Tag: emotional abuse

Don’t kill me, Just walk away

Relationships has always been part and parcel of our lives and the most common one is romantic relationships. We are all guilty of wanting to be loved and appreciated but what happens if that love fades away?

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At the beginning of any relationship, the love is top notch you cannot get enough of each other. Distance does not prevent you from talking to each other thanks to the availability of phones. Conversations happen till wee hours of the night and you sleep happy.

The main agenda is how to have a future together, because you feel like finally you have found the perfect match. The topic on the number of children you both desire to have never misses in those conversations. At that stage, love is beautiful, you feel satisfied and thank God for giving you your partner.

Months go by fast and you start to notice some changes. You nolonger talk for long hours, they seem distant and they don’t give you the royal treatment anymore. You decide to ignore because you have come too far to give up but things start getting out of hand. They yell at you on slight provocation.

Everytime they shout at you, they kill your joy. You are nolonger happy like before because you feel bad about the situation. In some instances they are violent and hit you over a small misunderstanding but they apologize later and make you feel that they did not mean it, you provoked them. Slowly by slowly the situation escalates and you are trapped.

They kill you slowly by slowly. They don’t want to let you go but they don’t want to treat you right. Your mental health has deteriorated and you are just a shell of your previous self. Its safe to say that you are a walking corpse. They have managed to squeeze the life out of you.

Worse still, the violence has matured to full blown fight between life and death. They nolonger care if you die. Your body is full of bruises that remind you how you are unwanted. You feel that they enjoy tormenting you and watching you fade away slowly. Sadly, they don’t want to let you go.

It is sad to see people suffer in the hands of people they once trusted with their lives. That one person who made them feel safe. If you are not interested in someone anymore just walk away, don’t kill them physically or mentally. When the spark has faded away, leave them intact when they still have life left in them.

You are not insane: you are a victim of gaslighting

Image of a man in distress

Many people experience emotional abuse on a daily basis and the saddest part is most of them are not aware. The perpetrators are often people close and trusted by the victims. The most common type of emotional abuse in many relationships is ‘gaslighting’. How well do you understand gaslighting? Do you even know what it is? Well, this is a situation where gaslighter or perpetrator distorts reality and make their victim question their judgement of the situation at hand.

This form of emotional abuse is common in abusive relationships which may include controlling friendships, romantic relationship and even among family members. some of the common words used by the perpetrator include “I’m sorry you think that I hurt you” or “You’re crazy and other people think so, too” among many others.I know by now you are wondering what the pepetrator plans to achieve from using this technique of emotional abuse. well, power over the victim is what they desire.

How does gaslighting work? Some of their tactics consists of discrediting you by spreading rumours about you to others, belittling your thoughts and feelings by insinuating you are over reacting or you are too sensitive, blame shifting making you believe you are the main reason they behaved the way they did, they pretend to care about you while telling others you seem emotionally unstable, lying about what actually happened even if you have proof and they often change subject when confronted eventually making the victim second-guess the importance of what they were trying to talk about.

Being able to spot you are being gaslighted is hard but there are signs that can help you know that what you are going through is not right. If you find yourself doubting your feelings and reality,afraid to express yourself because you are not sure about your judgement of what happened or you are nolonger confident and often apologize over everything you do then you are being gaslighted. Other signs include feeling trapped and isolated, struggling to make decisions on your own and confusion because you don’t know what to believe.

In most cases this form of emotional abuse makes the victim feel powerless and inferior. Other effects consists of loss of self- esteem, uncertainty of ones mental stability, confusion, dependency on the perpetrator and the victim starts to question the validity of their own thoughts.

It is very difficult to overcome this kind of abuse because most of the time the victims are not aware of what is going on. There are ways of dealing with the situation so as to be in control. Making sure you save evidence by keeping journals or saving text messages will reassure you that what you are talking about is true. Setting boundaries such that you make it clear what you accept in the relationship and what you don’t is another way of curbing the situation. Finally, you can just end the toxic relationship to avoid further damage on your mental health. Consult a doctor if you feel overwhelmed since it often takes a tall on ones daily relations and decision making.