verbal abuse, emotional torture

How do you define it?
How can you quantify it into a single incident?
How can you explain the impact of it when by its nature it is covert, insidious, and subtle?
It is more than one incident. It is the accumulation of events, comments, looks, threats, glares, insults, curses, thoughts, feelings, attitudes…
It is being told you are nothing so often you start to believe it.
It is having your heart and soul torn apart piece by piece.
It is feeling so lost and so empty that you wonder how you continue to exist.
It is waking up in the middle of the night with your blood running cold, your heart in your throat, hyperventilating as you hear his words repeat in your head. “Bitch…you are a worthless heap of shit…inept…a disappointment…”
It is feeling the knot in the pit of your stomach as you see again the gleam in his eye and the smile on his face as he takes pleasure in verbally reducing you to nothing.
It is like being a puppet on a string. You are not in control, he can pull the strings and make you jump and dance, or he can drop them and make you fall. You are not even human.
It is feeling paralyzing anxiety over every decision you have to make, fearing his reaction, knowing that whichever way you turn you will be wrong. You can never do anything right. You can never be good enough.
It is having your intentions, thoughts, and actions twisted and turned against you.
It is being accused without the ability to defend yourself.
It is being deliberately misunderstood and not allowed to explain.
It is having lies told about you, and believed.
It is wondering why you keep trying so hard to do the right thing, and be a decent person when no one seems to care anyway.
It is being hated with such intensity that you can physically feel it.
It is wondering what you ever did to deserve such hatred.
It is feeling burned to the core by it.
It is feeling isolated. Some people don’t want to know you so they believe the lies and hate you for them. Other people don’t want to be involved. Others are afraid of the anger they have seen and choose to stay away. Still others are forced away.
It is knowing that you are trapped. That you will never be free unless he lets you go. And he never will.
It is wondering how you will spend the rest of your life like this.
It is knowing that you will never thrive; you can only survive one day at a time.
It is watching your children suffer and not being able to save them.
It is knowing that there is no help. There is more concern given for the outer husk of a person than for the person itself. You can be utterly destroyed, have your heart broken, your esteem shattered, and your soul pummeled, as long as there are no visible wounds.
It is trying to quiet the voice that says, “You are something, you are special” because it is easier to believe you are nothing.
It is not defending yourself because you do not feel you are worth it.
It is hiding and trying not to be noticed.
It is trying to stay out of the line of fire, but never succeeding.
It is shutting off the pain so it does not consume you.
It is never crying, but never laughing either.
It is not really living, it is existing.
It is the loss of hope.
It is dehumanizing.
It is degrading.
It is the destruction of your soul.

Words to Live by

by St. Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant me that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.