Broken souls: causes and effects of psychological abuse.

The life of an abused person, during and after the ordeal.

Although the image of the battered woman inevitably appears in my vision of abuse, since socially there is more talk of abuse towards women (its incidence is undeniably higher) than towards men, I am a woman and, moreover, due to both my life and professional trajectory, I tend to heel, to get emotional and to resonate with it.

And despite the fact that there are many, too many, women who are subjected in the hands of their partners, I want to talk about the situation of psychological abuse per se, since I understand it as a type of relationship that can affect both men and women. I am referring to a couple relationship with a marked inequality of power and subjugation in the treatment.

Experiencing psychological abuse

What makes a person decide (because it is still a decision) to place him/herself in a type of relationship like this, in which the other is on a higher plane, possesses the supreme truth, pulls the strings of "my" personal reality? What experiences "I" had to go through to accept a humiliating treatment as something normal, to accept that "he" intimidates me, that "he" objectifies me, that "he" degrades me, that "he" overloads me with responsibilities, that "he" deprives me in my social and family relationships, that he subjectively distorts reality, that only "his" vision of the facts is valid, creating in "me" constant confusion and doubt, pointing me out as the source of the conflicts? to accept even the possibility of death as a natural and sometimes even attractive alternative or resolution to the reality I "am" living?

Because the truth is that there is a moment in the vital trajectory of this type of relationship in which the subjected party feels, intuits and knows that if the other party "goes crazy" he can end his life and, depending on the moment in which he is, he can interpret it and live it with total naturalness, even with certain pleasure, due to the poetic peace that this image evokes in him? until he becomes aware that this is not what he wants to live with...that he does not maintain a relationship of respect and love, that there are limits that should not be crossed and that he does not have to die for it.

The paradox is that when she gathers the strength to withdraw and denounce, in many cases her life is actually in danger.

Victim and perpetrator

As I mentioned earlier, in my career I have found that those who seek submissive relationships have generally lived through situations of abuse and mistreatment in childhood, mostly carried out by members of their own family or by people very close to them.

But the same is true for those who end up becoming abusers. We find that both people have their roots in a childhood marked by abuse in all its manifestations and intensities. in any of its manifestations and intensities, but that the basic personality of each one makes the outcome and development practically opposite. They are the two sides of the same coin, of the same problem, of the same reality, resolved in opposite ways.

Guilt goes in the opposite direction

In the case of the submissive person, she feels in the depths of her being an extreme need to please and please the other person.To feel accepted, loved, taken into account, to feel worthy, to feel a person, to feel complete. To do so, he even disappears as an individual, his tastes become those of the other, his inclinations, preferences and reasoning are those of the other, as are his feelings and his interpretation of reality, it is dependence at its maximum degree; however, if he cannot assume them, then the submissive is silent, silent, reserved, withdrawn... precisely in order not to generate conflict, not to feel rejected, judged, criticized, vilified, attacked, or degraded.

He cannot defend himself, he cannot justify his disagreement, he has neither the tools nor the discourse to do so.. His Heart is shattered, his whole being is submerged in suffering, in a silent cry, in a heartbreaking and mute bellowing... because he cannot even express it openly, he eats it, swallows it, longing to disappear, many times longing to die. During all the time, the long and eternal lapse in which the "supreme being" decides not to speak to him, not to touch him, not to look at him, not to hear him... keeping himself in his distant and cold sphere like an ice floe, with his airs of "wounded wolf", of "suffering victim", of "abandoned child". ... until, after a few days, and after the constant, meticulous, maternal and complacent care of the submissive, he decides that the damage has been compensated, returning to approach in a magnanimous gesture of forgiveness, indulgence and apparent compassion.

This scene is maintained until after a certain time another event occurs that forces him to repeat this gesture, due to his low tolerance to frustration, his mental rigidity, his need for control, his narcissism, his extreme insecurity... manifested from a position of authentic victim as an inability of the other to understand him, for putting him in the position of having to react in this way, for feeling "forced" to be so blunt, so distant, so empty, so mean... breaking his partner again and again, eroding his self-esteem, disintegrating his soul, destroying his person, annihilating any hint of joy, of authenticity, of independence, of self-confidence, of humanity.

A circle that repeats itself repeatedly until a spark arises, ignites and grows inside the subject, allowing him to take a step aside to begin to walk another path, to live another reality, to choose another present and to glimpse another future.

Bibliographical references:

• Vicente, J.C., "Manipuladores cotidianos: manual de supervivencia". Desclée de Brouwer, 2006.

• Leonore E. A. Walker, "El síndrome de la mujer maltratada", Declée de Brouwer, 2012.