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Emotionally drained? (warning this could be considered graphic)

1/10/2012

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Good day to you all...okay so the day is about over, but there is about 49 minutes left in today :)

I don't know how many of you know the name, Andrew Vacchs, but he is a world renown author and attorney who has dedicate his life to  protecting children.  Back in 1994 he was interviewed by Parade and I wanted to share this with you today.  
He has fought for children for many years.  In 1994 when we came out and decided to go after my father for what
he had done, we had a consultation with Mr. Vachss, he had great advice, but since he only practiced
in another state, we couldn't utilize him.  I remember specifically his calming voice and understanding.

The mind is an amazing beast.  It can make or break you.  Our minds can make things up, over-think, exaggerate, and be absolutely brilliant.  I have always said that emotional abuse was really the worse abuse I went through.  Yes I was young girl and my biological father penetrated me--and yes it was painful, but that type of pain I could get over, the pain of the mind, the emotions, the games, the manipulation....that pain would take years to work through and actually I don't know that you ever get "over it", per say.  But I have been glad about and enjoyed to an extent to learning about me and going through what the emotional abuse did to me.  I realized and learned a lot about myself--my family--my situation.

Going through that healing process from emotional abuse isn't easy, but the reward after is so worth it, the ability to be able to survive, live, and enjoy life.  Can't beat it!

This is an excerpt that I found to be very powerful....I really feel like if you have been emotionally abused in any way,
by anyone, that you can utilize this article as well--He shares here about the "role" that a victim of emotional abuse takes
on because that is the role that the abuser assigned to the victim.  Emotional abuse survivors look for approval--normally
by those that can't or won't provide what you need.....ITS NOT YOUR FAULT, please read:
"When your self-concept has been shredded, when you have been deeply
injured and made to feel the injury was all your fault, when you look for
approval to those who can not or will not provide it—you play the role
assigned to you by your abusers.
It's time to stop playing that role, time to write your own script. Victims
  of emotional abuse carry  the cure in their own hearts and souls. Salvation
means  learning self-respect, earning the respect of others and making that
respect the  absolutely irreducible minimum requirement for all intimate
relationships. For  the emotionally abused child, healing does come
down to  "forgiveness"—forgiveness of yourself.

How you forgive yourself is as individual as you are. But knowing you deserve
to be loved and respected and empowering yourself with a commitment to try is
  more than half the battle. Much more."-Andrew Vachss
 So please read the article by Andrew Vacchs, and there is some other links  relating to his work as well.

With love, praying for lives to be changed
-P


You Carry the Cure In Your Own Heart
 
Emotional abuse of children can lead, in adulthood, to addiction,
  rage, a severely damaged sense of self and an inability to truly bond with   others. But—if it happened to you—there is a way out.
by Andrew Vachss
Originally published in Parade Magazine, August
  28, 1994

 The attorney and author Andrew Vachss has devoted his life to protecting   children. We asked Vachss, an expert on the subject of child abuse, to examine   perhaps one of its most complex and widespread forms—emotional abuse: What it
  is, what it does to children, what can be done about it. Vachss' latest novel,   "Down in the Zero," just published by Knopf, depicts emotional abuse at its most  monstrous.

 I'm a lawyer with an unusual  specialty. My clients are all children—damaged, hurting children who have been  sexually assaulted, physically abused, starved, ignored, abandoned and every  other lousy thing one
human can do to another. People who know what I do always  ask: "What is the worst case you ever handled?" When you're in a business where  a baby who dies  early may be the luckiest child in the family, there's no easy  answer. But I
have thought about it—I think about it every day. My answer is  that, of all the  many forms of child abuse, emotional abuse may be the cruelest  and  longest-lasting of all.

Emotional abuse is the systematic diminishment of another. It may be   intentional or subconscious (or both), but it is always a course of conduct, not  a single event. It is designed to reduce a child's self-concept to the
point  where the victim considers himself unworthy—unworthy of respect, unworthy  of  friendship, unworthy of the natural birthright of all children: love and   protection.

Emotional abuse can be as deliberate as a gunshot: "You're fat. You're   stupid. You're ugly."
Emotional abuse can be as random as the fallout from a nuclear explosion. In   matrimonial battles, for example, the children all too often become the   battlefield. I remember a young boy, barely into his teens, absently rubbing
the  fresh scars on his wrists. "It was the only way to make them all happy," he   said. His mother and father were locked in a bitter divorce battle, and each was  demanding total loyalty and commitment from the child.

 Emotional abuse can be active. Vicious belittling: "You'll never be the   success your brother was." Deliberate humiliation: "You're so stupid. I'm   ashamed you're my son."

 It also can be passive, the emotional equivalent of child neglect—a sin of   omission, true, but one no less destructive.

And it may be a combination of the two, which increases the negative effects   geometrically.

Emotional abuse can be verbal or behavioral, active or passive, frequent or   occasional. Regardless, it is often as painful as physical assault. And, with   rare exceptions, the pain lasts much longer. A parent's love is so important to
  a child that withholding it can cause a "failure to thrive" condition similar to  that of children who have been denied adequate nutrition.

Even the natural solace of siblings is denied to those victims of emotional   abuse who have been designated as the family's "target child." The other   children are quick to imitate their parents. Instead of learning the qualities
  every child will need as an adult—empathy, nurturing and protectiveness—they   learn the viciousness of a pecking order. And so the cycle continues.

 But whether as a deliberate target or an innocent bystander, the emotionally   abused child inevitably struggles to "explain" the conduct of his abusers—and   ends up struggling for survival in a quicksand of self-blame.

Emotional abuse is both the most pervasive and the least understood form of   child maltreatment. Its victims are often dismissed simply because their wounds   are not visible. In an era in which fresh disclosures of unspeakable child
abuse  are everyday fare, the pain and torment of those who experience "only" emotional  abuse is often trivialized. We understand and accept that victims of physical or  sexual abuse need both time and specialized treatment to heal. But
when it comes  to emotional abuse, we are more likely to believe the victims will "just get  over it" when they become adults.

That assumption is dangerously wrong. Emotional abuse scars the heart and   damages the soul. Like cancer, it does its most deadly work internally. And,  like cancer, it can metastasize if untreated.

When it comes to damage, there is no real difference between physical, sexual   and emotional abuse. All that distinguishes one from the other is the abuser's   choice of weapons. I remember a woman, a grandmother whose abusers had long
  since died, telling me that time had not conquered her pain. "It wasn't just the  incest," she said quietly. "It was that he didn't love me. If he loved me, he  couldn't have done that to me."

But emotional abuse is unique because it is designed to make the victim feel   guilty. Emotional abuse is repetitive and eventually cumulative behavior—very   easy to imitate—and some victims later perpetuate the cycle with their own
  children. Although most victims courageously reject that response, their lives   often are marked by a deep, pervasive sadness, a severely damaged self-concept   and an inability to truly engage and bond with others.
 
We must renounce the lie that emotional abuse is good for children because it   prepares them for a hard life in a tough world. I've met some individuals who   were prepared for a hard life that way—I met them while they were
doing  life.

Emotionally abused children grow up with significantly altered perceptions so   that they "see" behaviors—their own and others'—through a filter of distortion.   Many emotionally abused children engage in a lifelong drive for the approval
  (which they translate as "love") of others. So eager are they for love—and so   convinced that they don't deserve it—that they are prime candidates for abuse   within intimate relationships.

 The emotionally abused child can be heard inside every battered woman who  insists: "It was my fault, really. I just seem to provoke him somehow."

 And the almost-inevitable failure of adult relationships reinforces that   sense of unworthiness, compounding the felony, reverberating throughout the   victim's life.

Emotional abuse conditions the child to expect abuse in later life. Emotional   abuse is a time bomb, but its effects are rarely visible, because the   emotionally abused tend to implode, turning the anger against themselves. And
  when someone is outwardly successful in most areas of life, who looks within to   see the hidden wounds?

Members of a therapy group may range widely in age, social class, ethnicity   and occupation, but all display some form of self-destructive conduct: obesity,   drug addiction, anorexia, bulimia, domestic violence, child abuse, attempted
  suicide, self-mutilation, depression and fits of rage. What brought them into   treatment was their symptoms. But until they address the one thing that they   have in common—a childhood of emotional abuse—true recovery is impossible.

One of the goals of any child-protective effort is to "break the cycle" of   abuse. We should not delude ourselves that we are winning this battle simply   because so few victims of emotional abuse become abusers themselves. Some
  emotionally abused children are programmed to fail so effectively that a part of  their own personality "self-parents" by belittling and humiliating   themselves.

 The pain does not stop with adulthood. Indeed, for some, it worsens. I   remember a young woman, an accomplished professional, charming and friendly,   well-liked by all who knew her. She told me she would never have children. "I'd
  always be afraid I would act like them," she said.

 Unlike other forms of child abuse, emotional abuse is rarely denied by those   who practice it. In fact, many actively defend their psychological brutality,   asserting that a childhood of emotional abuse helped their children to "toughen
  up." It is not enough for us to renounce the perverted notion that beating   children produces good citizens—we must also renounce the lie that emotional   abuse is good for children because it prepares them for a hard life in a tough
  world. I've met some individuals who were prepared for a hard life that way—I   met them while they were doing life.
The primary weapons of emotional abusers is the deliberate infliction of   guilt. They use guilt the same way a loan shark uses money: They don't want the   "debt" paid off, because they live quite happily on the "interest."
 
When your self-concept has been  shredded, when you have been deeply injured and made to feel the injury
was all  your fault, when you look for approval to those who can not or will not provide  it—you play the role assigned to you by your abusers. It's time to stop playing  that role.

Because emotional abuse comes in so many forms (and so many disguises),  recognition is the key to effective response. For example, when allegations of   child sexual abuse surface, it is a particularly hideous form of emotional
abuse  to pressure the victim to recant, saying he or she is "hurting the family" by  telling the truth. And precisely the same holds true when a child is  pressured  to sustain a lie by a "loving" parent.

 Emotional abuse requires no physical conduct whatsoever. In one extraordinary   case, a jury in Florida recognized the lethal potential of emotional abuse by   finding a mother guilty of child abuse in connection with the suicide of her
  17-year-old daughter, whom she had forced to work as a nude dancer (and had   lived off her earnings).

 Another rarely understood form of emotional abuse makes victims responsible   for their own abuse by demanding that they "understand" the perpetrator. Telling  a 12-year-old girl that she was an "enabler" of her own incest is
emotional  abuse at its most repulsive.

A particularly pernicious myth is that "healing requires forgiveness" of the   abuser. For the victim of emotional abuse, the most viable form of help is self-help—and a victim handicapped by the need to "forgive" the abuser
  is a handicapped helper indeed. The most damaging mistake an emotional-abuse   victim can make is to invest in the "rehabilitation" of the abuser. Too often   this becomes still another wish that didn't come true—and emotionally abused
  children will conclude that they deserve no better result.

The costs of emotional abuse cannot be measured by visible scars, but each   victim loses some percentage of capacity. And that capacity remains lost so long  as the victim is stuck in the cycle of "understanding" and "forgiveness."
The  abuser has no "right" to forgiveness—such blessings can only be earned. And   although the damage was done with words, true forgiveness can only be earned   with deeds.

For those with an idealized notion of "family," the task of refusing to   accept the blame for their own victimization is even more difficult. For such   searchers, the key to freedom is always truth—the real truth, not the distorted,  self-serving version served by the abuser.

 Emotional abuse threatens to become a national illness. The popularity of   nasty, mean-spirited, personal-attack cruelty that passes for "entertainment" is  but one example. If society is in the midst of moral and spiritual erosion,
a  "family" bedrocked on the emotional abuse of its children will not hold the  line. And the tide shows no immediate signs of turning.

Effective treatment of emotional abusers depends on the motivation for the   original conduct, insight into the roots of such conduct and the genuine desire   to alter that conduct. For some abusers, seeing what they are doing to their
  child—or, better yet, feeling what they forced their child to feel—is   enough to make them halt. Other abusers need help with strategies to deal with   their own stress so that it doesn't overload onto their children.

 But for some emotional abusers, rehabilitation is not possible. For such  people, manipulation is a way of life. They coldly and deliberately set up a   "family" system in which the child can never manage to "earn" the parent's
love.  In such situations, any emphasis on "healing the whole family" is doomed to  failure.

 If you are a victim of emotional abuse, there can be no self-help until you   learn to self-reference. That means developing your own standards,   deciding for yourself what "goodness" really is. Adopting the abuser's   calculated labels—"You're crazy. You're ungrateful. It didn't happen the way you  say"—only continues the cycle.

Adult survivors of emotional child abuse have only two life-choices: learn to   self-reference or remain a victim. When your self-concept has been shredded,   when you have been deeply injured and made to feel the injury was all your
  fault, when you look for approval to those who can not or will not provide   it—you play the role assigned to you by your abusers.

It's time to stop playing that role, time to write your own script. Victims  of emotional abuse carry the cure in their own hearts and souls. Salvation means  learning self-respect, earning the respect of others and making that
respect the  absolutely irreducible minimum requirement for all intimate relationships. For  the emotionally abused child, healing does come down to  "forgiveness"—forgiveness of yourself.

How you forgive yourself is as individual as you are. But knowing you deserve   to be loved and respected and empowering yourself with a commitment to try is   more than half the battle. Much more.And it is never too soon—or too late—to start.
 ©  1994 Andrew Vachss. All rights reserved.

LINKS:
Vachss's Dogs
Vachss's Bio / Credentials
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