How to Spot Mental Abuse in Relationships and What to Do About It

Mental abuse is a bit trickier than verbal abuse. Mental abuse is a pattern of behavior or speech that makes you feel you are being played with, controlled, and intimidated. When you are the victim of mental abuse, you find yourself feeling more and more insecure, less and less vibrant, and more confused; you feel as if you need to ask your partner for permission to do things, buy things, go places. You may even feel that you need to ask permission in regard to your spiritual preferences.

Mental abuse occurs when you are told what to do and when to do it, when you are ordered around as if you were in a prison camp. Mental abuse often comes disguised. For example, the abuser may conveniently have amnesia and twist facts to suit his preferences. Even though you know what you are talking about, the abuser tells you that you are wrong. Or the abuser may say he will do such-and-such, never do it, and then say he doesn't remember telling you he would do the thing to begin with.

To put it in a nutshell, mental abuse has you scratching your head and wondering if you are losing your mind. You wonder if it's you, if maybe you're making a lot of mistakes and hearing things incorrectly.

The truth is that when you feel this way, when you find that you consistently question your sanity, you are being mentally abused.

Control, manipulation, intimidation, convenient amnesia, harassment, threats, all of these are mental abuse. They threaten your peace of mind, your sanity. And one day you look at yourself and think you need psychotherapy. This is the effect of mental abuse. It causes insanity.

I was giving a tele-seminar one evening based on my book Stop Being the String Along: A Relationship Guide to Being THE ONE. One participant asked, "Isn't it okay to take just a little abuse? I mean, no one is perfect." To which I replied, "I am going to answer your question with a question. If you put your hand in a pot of boiling water, take your hand out so that it can heal, and then put just one finger back into the boiling water, is that okay? I mean, it's just one finger--not the whole hand."

No! It is not okay to tolerate abuse at all, any more than it is okay to put one finger into a pot of boiling water. Abuse hurts!

Abuse cannot be tolerated at all. You cannot make or accept excuses because with excuses, you allow the abuse to continue. You must leave the situation entirely. There is no other way.

Here's the second real-life situation. I had a client who felt there was a wall between her husband and her. There was no passion in bed; it was like living with a roommate. He would say unkind (read abusive) comments to her, but she felt this was not all that bad. They did not have open, honest, and genuine communication. They were just going through the motions in their marriage, which was only a shell of what they had had years earlier. Through our private sessions, my client came into her truth. She began to honor her needs and acknowledge how she felt when her husband spoke to her in a demeaning manner. After a number of weeks had passed, she began to feel her genuine worth, dignity, and self-love rise to the surface. As a result, she was ready to leave the marriage. Then her husband did a complete about-face. They shared their feelings from their hearts, they consciously re-created their relationship, the abusive comments ceased permanently, and their marriage was re-ignited into a conscious union of two people who dearly loved each other and were equally committed to making their love flourish.

Here is the catch. For an abusive pattern to change, you have to change. You have to take personal responsibility to never allow yourself to be spoken down to. It is you who has to create healthy boundaries to protect your self-esteem, and at the first sign of abuse you must make it clear that you will not tolerate it. If the relationship is new, the first sign of abuse needs to be the last sign; you should make skid marks as you take off in the opposite direction.

If the abuse is a pattern in a long-term relationship, you must disengage yourself from having contact with the abusive person.

Guess what will happen? Once your self-esteem has increased and you create your new boundaries, you will naturally attract people into your life who would never dream of degrading you in any way.

Now, I created this book to help you go through your own personal transformation. Will it be easy? No. It will not be easy. Personal transformation is one of the most difficult, scariest experiences a person can face. It is an experience that will cause you to feel shaken up until the inner transformation is made.

What is required? Being completely honest with yourself. This is the vital key to personal transformation. Remember: if I could do it, so can you.

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