Types of Abuse

There are many types of abuse, ranging from blatant to subtle: verbal, emotional, physical, sexual, and spiritual. No abuse should be deemed as minor. Subtle abuses are more widespread, as it takes those who are victimized a longer period of time to identify and feel the destructive affects. I use the analogy that people bleed out of their souls at different rates. If you take an ax to your cars oil pan it will bleed out and empty very quickly, but if you take an ice pick it will take a considerably longer amount of time to bleed out and become empty. So it is with your soul.

Abuse damages you physically, harming the body by physical violation. It is also scientifically proven that distorted thought patterns and emotions affect you physically all the way down to the cellular level with the potential of causing diseases physically and psychologically. Abuse damages your self-image and can also harm you spiritually, twisting your view of God, His Word, and intentions toward you.

All abuse brings destruction to the soul – your mind, will, and emotions. This means destruction to your mind through distorted thinking patterns, faulty beliefs, and negative expectations based on your experiences.  It also produces destruction to your will – your daily choices and behaviors: life skills, relationship skills, boundaries, coping, communication, and conflict resolution skills. Your emotions can become flat, or become a volatile roller-coaster, creating a spike and crash in your emotions due to what you are thinking, choosing, and experiencing every day.

Physical Abuse is recognized by most of us as being struck, beaten, choked, cut, bitten, grabbed, or kicked. This abuse includes many more characteristics including, but not limited to shaking, tripping, tickling against your will, pulling hair, pinching, flicking, pushing, blocking your way, or physically standing over you to intimidate.

Sexual Abuse is any unwanted sexual advances including but not limited to: rape, molestation, forced sex in marriage, physical attacks to parts of the body, being treated as a sex object, and waking you up for sex. Sexual abuse can also include inappropriate conversations or comments about your body, inappropriate touching even through clothing, sexual touching games, seeing a revolving door in the bedroom of sexual partners, sexual contact that is done in your sight, or viewing any form of pornography.

Verbal Abuse includes a vast amount of behaviors ranging from silence and withholding, to yelling, raging , name calling, and put downs. It includes countering everything you say to hold someone accountable, blocking and diverting, shaming, humiliating, bullying, abuse disguised as a joke, accusing, judging, criticizing, blaming, minimizing and trivializing behaviors and feelings, undermining, ordering, denial, the abuser always responding with the victim mentality, and so much more.

Emotional Abuse includes crazy making which makes you feel like what you think and feel must be wrong, what you remember didn’t happen, or what you thought was said was never spoken. It includes mind games, mental coercion, controlling, dominance, manipulation, guilt, threats that produce fear, using children and finances as leverage, and much more.

Spiritual Abuse includes twisting Scripture to maintain control and dominance, to shame, condemn, judge, and accuse. It also includes demands for submission and obedience which requires the person victimized to allow and enable sinful behaviors without accountability, boundaries, or consequences.

This is only a small snapshot of what abuse may look like through your experiences. If you even wonder if you are being abused, please ask for help and guidance. It is very hard to see clearly when you are in these types of abusive systems. Remember abuse can happen in the family, marriage, between children, siblings, friends, in the work environment, and even in the church. The person you seek help from should be educated, trained, and experienced in understanding and dealing with abuse. Tools need to be imparted to empower the person being victimized so that you may identify and properly deal with abuse to facilitate healing for all who are willing.

Copyright (c) 2012 by Michele Fleming

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