This is another type of abuse and often happens as the first stage of domestic violence. It can be just little unkind comments in the beginning until it ends up happening all day long. Until the person who experiences this loses themself and they start to believe the bad horrible things that are said to them. Often the abuser will take delight in devaluing you in front of other people so you feel ashamed of yourself. The victims self esteem gets lower and lower until they believe that they have no value and no reason to live. That what the abuser says about them is true and they owe this person for their life. Negative words said about you often will result in you saying them to yourself too. The victim will often think of this person as saying these negative words to them. I was so affected by the verbal abuse and my earlier abuse that when the police came to help me all I would think of was don’t spend time on me I am not worth it I have no value. That is how low my self esteem was I could not even accept help that was offered to me I felt so bad and the cause of the problem. I was embarrassed and ashamed that police had to come to help me to rescue me and I was not even able emotionally to let anyone help me no one because I had been told as a child that every thing was my fault and that it is wrong to go for help or ask for it. My mom had stayed in a abusive relationship so it was normal to me. I thought that every family had violence happening to it that there was no escape that it happens for everyone in all relationships until I got educated and learnt that this is not true.

 

Criticizing you, insulting comments, cruel putdowns, insensitive wording the intention behind all of this is to cause you harm and feel bad about yourself and have low self esteem. Then the abuser can control what you do and say and how you feel about yourself. It is very negative way of communicating and not good for the abuser or the victim of this abuse. If this is happening to you it is important that you leave this situation as it will get worse and worse for you. Get out while you can and remove yourself from this situation it is a terrible way to live and will only end in misery and more abuse. Domestic violence never gets better it only gets worse in every case so you need to leave as soon as you can.

Here are some things that you can do to improve what you think about yourself. Get positive thought cards from Louise Hay website and have these for you to read and think about during your day you can put them in your home car and office. Listen to positive songs and pick some great songs that you love and have these in your playlist to listen to daily to lift you up and feel good about yourself. Write some positive affirmations down in a book about yourself and do this daily till you feel better about yourself and really believe them. You can look on line for ideas on this. Do the self esteem workbook course at home from Glenn R Schiraldi Phd. This workbook has great exercises for you to do to work on raising your self esteem. Another idea is to see a counselor and work on this area of your life with them. There are also podcasts of positive affirmations that you can buy on line and listen to that will help you and you listen to daily.  Another idea is to work on your negative beliefs to remove them there is information on this on my other website www.stopalldomesticviolence.com blog (positive affirmations and abuse )that you can use the formula in this to help you. Another thing that you can do is to have a board with lots of cut of pictures of what you want to happen and positive wording for you to look at and think about all the time. The more you do all these things the better and happier your life will be remember to put positive sayings you love in there too.

You see what you believe to be true and say to yourself is what will happen to you so you need to have positive things being said about you from you and also from others. Be gentle with yourself as it may take several of this actions for you to notice a difference.  If you have received a life time of  verbal abuse from others it will take a bit of work on you to change this. So be gentle, kind and patient with yourself it will not all stop in one go. I am still working on this issue as I have had a life time of verbal abuse.  With lots of work it will be worth it to feel good about you and what you are and what you can offer to this world. If you notice yourself saying negative words to yourself just do something that is positive like one of the above actions don’t attack yourself for this as it is a practice that takes time to do all the time but the more you do it the better it will get for you.

 

Moral: Say positive words to yourself so that you can have a healthy and happy life with lots of good things happening!