emotional abuse by invalidation

I have heard many victims of abuse, serious abuse that landed people in shelters for battered spouses to escape the abuse, say that silence and shunning are some of the worst kinds of abuse. The all time worst, in my view, is emotional invalidation.

I went to two different weekly support groups for women in abusive relationships, or groups for codependents, and many of the women remained in the abusive relationships. Many of them had been hospitalized, some several times, for the physical abuse. Every woman I ever met in those groups, which I attended during the years of my recovery from an abusive marriage and abusive custody petition, said, without exception, that they would prefer to get hit by their abuser than to face verbal abuse.

I recently shared the above with a feisty younger woman. She said "That's crazy. Nobody is going to hit me and I wouldn't choose being hit over verbal abuse. Those women are crazy."  I was kind and did not point out to her that she sounded like someone who had never been abused and that perhaps she judged abused women, as many do, for allowing themselves to be abused in any way. I wanted to tell her about learned helplessness, male dominator culture, Dr. Lenore Walker's book "The Battered Woman" but she was so feisty, even aggressive in completely dismissing what I had just told her. And I had included myself in the women who preferred physical abuse over emotional abuse.  She had invalidated me.

Emotional abuse doesn't heal as quickly as a broken bone, or go away as quickly as a bruise. Heck, my ex used to complain and get angrier with me because I bruised so easily.  Instead of owning that he had hit me, he'd yell at me for bruising too easy.  He invalidated his abuse by invalidating my tendency to bruise easily.

When someone tells you she went to two battered women's support group for three years to cope with the consequences of a very abusive marriage, and then you tell her "That's nonsense, no one would rather get hit", that person is sorta abusing the expert. A woman who lived through a very abusive marriage and just told you she went to two support groups a week for three years, that woman is an expert on abuse. And any woman dopey enough to say she'd rather be emotionally abused because no man would ever get away with hitting her is being dismissive, judgmental, and, as my dad used to say, "she just gives away her ignorance.

This 'photo' stood out for me. I have heard all these lines from more than one abusive man. Easy to judge from outside how someone got to a place in life where they didn't know they deserved to be treated well. Hard to be empathic, compassion and listen for understanding.

It used to make me feel so great when another woman would say "I'd rather get hit than listen to emotional abuse. Emotional abuse is harder to heal."

Once, when my daughter was one and hospitalized for something, I met a woman who was also in the hospital because one of her kids was sick. She kept saying "I just got out of the nuthouse."  People who were in mental wards can call them nuthouses, I guess. She described a series of horrific physical abuse. Broken legs, broken arms, damaged eye, cuts, bruises on end. And she said, without ever having been in a support group with me "I'd rather he broke my leg than listen to him putting me down."  I encouraged her to come to the groups I attended, which were both free. She never did.