The Black Fog
Part 2)
by Kate Ariel
As someone who suffered abuse throughout my life, I would like to share what I believe to be some signs that you suffered from childhood emotional abuse.
- Asking Questions When You Know the Answer
If you have ever been criticized, you may doubt yourself, even when you know you are right. We constantly seek advice and view from people close to us but when the same people whom you trust and count on criticizing you and tell you; you can’t do it. That would make you feel: bad and worthless. Their words would start to get into your head setting you up and makes you make things up. You start to doubt yourself and question whether you have done something wrong, when in actual fact it was them, planting things in your head and telling you lies. Man’s approval instigates to control your life and every decision that you make. Due to this, you may find that you ask a million questions but no work was done. - Always Saying “Sorry”
When you have gone through abuse you feel that you will never be able to do anything right, so you always apologize for everything. You feel like everything is all your fault. Eventually, things just get too much, you start to have an escape; locking yourself in the room, isolating yourself from people. You will start having thoughts about killing yourself and start cutting yourself just to get the pain off you. - Second Guessing Everything
Living in the world of emotional abuse, you never truly believe in anything, let it be a relationship, a job, you just know that it’s too good to be true, you know it’s not going to last for a long time. You are always in fear of something bad happening. You start to build a wall around yourself and have a coping mechanism of the situation you are in. - You Are Tough, But Very Sensitive
You experience a number of emotions at a young age, causing you to be sensitive to your own emotions and other people’s. When you had a hard childhood life, you learn to be tough when you grow up because you don’t want to become weak emotionally. Your emotions take over your life, they overpower you that every decision you make is based on your emotions thus people start to take advantage of you. You become a Shipwreck . - You Are Indecisive
It’s harder to make decisions if you spent your childhood hearing that you weren’t good enough. You base your decision on what other people are telling you and what’s good for you because you are unsure about your own decisions. You become a slave of other people. They control your life, that’s why there are people whom you can’t seem to leave without because you have made those people your idols that your life revolve around them. - You Are Self-Disciplined
In order to battle a parent or guardian that constantly was searching for what you hadn’t done, or had done wrong, you become a perfectionist. You are timely, clean, and organized. Many victims of abuse over-do things because they want to please people, they want people’s approval.
- Sensitive To Loud Noises
If you have been raised in fear, to the extent that when someone yells at you, you might think they are abusing you. Even when someone talks to you in a loud noise trying to correct you, you would feel they are attacking you. - Introvert
Being alone seems like a great escape because you feel everyone is there to attack you. So many victims of abuse are afraid of people even to converse with them so they try to distance themselves from people.
- Being Defensive
Everyone you have a conversation with you would want to defend yourself as a way to make them understand you more because you have a feeling that they will judge you. You perceive people as offensive because of what you went through in the previous abuse. - Attachment Issues
You may find that you fear others leaving you, or abandoning you. Most emotionally abused people they are afraid of losing people they have in their lives. Everyone who shows a spirit of love and care towards them they tend to get attached to those particular people as they consider them as their source of protection and security. - Issues With Eye Contact
When speaking, you fear to look at another person because the nerves will take over you and you wouldn’t feel comfortable to even make eye contact with the person you are speaking with. - Running Away From Conflict
Emotionally abused people tend to run away from conflict rather than face conflict, which gives them massive anxiety, it feels easier to just leave the situation entirely the way it is. - Constantly Beating Yourself Up
After being abused, you are used to some sort of ramification for wrong doings. In turn, you constantly beating yourself up. You start altering bad, negative words to yourself.
- Having Issues Getting Close To Others
If you have been abused, you have issues getting close to people, you find it hard to interact with people or make a conversation with them. - You Are Quiet
You feel as though you have no voice after you have been made to feel so small and wayward your whole life. - You Can’t Take A Compliment
When someone tells you how wonderful you are, you doubt their words, because you can’t see yourself as good. Their words are not convincing enough. - You Have Low Self-Esteem
You look down upon yourself and lack self-confidence. - You Don’t Feel Useable
No matter what you do, you doubt that you are capable of doing anything good. You lack drive and motivation because you don’t see anything good coming out of yourself i.e. you are useless. - You Are Always Nervous
Everything worries you and makes you nervous. Even the slightest sign of trouble, you feel overwhelmed. - You Are Angry
You just develop that outburst of anger inside you because your whole life you sat back and watched an angry person treat you so bad that you end up becoming what they did to you. - Self-Harming
Harming yourself, for instance, cutting yourself you feel you are taking away the pain you went through during your previous abuse. Pain becomes a part of you. You feel as though you deserved it, and often times these self-harming behaviours follow you into adulthood. - Mood Swings When you have lived with a toxic abuse, you would start to develop mood swings that would come at random times because they would be a reminder of the hardships you went through.
- Auto-Pilot Life
People with previous emotional abuse sometimes blank out i.e. zone out during the entire conversations. And it’s not because they don’t want to be present, but they just disassociated from the situation. - Commitment Issues When you have been hurt multiple times it’s so hard for you to commit. You are unable to trust others enough to settle with them i.e. you have trust issues. It’s hard to believe in people.
- Addiction Issues When you been through hard emotional abuse you often cope through addictions like hard drugs, alcohol, stealing, gambling, eating, etc. they become an escape for the pain you went through, they make you forget the pain for short period of time. They find comfort in them because it’s their coping mechanism.
- You Are Humble
Despite it all, when you do have something good in your life, you appreciate it. It’s the past that makes you realize a lot about yourself. We need our past to realize our future. It is not a good thing, but it didn’t make you become a bad person. In its place, it made you stronger and a survivor..
Duncan Sebeso