Patricia Evans - Victory Over Verbal Abuse: A Healing Guide to Renewing Your Spirit and Reclaiming Your Life

VICTORY

OVER

VERBAL

ABUSE

A Healing Guide
to Renewing
Your Spirit and
Reclaiming Your Life

Includes Inspiring Affirmations for Every Week of the Year

Patricia Evans

BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF T HE V ERBALLY A BUSIVE R ELATIONSHIP

This book is dedicated to those who have lived, or are living in, the nightmare of a verbally abusive relationship.

Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful to the thousands of people who have shared their lives with me. I have heard their strength and fragility, their clarity and confusion, their confidence and their self-doubt. I have learned from them. Thank you.

My patient and brilliant editor, Jennifer Lawler, has polished this book to shine for you. And my publishing mentor, Paula Munier, has been a patient guide on this journey. A special thanks to Catherine Young, MFT, CHT, and Sinead Flanagan, PhD, for their contributions.

Especially, I thank my family who have assisted me in many ways, including newsletter updates, editing inspiration, workshop programs, and office organization, but most of all I thank them for being there with their loving support.

Introduction

What Victory over Verbal Abuse Means

Victory over Verbal Abuse has been written to provide answers to many questions about verbal abuse and in particular to support recovery from the impact of verbal abuse. To recover from verbal abuse, it is essential to know that healing is possible. This book is designed to assist you on your journey to recovery, clarity, and personal power.

Abuse can begin anytimein infancy, or in an adult relationship. It can be perpetrated by anyone who cannot tolerate your separateness and so attempts to shape you into his or her projected self, while ignoring your real self.

Thousands of cases testify to the fact that while some perpetrators have consciously malevolent motives, many, even most (especially in personal relationships), are responding to inner agonies generated in their own childhoods. Seemingly, because of their illusions, these agonizing moments are happening to them all over again, or so they experience the relationship. Thus, they can become extremely toxic to their partners, even without yelling or physically assaulting anyone. They can be so psychologically dangerous to the person or persons they target that they can eventually destroy the others perceptions so as to leave them debilitated, physically ill, even suicidal. Personal victory over verbal abuse can best be equated with healing that brings clarity and peace to body, mind, and soul.

If you have experienced verbal abuse, you must know clearly that you are not responsible for anyones abuse of you. You cannot make it happen to you. You may not be able to tell when it is happening to you. In a relationship, you know that the perpetrator is a separate person, but as strange as it seems, the perpetrator does not recognize you as a separate person. The perpetrator defines your inner world as if he or she were living within you.

Your victory also means clarity about who you are, what you like, what brings you satisfaction, along with awareness of your talents and gifts. Your victory is the journey you take to create what you want in your lifea life that gives you meaning and purpose and is most fulfilling. Your victory is fully realized when any fears, self-doubts, and confusing perceptions disappear.

As we collectively come to understand just what verbal abuse is and how it impacts humanity, we will have a healthier world. In this regard, victory over verbal abuse is extremely important to all who want to live in a world without war in any formthat is, people seeking power over other people. Achieving this can be one of our most important goals if we want to make it so. If we progress in achieving this victory, the dark cloud of verbal abuse will gradually dissipate in the light of awareness, just as the sun dispels the fog. This will make a difference in the lives of millions of people. For example, a dictator using verbally abusive and controlling behavior could not rise to power if most who witnessed verbal abuse recognized it for what it is!

People who are verbally abusive use Just Plain Senseless (JPS) negative statements that denigrate, accuse, imply, disparage, or in any other way define a person. They perpetrate defining behavior without examples, evidence, or facts. Verbal abuse is a lie told to you, about you, or about someone else. It is most insidious when the accusations are perpetrated through implication.

Here is an example of how insidious and evil implication can be. Jill is home with three children under six years of age. The twin girls are two years old. The oldest, a boy, is five. She is exhausted by the time her husband gets home from work, but she makes sure dinner is ready. Her husband Jack walks in, looks around, and sees a toy on the kitchen floor. He looks at the toy and says, Look at this! I worked all day. It must be nice to have time for a nap.

Jill is shocked. She tries to defend herself against the implication that she doesnt work. I dont have time for naps. I was taking care of the kids, the house, the meals, the laundry, and grocery shopping, she says evenly.

Jack sighs and rolls his eyes, picks up his five-year-old son, Wanna go get a burger where the fun people are? he asks his son.

But dinner is ready, Jill says.

We dont mind missing it, do we Jackie? Little Jackie agrees, nodding at Jack who is so important in his life.

Okay, my little man, says Jack.

He sets Jackie down, takes his hand, and heads out the door saying, If anythings left, save it. I might want a midnight snack.

In personal relationships, some controllers disparage their partner in front of their children and so attempt to bond together with the children against the partner. This is very common. Its a way to gain power and feel connected; in some cases, its the only way a controller feels connected to anyone. In the example above, Jack may have felt anger that the house didnt look as perfect as he desired. He may have resented that his wife didnt meet his expectations, which might have been to be admiring, maybe even adoring of him, when he arrived home.

When Jill told him what she had been doing all day, he shut her out completely, avoided recognizing her as a separate person, and subtly bonded with his son, Jackie, against her.

During the interaction, Jackie saw his dad ignore his mother, saw his dad sigh as if he had had all he could take, realized that mom was not much fun and that his dad approved of him, his little man.

When he is an adult, Jackie may perpetrate the same behavior in his own relationships.

What could Jill have done? The best response to JPS behavior, even the most subtle, is to say something like, Would you repeat that? while holding up a video camera. Then, if he does repeat it, laugh and say, Thats what I thought you said. If he doesnt repeat it, he may be a bit more conscious that his behavior is senseless. This is a victory for consciousness. Victory over verbal abuse is victory for consciousness, while verbal abuse seeks its destruction.

How to Use This Book

Victory over Verbal Abuse is divided into two main parts. Part 1 is composed of chapters addressing different aspects of verbal abuse recovery. Part 2 contains weekly affirmations followed by a message that clarifies and reinforces the affirmation.

Millions of people suffer from verbal abuse from parents, partners, peers, and even cultures that define them. Thousands of women and some men have told me how they have suffered for years from what they have been told about themselves by others. Readers who contact me for information, consultations, and resources want to know how to recover from verbal abuse. Their questions and desire to recover compel me to respond.