Emotional Abuse

I've been researching on some things... This website helped me out quite a bit... PUBLIC HEALTH AGENCY OF CANADA: What is Emotional Abuse? So I was able to break down a few things and make them easier for me to name. I must point out that although my mother was the primary abuser, I also feel that my father (also very occasionally joining in on the physical abuse & neglect, at least) enabled her to be that way, as he was rarely emotionally available, and I don't recall him ever standing up for his children.

To be fair, though, I understand how frustrating it can be to work with children sometimes and not have any guidance on how to deal with situations when they become difficult. I have worked with children for over a decade in either substitute teaching, daycare as a nanny, or as an instructor/caregiver in after-school/summer programs, so I'm no stranger to child care (although one could argue that I never had to live with them, they got to go home, whereas parenting is a full time commitment).

I understand that my parents were trying to strike out on their own and, given their own unstable upbringings, I am certain they didn't want to rely on their own parents for advice, but even if they did wish for some support, I am not sure how supportive their parents would or could be. And even if my grandparents were fairly supportive, the physical distance (let alone the emotional distance) and lack of close/local family support would definitely have made it difficult to communicate (for instance Long Distance charges in those days).

Rejecting - refusing to acknowledge a person's presence, value or worth; communicating to a person that she or he is useless or inferior; devaluing her/his thoughts and feelings. Example: repeatedly treating a child differently from siblings in a way that suggests resentment, rejection or dislike for the child. I think Mom did this with all three of us siblings, and at times to her own husband and to other people in the extended family... sort of playing up to one person sometimes and then to the other on another occasion. "Don't tell your brother, but..." "Don't tell your dad this, but..." "Don't repeat this (about your aunt/mom's sister), but.." She held resentment for people who bought nice houses or had nice cars, but to their faces was fairly pleasent. And she also didn't speak of her alcholic sister for the longest time: I didn't even know I had an aunt Marie until I think I was in my teens.

Degrading - insulting, ridiculing, name calling, imitating and infantilizing; behaviour which diminishes the identity, dignity and self-worth of the person. Examples: yelling, swearing, publicly humiliating or labelling a person as stupid; mimicking a person's disability; treating a senior as if she or he cannot make decisions. Mom did this with all three of us siblings, but mostly focused on Chris for public humiliation. She mostly told people Chris was mentally/emotionally retarded or unstable. Chris told me mom called up his girlfriend's parents and told them this and tried humiliation and vicious rumour/twisted truth to prevent Chris and his girlfriend from being in a relationship. He told me that mom called the house or came over so often that, on occasion, he was unable to have sexual relations with his girlfriend - because his mom would be on his mind.
When we were growing up, Mom would yell at all of us frequently, especially when we were at the age where we were able to think for ourselves & didn't always agree with her. If it seemed we were going to win an argument, she would artfully pull other topics off the shelf and distract us from the original argument. Also my mother tried on several occasions to prevent me from excelling, or hide the fact that I was excelling (in school for example) so as not to 'damage' Chris, who she felt was incapable of succeeding.
And of course, she made it sound like I had something to do with being sexually molested when I was a child, as if I had somehow attracted my predator and been cognizant of what was going on. It took me about 15 years to tell her what happened, and then she treats me this way.

Terrorizing - inducing terror or extreme fear in a person; coercing by intimidation; placing or threatening to place a person in an unfit or dangerous environment. Examples: forcing a child to watch violent acts toward other family members or pets; threatening to leave, physically hurt or kill a person, pets or people she/he cares about; threatening to destroy a person's possessions; threatening to have a person deported or put in an institution; stalking. On at least 2 occasions that I remember, mom left us in a public place by ourselves. Once when she went up to the doctor/dentist in an elevator and left me & my younger brothers on the main floor to be 'watched' by the security guard; another time she and dad went to a prayer meeting and left me to play in the church basement. Both times I became frightened and began to cry: I can't recall how old I was but I believe I was around 6 yrs old.
As far as threatening to leave or send us away, one or all of us on occasion threatened to run away from HER, so she said that she would call Social Assistance for us if we didn't want to be with her anymore and that we'd probably be 'taken away' and never see her again. Dad did leave us on two occasions, when he ran away because he couldn't face mom about not being able to handle a management position and at another time about being laid off.
She does seem to have some capacity for sadistic behaviour - she frequently felt she hadn't finished yelling, screaming, or hitting us until we had cried: then some sort of guilt would pass over her and on occasion she would come beg forgiveness, or else the next day she would act as though nothing had happened. As a child I admittedly did something lacking judgement: I smashed up some gyprock for the basement walls to draw with on the basement floor. Admittedly I should have asked to get the chalk from the wall. However, as she screamed at me to vacuum up the mess I made and I frantically attempted to do so, I remember more clearly now, that mom smacked me on my bare back about 10 times and at least once on my face until I stood there trembling in fear not knowing what to do, at which point she said to get lost because I probably wouldn't do a good enough job cleaning up the mess I had made.

Isolating - physical confinement; restricting normal contact with others; limiting freedom within a person's own environment. Examples: excluding a senior from participating in decisions about her or his own life; locking a child in a closet or room alone; refusing a female partner or senior access to her or his own money and financial affairs; withholding contact with grandchildren; depriving a person of mobility aids or transportation. I can't recall anything like this, but she certainly limited our choices - for instance when I hated my all-girl high school, I think the only reason she let me switch to the co-ed one was because she thought I would be with a boy named Evan (he was a drug user and gay, but she's never accepted that).
At one point, I believe because she was losing control with Chris, she started making me write down the numbers on the speedometer to track how much gas I used (none of my friends could drive). At one point, because I was in my room drawing and creating things quietly, she was suddenly and, in my opinion at the time, inexplicably worried about me being isolated and 'made' me attend a youth church group for a while, even when I told my dad that there was a boy there who made me uncomfortable I was still expected to attend. I was not allowed to leave the group until one time when there was a 'laying on of hands' where I was afraid to go up, and I described this event to my mother who apparently felt that it was starting to resemble a cult. THEN it was okay not to attend anymore.
Nowadays she has been known to change people's medications or add to them without telling them, or make decisions on medication for people such as her mother and father when they were hospitalized.

Corrupting/Exploiting - socializing a person into accepting ideas or behaviour which oppose legal standards; using a person for advantage or profit; training a child to serve the interests of the abuser and not of the child. Examples: child sexual abuse; permitting a child to use alcohol or drugs; enticing a person into the sex trade. As mentioned: she took medication home, some of which was prescription, and gave it to us willy-nilly, such as tetracycline or other antibiotics, ponstan, and for herself, muscle-relaxants. Apparently this was acceptable & safe. Since I was roughly 15 or 16, I had a crush on a much older camp counsellor (possibly 10 yrs older than me or more) who gave me his address to correspond with while he stayed in New Zealand. My mother suggested I invite him to my high school graduation, and also suggested I tell him how I felt about him. And of course there was her most famous move of putting all her kids' names on houses so she wouldn't get charged for as much revenue, because she has several houses she rents. Also she tried to set me up with other fellows when I was already dating someone else.
Then, of course there was the time she took us children to Sunday services several times at the Regina Correctional Centre, which involved lay service with inmates. She let me sit on the lap of a pedophile and he was allowed to hold my hand in his sweaty mitt while we were in prayer circle.

Denying Emotional Responsiveness - failing to provide care in a sensitive and responsive manner; being detached and uninvolved; interacting only when necessary; ignoring a person's mental health needs. Examples: ignoring a child's attempt to interact; failing to show affection, caring and/or love for a child; treating a senior who lives in an institution as though she/he is an object or "a job to be done." My mother could show affection, but it seemed rather fake. I was never sure if she meant what she said because her actions frequently said otherwise. At times I would feel neglected, although I couldn't quite figure out what it was I was feeling: these hours and hours I would spend drawing, reading, making crafts, or playing with bugs when I was little. The reason I felt this way was because she became hyper-attentive of Chris' real or perceived mental health issues and behaviour, and of Robin's physical health and sleeping patterns (which affected his mood/personality) when he came down with Chronic Fatigue or Epstein Barr Syndrome. I noticed (and other people noticed) I had an extreme quietness/introvertedness in myself until I spent two weeks in the summer of Fort San and got away from everything.
I think the main issue was/is her own problems have never been dealt with and therefore it's impossible for her to have empathy for others. She is so repressed about things, even though she claims to follow Jungian philosophy, she seems completely blind to being ill. She doesn't see herself as unwell, and sees everyone else as needing healing, when it is she herself who needs the healing. It is impossible to tell her DESC or explain even logically why the things she does are unacceptable, or even to disagree with something she feels because she doesn't embrace the whole issue, she only feels the rejection of the idea. If you are angry with her over something she has done, she doesn't recognize what she did, she only feels the anger directed at her.

• Emotional abuse accompanies other forms of abuse, but also may occur on its own.
• No abuse - neglect, physical, sexual or financial - can occur without psychological consequences. Therefore all abuse contains elements of emotional abuse.
• Emotional abuse follows a pattern; it is repeated and sustained. If left unchecked, abuse does not get better over time. It only gets worse.
• Like other forms of violence in relationships, those who hold the least power and resources in society, for example, women and children, are most often emotionally abused.
• Emotional abuse can severely damage a person's sense of self-worth and perception.
• In children, emotional abuse can impair psychological development, including: intelligence, memory, recognition, perception, attention, imagination and moral development. Emotional abuse can also affect a child's social development and may result in an impaired ability to perceive, feel, understand and express emotions.

I think, for the most part, I am relatively a stable and intelligent person because whatever neuroses or emotional/physical abuse we sustained as children, I believe either my parents might've been relatively well when I was born, or somehow I was particularly resilient - or some combination of the two. Things may have escalated slowly enough that I had a chance of retaining some sense of well-being & self. I don't know if issues started occuring before we siblings started thinking for ourselves. The only hints I get so far from my horrible memory abilities are from distant memories of me ruthlessly punishing my dolls when I was around three years old (in our house on Argyle Street). I vaguely remember being shaken or grabbed by my forearms, but that may have occured after I was three years old. I really think things started to go downhill sometime around or after my brothers were born. My mom has always maintained that Chris was always crying and upset and a very difficult child to deal with when he was little, and such a handful. I don't remember this. I remember him being more of a handful when he was a teenager when he was rebelling. It could be more truthful that after Chris was born, perhaps that was when she suffered some sort of post partum depression. It could be possible that it spiraled somewhat out of control..

At the same time, there are factors I can understand as to why my parents are the way they are... I just can't continually, as I was taught, repress my feelings of anger and keep forgiving them for their behaviour. And it has been years since I have spoken up against anything they've done, but not because our relationship has grown closer - it's grown further apart.

At this link to a PDF file on the Nature of Child Emotional Abuse:
Although scant research has been conducted on the causes of child emotional abuse, experts speculate that it occurs for many of the same reasons that physical abuse does. A single factor alone often does not lead to abuse; instead, parents are vulnerable to becoming involved in maltreatment when simple, everyday stresses in their lives build up or if they are unable to manage such stresses. Such stressors to parents include: fatigue, unemployment, poverty, social isolation, divorce, death, immaturity and inexperience, health crises, and mental health problems. Parents may also have diminished capacity for understanding or dealing with children, false ideas about children’s needs, and, in extreme cases, sadistic psychosis.

I do agree with my mom, that she was the main - or pretty much the only discipliner in the family. On occasion where she did involve my father, when we were very young, he would hit us with the belt. I think my mother criticized his disciplining methods, and he became more and more reluctant to share in the duty of discipline, so she stuck to doing it herself more and more. She did complain that he never helped her with is, but perhaps she was also somewhat afraid of what he was capable of.
They also isolated themselves: I am suspecting this was intentional, just by how they describe their upbringings and how they behave toward their families. The majority of my relatives on both sides originated from Edmonton. Some stayed there, while others moved to Calgary, or to northern areas of Alberta such as Whitecourt & Peace River; others moved much farther east to the Toronto area in Ontario. My parents are the only ones who stayed in Saskatchewan. No relatives have visited us in years; we more typically go out to visit them, instead.
As mentioned above, if there was some sort of health issue, whether perceived or real, my mother got intensely involved in it...
Also as mentioned above, she seemed to enjoy following us around, yelling at us and making us feel stupid by infantilizing us, or would swear, apparently to demonstrate how it sounded when we swore, and occasionally would get physical with us. Although I never hit her when I was a child/teen, I certainly hit other things or cut my skin or bashed my head, literally, against the wall. When we were younger, I don't believe we ever did anything other than yell and scream back. The only one, so far as I know, who actually has pushed or hit mom would be my brother, Chris.
In the same article most recently posted regarding the consequences of emotional child abuse, it states:

The consequences of child emotional abuse can be devastating and long-lasting,and include: increased risk for a lifelong pattern of depression, estrangement,anxiety, low self-esteem, inappropriate or troubled relationships, or a lack of empathy. During their childhood, victims may fail to thrive or their developmental progress may be halted.
Further, research indicates that it is the emotional and psychological trauma associated with physical and sexual abuse that has the most detrimental impact on the development of children. One study indicated that 80 percent of respondents who had experienced sexual abuse in combination with physical and/or emotional abuse felt that the emotional abuse was most damaging in the long-term. Similar findings were confirmed by case studies of men allegedly sexually, physically, and emotionally abused by caregivers while in boarding school. Children may recover from the physical pain and injuries, but may have a more difficult time recovering from the degradation, humiliation, or breach of trust involved in child emotional abuse.

It appears that the worst emotional abuse was done to Chris as the above statement describes him perfectly as an infantalized adult. It seems timely that I found this content, because last week in therapy, I told Dr. R about MA's Anxiety Survey: one of the questions forced me to choose - what was the worst experience? I had to conclude, that although I was sexually molested as a child by a cousin, the emotional and physical abuse from my parents was worse, continuous, and it's still happening (or is attempting to manifest) today.

Lately I've made progress. I am allowing my emotions to surface, instead of repressing them as I used to: at least I am with my husband. I still try not to allow myself to get too emotional in public or at work, but at least when I get home I occasionally vent about it and feel better afterward. I feel a lot of anger and sadness, but at least Dr. R is an awesome Sensei and David is also awesome support... I just don't feel it's fair to burden David with my issues, as he also has some issues that seem difficult for him to face. It is difficult for David and I to feel we trust others, but TR is one we can trust. I am also continuing my journal project, inside which I have drawings and poetry and other written material, and I am starting to build confidence in regards to possibly showing my art to the public.

It looks like we have to prioritize... First of all we need to get out of this rental to remove ourselves from being vulnerable to my mother. Secondly we may need to cut ourselves off completely from her, as my brother in Edmonton has done. For me, it greatly depends on whether she seeks counselling for her issues, which also stem from abuses done to her (and also my dad was abused). I can't guarantee that I will resume a relationship again someday with her. Because she has broken trust so many times, it may be impossible. Or again, she may simply reject that fact that she has issues and that will be it.

Other links that remind me of my situation:
JACKIE'S CASE; page 11- 12

MAY 10, 2008 Barenaked Ladies: NEXT TIME

I think I know why I enjoy this song so much. I think my mother could have written it about herself! lol

Barenaked Ladies: NEXT TIME

[CHORUS (x2):]
You can always get it right next time, next time
You can always get it right next time

You can count on me to mess it up
You can count on me to let you down again
And in time you'll see that I'm your only friend

[CHORUS (x2)]

Comfort in community obliterated
Given opportunity I hesitated
Even my humility's humiliated

[CHORUS (x2)]

Next time, next time

When you die they make a list
of every love you never kissed
Of each regret and each mistake
Every choice you'll fail to make
Oh well...
Oh well...
Oh well...

It's a shame I have to wait until the ending
Everything I've yet to break is surely bending
Every vow I ever take is just pretending
That this mess I make is worth defending

[CHORUS (repeat)]
---------------------------------------
I've come to a conclusion or epiphany... I used to swallow my feelings or disassociate myself from my feelings whenever it came to my mother. And I think that might've been why I've been so tolerant all this time. Nowadays, that's completely different. I LET myself feel what emotions come to the surface when my mother is the way she is and I understand that what I feel is intense anger.

I did Murray's survey for Anxiety [http://dev.www.uregina.ca/anxiety/
and click on RESEARCH >> ONLINE SURVEYS >> Tonic Immobility & Trauma] and it actually made me think of something that I don't think I was ever fully conscious of. Yes, my cousin molested me many many times, at times he frightened me or disgusted me and made me angry, and what he did was wrong, and no I shouldn't feel guilty, etc etc etc...

The thing that incenses me is that my own mother tried to say it was my fault and that I might have done something to provoke him. And then she went around defending the molester. And she made me confess everything, not in a way that was careful and healing or helpful so she would know what happened, but more like a Monty Python Spanish Inquisition. I don't know what her motives were other than perhaps she didn't even believe me and wanted to hear every sordid detail.

My mom used to be a nurse at the Regina Correctional Centre. There were a couple of church-going gentlemen that organized some religion experiences to inmates - Father Doug (a vet in the war... an honourable tough old bird with sarcastic charm and wit who knew a lot about life) and Reverend Murray Logan (he was a great family man who was in a band, and I think he was a minister of a Mormon church - I used to babysit for him and his doctor wife, Dolores). When we were attending to service for the criminals, mom allowed me to sit on a pedophile's knee. I didn't know what this man was in prison for. I just felt a vague unease about him, and I hated how his hands were all sweaty when he held my hand during prayer circle. I hated how he looked at me, and so I didn't look at him in the face. And why oh why oh why would she then tell me after we had attended several of these outings that he was a pedophile?? Why didn't she just say to me that we had to stay close or that there were certain people we needed to avoid. Why didn't she tell me ahead of time that there were people like that: I would certainly have made sure not to go anywhere NEAR that man. It boggles the mind...

And on top of that... I wasn't allowed to excel because of my 'weaker' brother. I wasn't aloud to be proud of my accomplishments because apparently mom didn't think Chris had the ability to accomplish anything. I was ignored because Chris 'needed help' and later on Robin was physically ill and mother would harangue him too. In the midst of all of this I felt alone and sad and abandoned and that I was unworthy of attention or much else. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say that it was considered bad if I showed off in front of Chris because then he would feel inadequate and incompetent.

Additionally, we three kids were not given enough space, physically or emotionally. My mom has huge boundary issues. Especially when things became emotionally charged and we really needed space. And we tended to thrash out and strike, not our own mother, but ourselves. Which I think was something we learned from both mom & dad. For instance, when mom was not listening and just yelling at us, and we lost control in frustration, I would smash my own head against a wall (that bothered her, so I kept doing it, hoping she would leave me alone); also my brothers would punch holes in walls and doors. I did occasionally bang dents onto my dresser drawers with a brush, kick a wall, or shove things off of tabletops. She would not leave us alone, but would follow us around like a vulture when we attempted to retreat to our rooms. She's thrown change at me in front of a friend (who never came back for a visit since), she's called me a scatterbrain to another adult on the phone while I was in the same room.

And on top of that I was under a spell of some kind. I had to be good, not only because I was the oldest, and that I had to be an 'example' of morality and perfect behaviour, but because of how bad I imagined myself to be. For some reason (I think because of my mother's family situation with her depressed mother and her sisters/my aunts: one being an alcoholic & the other being a 'sleep around'), because I was the eldest and the only daughter, I had to redeem myself, and also because I thought perhaps I couldn't be forgiven for what I did. I was expected to accept whatever my mother wanted, without thinking for myself, without judging her, without protest, without 'teaming' up against her with dad or my brothers. I didn't believe I ever had choices (until I left home), because if I ever asked for something I was made to feel that my feelings or choices didn't seem to matter. If I ever thought for myself or expressed myself, I think mother felt threatened by it instead of letting me be myself. Being myself was somehow not a good thing. If I spoke up against something she did, she didn't listen to the reasoning or feeling behind it, she was threatened by it somehow. Even nowadays, if she does something to upset another person, and they naturally react the way they feel toward her behaviour, all she feels is that person's anger and somehow feels wounded by it or rejected by it. She doesn't seem to remember the reason why the other person is angry at her but just that there is anger toward her.

Also we learned later in this family not to take gifts from this woman. What she offers is not a free, unconditional gift, but a contract. "If I give you this, then you have to do this for me." Or it will be a 'free gift' for a while, but then she will change her mind, and suddenly you are obligated to her for the 'favour' she granted you. We've all fallen into the trap of the bribe, and we have learned not to trust people who give freely of anything... Or at least we are fairly suspicious and it takes a long time for us to open up or feel like we can accept help or gifts from people. Even now she still tries to get us to move into a duplex that she would own half of, or offers us timeshares. We have told her multiple times that we don't want those things. She has also recently been conveniently forgetting the rules we set for her: she is starting to call multiple times during the day, and before a reasonable time in the morning that we set at 9AM. And here I thought perhaps she was capable of change. It's been proven to me time and time again that she doesn't see what's wrong with her (despite several people telling her otherwise either directly & verbally or indirectly by avoiding her) and therefore she doesn't feel she needs to change.

Now that I have brought all of this to the surface instead of burying it, I feel like a huge weight has sloughed off me. I'm impatient to start over and I can't wait to move into our own house. The only problem is, that to remain safe, we have to pretend to get along with my mother in the meantime. And that does bother me, that we have to play to the enemy until we are safely on our own turf.

More Pictures

-MARCH 10/ 08

MARCH 13/08 and I also manipulated the scanner to make the lighter side 'glow' -


- (cut off on the bottom by scanner)

- APRIL 20th after vacation... (cut off on the sides by scanner)