Broken souls: causes and effects of psychological abuse

Although inevitably in my vision of abuse the image of the abused woman appears, since socially there is more talk of mistreatment of women (its incidence is undeniably higher) than towards the man, that I am a woman and, also, due to both my life and professional trajectory, I tend to list, to get excited and to resonate with it.

And despite the fact that there are many, too many, women who are subjected to the hands of their partners, I want to talk about the situation of the psychological abuse per se, since I understand it as a type of relationship that can affect both men and women. I am referring to a relationship with a couple with a marked inequality of power and submission in treatment.

Living with psychological abuse

What makes a person decide (because it is still a decision) to place themselves in a type of relationship like this one, in which the other is on a higher plane, possesses the supreme truth, moves the strings of "my" reality personal? What experiences have I had to go through to accept humiliating treatment as something normal, to accept that it intimidates me, that it objectifies me, that it degrades me, that it overloads me? responsibilities, that "deprives me" in my social and family relationships, that subjectively distorts reality, that only "his" vision of the facts is worth, creating confusion and doubt in "me" constant, pointing out to me as the source of conflicts..., to even accept the possibility of death as an alternative or natural resolution and sometimes even attractive to the reality that "I'm living?

Because the truth is that there is a moment in the life trajectory of this type of relationship in which the submissive party feels, intuits and knows that if the other "gets his head off" he can end up with her life and, depending on the moment in which he is, he can interpret it and live it with total naturalness, even with a certain pleasure, due to the poetic peace that this image gives him. evokes ... until he is aware that this is not what he wants to live, that he does not maintain a relationship of respect and love, that there are limits that should not be crossed and that he does not have to die for it.

The paradox is that when he gathers the strength to withdraw and report, in many cases he really endangers his life.

Victim and perpetrator

As I have mentioned previously, in my career I have found that whoever seeks relationships of submission has generally lived situations of abuse and mistreatment in childhood, mostly carried out by members of their own family or by people very close to her.

But the same happens with who ends up becoming an abuser. We find that both people have their roots in a childhood marked by abuse in any of its manifestations and intensities, but that the basic personality of each one makes the outcome and development practically opposite. They are the two sides of the same coin, of the same problem, of the same reality, solved in the opposite way.

The blame goes the other way

In the case of the subject, she feels in the depths of her being an extreme need to please and please the other, to feel accepted, loved, taken into account, to feel worthy, to feel like a person, to feel complete. For this he even disappears as an individual, his tastes become those of the other, his inclinations, preferences and reasoning, are those of the other, as well as his feeling and his interpretation of reality, it is the dependence in his degree maximum; However, in case of not being able to assume them, then the subject is silenced, silent, reserved, withdraws... with the purpose of, precisely, not to generate conflict, so as not to feel rejected, judged, criticized, vilified, attacked, or degraded.

He cannot defend himself, he cannot justify his discrepancy, he does not have the tools or the speech to do so.. His heart is shattered, his whole being is mired in suffering, in a silent cry, in a heartbreaking and mute bellow... because he can't even express it openly, he eats it, swallows it, yearning to disappear, many times yearning to die. During all the time, the long and eternal period in which the "supreme being" decides not to speak to him, or touch him, or look at him, or hear him... staying in his distant and cold sphere like an ice floe, with his airs of "wounded wolf", of "suffering victim", of "abandoned child"... until, after a few days, and after the constant, meticulous, maternal and complacent care of the subject, he decides that the damage has already been compensated, approaching again in a magnanimous gesture of forgiveness, indulgence and apparent compassion.

This scene is maintained until after a certain time another event occurs that forces him to repeat that gesture, due to his low tolerance for frustration, his mental rigidity, his need for control, his narcissism, his insecurity extreme... manifested from a position of authentic victim as an inability of the other to understand him, to put him in the feeling of having to react in this way, by feeling “obliged” to be so blunt, so distant, so empty, so mean... breaking his mate over and over, eroding his self-esteem, disintegrating his soul, destroying his person, annihilating any hint of joy, authenticity, independence, self-confidence, humanity.

Circle that is repeated repeatedly until a spark arises, ignites and grows inside the subject, allowing him to give one step aside to begin to walk another path, to live another reality, to choose another present and glimpse another future.

Bibliographic references:

• Vicente, J.C., “Everyday manipulators: survival manual”. Desclée de Brouwer, 2006.

• Leonore E. TO. Walker, “Battered Woman Syndrome”, Declée de Brouwer, 2012.