Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse by Shannon Thomas

1 review

jmanchester0's review

challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

4.25

This book has a wealth of information if you’ve ever been psychologically abused by a narcissist, a psychopath, or a sociopath. 

Looking back, I am appalled at how many people I’ve had in my life that fit the narcissist profile. All people that I’ve felt that drop in the pit of my stomach whenever I’ve had to face them - because I knew that there was a good chance I’d come out of every meeting feeling worse about myself. All people holding important relationships or acting as authority figures in my life. 

The author talks about how these relationships can be family, significant others, friends, bosses, and even church leadership. 

It’s fascinating how she talks about how abusers can twist anything they’ve done into being your fault. 

She asks are these abusers “dumb or are they unaware?” 

She answers. “They know.” 

I’m not sure that they are always self-aware, but the author seems to think so. She’s healed from similar abuse, so she has insight, too. But I still question whether they are always so self-aware. 

She spends a lot of time with this (which makes me wonder if it’s a particular hang-up), “Personality disorders are created during childhood and adolescence through lack of healthy attachments to their primary caregivers.” And, “…a lack of true attachment can occur through emotional neglect during childhood and then teen years.” But she goes on to say, “…these individuals do not want to change. The way the live their lives worlds for them, and why wouldn’t it?” 

It’s a compelling argument. 

I’ve always thought insecurity plays into it, but the author says later, “Rather than being insecure, psychological abusers are easily offended, consumed with themselves, and want things their way.” 

One thing really blew my mind. I’m always talking about how the strongest type of conditioning is when you provide reward randomly when someone does an action. This is why gambling is so powerful - you keep thinking, “will I get the reward on this play?!?” I’m always talking about my cats this way - if you give continuous reinforcement, or a reward EVERY time they do something, it won’t be as strong because they KNOW they’re going to get the reward if they do it. But if you give a partial reinforcement on a variable-ratio schedule (doing it randomly when they do they activity), they know if they do the activity, they MIGHT get it, causing them to do it more often. 

In the section “Intermittent Reinforcement”, the author describes that this is the exact same way abusers get people to do what they want. When you do something you know they would want you to do, you don’t always get a reward - but you do sometimes - making you want to do things for them much more often. 

I recognize that in every narcissistic relationship I’ve been in. I used to say about one of my bosses that they were just like my dad - you never knew if they would react favorably or angrily to anything you might do. Which is exactly what the author is talking about. Or in the author’s words: 

“The concepts of never knowing what to expect, and feeling relief when the abuser is pleased…” 

It’s amazing how reading a book like this can validate your experiences and help you understand, first, you’re not alone in this, and second, how fucked up some of your relationships really were. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse