have a long road of healing ahead of you. It doesn’t matter how long or short your relationship was. Someone hurt you and made you question your sense of self-worth, what a romantic relationship should look like, and your sense of reality.
It takes time to come back from that and that’s time you need to heal. Once you leave your partner, you may want to forget about your entire relationship and start fresh. It’s frustrating to get back control of your life and still have to heal from the effects of abuse.
But, it’s necessary. You need to take time to heal and be patient with yourself. You deserve time to work through the abuse you experienced and become the new, best version of yourself.
For better or for worse, your abusive relationship will change you because you were hurt on such an intimate level. Be kind to yourself and take the time you need to work through it because you’ve earned space and time to heal.
10. Lean into the healthy relationships in your life
Now more than ever, you need to rely on your healthy relationships. You may not even know how to define “healthy” anymore and you may want to re-evaluate how healthy your relationships are. Regardless, this is the time for that.
Ask yourself what the healthy way to love looks like and what it feels like. Look for warning signs of abuse in other relationships. Remember that there are many different forms of abuse, from sexual violence to manipulation tactics.
You may want to look for the signs of a toxic relationship all around you. Some people get into abusive relationships because they’ve gotten used to being treated poorly in less obvious ways by the people they love.
So, look for relationships that feel good. Find the people who treat you the way you want to be treated and lean into those relationships for support.
11. Formulate a plan for dealing with abusive behavior after you leave
Once you leave an abusive relationship, you need to prepare for your abuser to continue the same type of abuse you experienced in your relationship. They may never contact you again or they might increase the type of emotional abuse that made you leave them.
Prepare for that both mentally and physically. Create a safety plan with someone you trust. This can look like calling someone if your abuser shows up at your home. Or you may send them a text to let them know you do not want any further contact and block them.
Maybe you get a new number or move to a new location. Your plan should help you prepare for how triggering they will be if they appear in your life again. It should also help you prepare ways to stay safe if you feel threatened by their presence physically or digitally.
