+++ trigger warning – I discuss specific forms of severe emotional abuse +++
In my last post, Child Abuse: Severe Emotional Abuses I Suffered, I shared my two most painful memories of trauma, both of which involved severe emotional abuse. Now, I would like to discuss other forms of severe emotional abuse.
The reason I have chosen this topic is to help people who have suffered from severe emotional abuse put a label on what they suffered. When a person suffers from severe emotional abuse, he might have trouble validating that the abuse was that bad because there was no physical or sexual abuse involved. As I shared in my last post, my most traumatic memory had no physical or sexual abuse involved, but it still managed to scar me deeply.
Some child abusers traumatize children in ways that do not leave any marks on their bodies or even involve touching the child. For example, a child abuser might lock a child in a wooden box. The child might lie in the dark for hours with no access to fresh air. The child might need to use the bathroom but have no way to do so without making his situation even worse. This form of abuse does not involve touching the child physically or sexually, but it definitely inflicts deep emotional wounds.
Another method a child abuser might use is burying a child alive. He does this by forcing the child to lie in the ground with a straw in his mouth. The child abuser covers the child with dirt, and the child lies under the ground, petrified about what will happen if the child abuser removes or blocks the straw. Enduring this kind of abuse is clearly emotionally damaging.
In Martha Stout’s book, The Myth of Sanity: Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness, she shares the story of a man who, as a child, watched his abuser kill his brother. If one of the boys did something “wrong,” the abuser would punish the brother for the transgression. One time, after the boy had supposedly done something “wrong,” the abuser went too far and kicked the brother until the child died. Obviously, this was extremely traumatizing to the boy who watched his brother die. The abuser never laid a hand on the child, but the emotional damage was severe. If I remember correctly, this man struggled with dissociative identity disorder.
If you suffered from a severely traumatizing experience that involved no physical or sexual touching, you were still abused. You do not have to be touched for the abuse to “count.” Severe emotional abuse can be the most difficult form of abuse from which to recover. The good news is that you can heal from all forms of abuse, even severe emotional abuse. Just receiving validation that the abuse was that bad can go a long way toward helping you heal.
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Blooming Lotus 
I was hoping when I read, “When a person suffers from severe emotional abuse, he might have trouble validating that the abuse was that bad because there was no physical or sexual abuse involved,” that I would read farther and be able to validate my experience as abusive. My “abuser” threatened to kill me (while he had my mouth and nose covered so I couldn’t breath), to strangle me (while he had his hands around my throat), to break my neck (while he held me up in the air by my head). My abuser threatened to break my arm while he was twisting it behind my back, but in any of these instances he never left a lasting mark. So it couldn’t have been that bad. My therapist says that was abuse and that it was emotional/psychological abuse, but it’s so hard to accept. I just keep thinking that she is a “softy” and doesn’t understand that I just had to be tough in my family and that it wasn’t abuse.
I read your examples of extreme emotional abuse and I am so sorry that you experienced them. Thank you for sharing. When I read your writing, especially about DID, I can identify. It’s so nice to know that there is someone out there who can express what I think and feel. It helps me to put words onto my experience.
I would classify all of the things you wrote as severe emotional abuse. I would also call the ones in which you were touched physical abuse.
I, too, had a very hard time with labeling smothering as physical abuse. My abuser smothered me with a pillow until I passed out and then resuscitated me. This left no marks on my body, so I had a hard time labeling this as physical abuse. However, it was clearly both physically and emotionally abusive to come that close to killing me.
I read an article about date rape. Putting your hand near another person’s windpipe implies choking and can cause a grown woman to panic and freeze. Doing this to a child is clearly emotionally abusive.
Take care,
– Faith
[…] @ 7:13 am Tags: child abuse, extreme forms of child abuse, severe child abuse On my blog entry, Child Abuse: Severe Emotional Abuse, a reader posted the following comment: I was hoping when I read, “When a person suffers from […]