Healing From Verbal And Emotional Abuse

In previous blogs we’ve discussed verbal and emotional abuse. Now, I’d like to give you four steps to help you find healing from its devastating effects as you give God permission to heal your pain.

1. Reach Out – Reach out to God and others. When choosing someone to talk to, make sure they are part of the solution, not someone who will hurt you more. Choose someone who is nonjudgmental, emotionally healthy, can validate you, and help you to see all your options to be proactive. Also, seek a trained counselor with experience in abuse. 

 2. Identify – Identify the truth of your situation. Don’t deny, minimize, or rationalize your pain. Kicking dirt over something doesn’t make it go away; it only buries it so it cannot be dealt with appropriately.

3.  Be Proactive – Don’t think like a victim who is without choices. Maybe your choices are not ideal, but you still have choices to maneuver out of your situation. Make the best choices possible. Don’t react but rather make proactive decisions to move forward. Victims are reactive, but overcomers are proactive.  

4. Control Your Thoughts and Emotions – Recognize, capture, and reword your thoughts that are negative and promote an expectation of failure or repetition of abuse. Turn your thinking to similar stories where you or others overcame struggles and persevered to the other side. Don’t allow yourself to focus on the negative.

As a counselor I have seen the pain and wounds that verbal and emotional abuse cause, but that is not where it has to end. It can cut you to the depth of your soul, but there is nothing that God cannot heal.

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 31:18)

If you find yourself a victim of verbal or emotional abuse who feels brokenhearted and crushed in spirit, walk through the steps, applying one tool after another, to become proactive in creating the future that you desire and the good future God desires for you. You are not a victim of your past. You can be an overcomer in Christ Jesus.

Dr. Michele

Copyright © by Michele Fleming Ph.D.