Dear ,

When you find yourself in a toxic relationship where you are facing abuse and want out, you may find that when you share this with people close to you they may begin to ask you if it was physical. Did they ever hit you they may ask because many people have this notion that, abuse is only physical. We think if it's not physical then it's not big of a deal.

But that is further from the truth.

Emotional Abuse is whereby the abuser uses verbal abuse, manipulation, causing fear, isolation, control , treating you like a child.

They make you feel less of a person, they intimidate you or threaten you constantly.

The reason they do that is to take full control of you and to lender you powerless.

However, we think it's not as serious but the scars can be severe and long lasting.

In most cases it will end up developing into anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts or even death or PTSD.

In most abusive relationships even those that are physical have the emotional abuse element to it.

When you are emotionally abused, you lose you self esteem, your Independence, you think you cannot survive without that person in your life or you think you are less of a person. You lose yourself, feel small and when you are around this person, you feel like you are walking on eggshells and there is also elements of cold war into it.

Your partner keeps threatening you if you decide to leave, or they threaten to hurt themselves or others if you leave them.

They make you feel you are not good enough so as to stay dependent on them and stick by them.

Emotional abuse can severely damage your mental health long-term.

In most relationship by the time you are leaving , you'll have lost all your self esteem and have to begin rebuilding

They talk in a mean way, they may say, 'you look ugly in that' , 'You can't get that job as you are not intelligent enough' etc

Control. They control your every move. They may even ask you to send screenshots of the people you've been talking to. They will give you timelines to get back home etc

Gaslighting. They deny existence of things that happen making you look crazy and start doubting yourself.

Isolation. They isolate you not wanting you to talk to your friends, they will tell you that your family is not for you but against you. They simply don't want the best for you.

If you find yourself in an abusive situation, there are things you can do.

Setting boundaries. When you realize this is not healthy for you,set boundaries tell them to stay away from your phone, change your passwords etc. Chances are that relationship may not survive because they may not like it.

Change priorities. Stop making everything revolve around them. Due to their control, all you do is what they want as everything revolve around them. In abusive situation your needs don't count.

Get help. Talk to a professional, a counselor or even the police if it gets to that point. Don't let it escalate to suicidal thoughts when there are people trained to help you.

Have an exit plan. Don't lose yourself trying to please an abuser or any other person for that matter. When you are in an emotionallly abusive situation,you stop being yourself and you become that person they want for them.

If this is you going through this, wait no further but seek help asap. You can consider working with the Relationship and Dating package to heal from toxic or broken relationships. Request it here:-https://rb.gy/dmi4b5

Talk soon.