What Is Emotional Abuse? Recognizing the Signs of Gaslighting, Love Bombing, and Unhealthy Relationships
What is emotional abuse?
Emotional abuse is one of the hardest types of abuse to spot. When people talk about abuse in relationships the types that usually pop into the mind are sexual or physical abuse. Therefore, emotional abuse often runs under the radar.
Like most abuse, emotional abuse is all about power, control, and manipulation. It also follows typical abusive patterns—sometimes to the point where it can be predicted. And overtime it may be seen as cyclical: The perpetrator abuses, asks for forgiveness, a honeymoon period starts, and then the abuse is done again.
Some of the most common signs of emotional abuse:
the victim walking on eggshells
the perpetrator getting angry when approached about problems
the perpetrator minimizing abusive behavior
blame-shifting, victim playing (“I guess I’m just a horrible person”)
love bombing
gaslighting.
Here we will focus on the last two: love bombing and gaslighting.
Love Bombing
There are two main types of love bombing.
Someone comes on thick and fast at the beginning of the relationship. It can be gifts, acts of love, etc. that is over the top and too much too soon.
A last-ditch effort to save a relationship. One person starts to pull away so the other love bombs to keep the other in the relationship. Once things are good again, the love bomber slows down with the love bombing until the other person again starts to pull away and then the cycle starts all over again. It might be said that it is the thrill of the chase. And the cycle continues until the relationship reaches its inevitable end.
Gaslighting
Anyone who has raised kids has experienced gaslighting at some point in their parenting.
Any of this sound familiar?
You are looking at your toddler who is covered in chocolate, and you ask, “Who ate the chocolate”?
While it’s obvious who ate the chocolate, your sweet and messy child adamantly argues he has no idea who ate the chocolate.
Emotional abuse gaslighting often looks like the perpetrator causing the victim to question their own view of the world. The perpetrator often can make the victim to believe he or she is crazy. And once that is fully believed, the victim stops talking to outside people because he or she is really worried it’s true! At times the victims even get to the point of gaslighting themselves into thinking they are the abuser.
The truth of love
As Christians, we have a very clear explanation of what love should look like in scripture
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
The word “always” is repeated throughout that scripture. Why? Because love should be consistent. There is no cycle, there are no major ups and downs, there are no traps. This is the kind of love we should strive for and should give to others.
What to do if you are in an unhealthy relationship
First: Make sure you have a safe person outside of any relationship. Be brave and confide your concerns with this person. Be open to listening and hearing their response.
If you are not at the point where you feel comfortable reaching out for help yet, or you feel stuck, then Step 1 is to put the behavior into the context of why it took place. Seek to understand the goal or intent of the behavior. Do the behaviors you’ve experienced raise red flags for abuse?
Second: Reach out to others for help. That can look like a parent, friend, pastor, therapist, or coach. Sometimes we need outside help to fix an inside problem.
Third: As we always say in the classrooms: Abusive relationships must end.
There is no hope of them fixing while you are still together. That does not mean forever, but it must be for right now. Separate, do work on yourselves, then come back together and see if the relationship can be saved.
In the end, emotional abuse is extremely common, especially among high school and college relationships. One in three high school relationships has abuse in it, and that includes emotional abuse.
If you see it in yours, get help. We’d love to be that person for you.