Have you been emotionally abused?

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Lol

Exploiting others, manipulating others, bullying others, basically making people, typically people close to you that you are "supposed" to love and care for feel like s**t for no reason (or well, sometimes they have a reason I suppose and it's their way of punishing people, but for some it's just how they operate sadly, no reason makes it okay though, that's the point)

Sometimes, from the point of view of someone with BPD, what you might deem as manipulative behavior, is born out of a need for reassurance. Accusing you of things, cross examining you, building up a false narrative about you is a product of their insecurity and fear of abandonment. It's all very hazy and hard to understand where the illness ends and the manipulation starts.

I understand it can be due to their disorder and their way of trying to get their needs met, I'm just saying it can be harmful.
I didn't understand it until fairly recently though, before I took it personally and it sent me into some pretty serious distress.

With BPD, which is regarded as a treatable illness or at least one you can learn to cope with, I do believe that manipulation and abuse is a choice. Obviously, the more unwell they are, the more likely they are to act in unhealthy ways. This counts for all people. But if you have the option to get better by seeking treatment or doing whatever you need to do to work on bettering yourself and learn to handle your inner demons, but you refuse to do so or don't see the point in trying, even if you know you're hurting others, then I believe that being abusive or manipulative is most definitely a choice. I, myself, started to develop some BPD symptoms in my relationship with the BPD guy. I even tried to be lowkey manipulative myself a couple of times when I felt real miserable and powerless, so I think I understand it a little from that perspective, but it just personally made me feel awful. It was like a last resort thing for me, a reaction to having been exposed to it myself. It didn't feel natural to me nor did it make me feel better tbh. Manipulation does not correlate well with the ASD side of me at all. Thanks for your input.

"emotional abuse" or "freedom of speech"?

"Freedom of speech" has its limits, things like death threats are considered a serious offense.

Yes, definition of emotional abuse is too vague to make a law against it. Playing on one's triggers may be so evasive that no bystander could recognize what's going on - but still causing serious distress.

"Emotional abuse" is mostly useless for law enforcement but very useful for healing process of victims of it.

Yes. But because both parents did so most of my life up until now, I just believed what they said and only realised last and this year when I had a total breakdown and almost succeeded in taking my life. My father is now cut off and my mother I have had to accept will never change. It is still hard for me to describe them as emotionally abusive and makes me feel very guilty because my mother always reminded me of the fact she had been around when my father had not. She is now at 72, under psychiatric care herself as she had a psychotic episode that landed her in hospital... Her first incident in her life. This happened in Sept, 2 months after I was discharged from my last admission.

It has taken me to the age of 44 to realise what had caused me so much damage and it is going to take a lot of work to undo it if I have time now as the consequences of 90 overdoses in 10 months(triggered by the trauma of being sectioned for 3 months then suddenly thrown back home with no warning... I got caught in a vicious cycle connected to my Autism and having lost all emotion) and my eating disorder have finally taken their toll on my body.

Being sleep deprived and micro-managed aggravated my condition. Every time we socialised there would be a huge list of things I'd done wrong and several hours of post mortem. I've disengaged completely now.

I come from two very toxic families, and unfortunately this has been a problem my entire life. My father has NPD, which translates to him being an incredibly sensitive and guarded person. It took him a LONG time to accept me, and over a decade to accept my diagnosis. He is not a bad person but can be very abusive both emotionally and verbally when he gets upset. Ironically, it is not until an ex-partner abused me quite severely that he started to see how vulnerable I am. Now instead of taking my disability as a personal failure he tries harder to understand me. I’m actually very proud of him for it.

My grandmother emotionally abuses me now as well. I recently caught her lying to the neighbor about me “slacking” on chores at her house when she insisted on doing them herself. She implied that I am “slow”. I left my job to help care for both she and my grandfather. I cook, clean, do bedpans - everything but drive. She is a highly abusive person and I have been extremely patient with her foul behaviors as she is old, but now I don’t want to be around her at all. It’s a shame as we’d been very close up until now, but I see that her love is very conditional. If her love is so conditional I frankly don’t want it. I am only there now for my grandfather, truly.

^^^welcome to WP, DP

I had many toxic relationships in the past. At least one of them was most probably in the narcissistic spectrum but since I'm not a mental health professional, I can't possibly know. For a long time I thought I was the problem, that I don't know how to pick good partners. That's not what I think now.

It's very difficult to spot toxic people. They mask themselves very well. It's true that if I weren't so vulnerable a person, I would have made better choices. Anyway, what toxic people want for us to think is that we are to blame for everything that happened to us. They want us to carry their guilt. At some point though, we must break off the loop and accept that our vulnerability and loneliness is what takes us to those kind of personalities.

If we ever had those kinds of people in the family, so much the worse. It's possible that we grew up with other relatives saying that such and such toxic people "aren't all that bad" and that we should tolerate them. If we are taught to tolerate them in our intimate circle, our minds will probably tolerate them out on the streets and institutions.

Yes, by both family members, classmates, coworkers and bosses over my lifetime. Thanks to that abuse I very likely have a form of complex-PTSD (could be the cause of my self-hatred). I have learned some techniques to turn the tables on them when needed, but I do feel guilt when I have to use them. Why do people have to act this way? I will never understand.

I completely agree

"emotional abuse" is too vague and subjective

The alleged victim says it was emotional abuse

The defendant says "don't be so sensitive"


An article said that a man told his daughter that he was going to strike her. She said, that's illegal and she was calling 911. He said, "go ahead". 911 came and supervised and it said "that's not child abuse"


Different states and different years have different laws

Everyone has a different number of pain receptors

Even, if different cops came, they could have said, that's child abuse


Some precious lil "people" act so f*****g entitled arrogant judgmental manipulative , that they truly believe that, whenever they are not happy , someone must have violated their stupidass "rights"


f**k mister redelings

f**k Amy Lee scheel b***h

f**k Anthony Rodgers

Yes, but no one believed me and they get upset and hysterical about being "blamed" when I try to tell them. Gas lighting also was always a part of it too.

Yes, I know it.
I wonder if confronting an emotional abuser ever works.
What works for me is keeping firm boundaries.