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Tuesday, July 8, 2025

'Do not ignore verbal abuse'

by

Bobie-Lee Dixon
2181 days ago
20190720

There’s an old say­ing, "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words could nev­er hurt me." And per­haps many as­cribe to this adage, not re­al­is­ing that words can hurt you and they can be scar­ring, es­pe­cial­ly if they are re­peat­ed­ly neg­a­tive, in­sult­ing, and harsh. Psy­chol­o­gists say ver­bal abuse over a long-term pe­ri­od has a di­rect link to sev­er­al be­hav­iour­al, men­tal, phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al dis­or­ders. And can be damn­ing to a per­son’s de­vel­op­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to Amer­i­can pro­fes­sor Berit Bro­gaard ver­bal abuse comes in var­i­ous cat­e­gories. On the web­site www.psy­chol­o­gy­to­day.com, where she leads a dis­cus­sion on the top­ic, she refers to the book, The Ver­bal­ly Abu­sive Re­la­tion­ship, writ­ten by in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised in­ter­per­son­al com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist and au­thor Pa­tri­cia Evans, in which Evans iden­ti­fies 15 cat­e­gories.

The most com­mon in­clude with­hold­ing; coun­ter­ing, dis­count­ing; ver­bal abuse as jokes; block­ing and di­vert­ing; ac­cus­ing and blam­ing; judg­ing and crit­i­cis­ing; triv­i­al­is­ing; un­der­min­ing; threat­en­ing; name-call­ing; or­der­ing (mak­ing de­mands); de­nial (deny­ing one’s bad be­hav­iour) and abu­sive anger.

 

 

Blame pi­cong cul­ture

 Here in T&T, clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist Michele Carter in an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian said ver­bal abuse was an area of abuse that has been over­looked in com­par­i­son to phys­i­cal abuse. She con­tend­ed that wher­ev­er there is news of phys­i­cal abuse in a re­la­tion­ship, there is an out­cry of con­dem­na­tion by the pub­lic, but when it comes to ver­bal abuse many peo­ple do not un­der­stand the deep-root­ed im­pact it has on an in­di­vid­ual.

Carter be­lieves one of the con­trib­u­tors of nor­mal­is­ing ver­bal abuse in T&T, is our "pi­cong cul­ture" which is ac­cept­ed, sup­port­ed, and cel­e­brat­ed. But she said we have to be care­ful that pi­cong which is usu­al­ly deemed as "fun­ny crit­i­cism" might not be a joke to the per­son re­ceiv­ing it or the per­son telling it.

She said there was a be­lief that ver­bal abuse on­ly ex­ists in cer­tain re­la­tion­ships such as be­tween a par­ent and child or in a ro­man­tic re­la­tion­ship be­tween hus­band and wife or just with­in the con­text of the home. How­ev­er, she ex­plained that it ex­tends be­yond that, as ver­bal abuse can go in­to the work­place, with­in friend­ships and so­cial set­tings in­clu­sive of so­cial me­dia, which she said has be­come a ma­jor tool used for ver­bal abuse.

"Peo­ple have to first un­der­stand what ver­bal abuse is. It in­volves the use of words to in­sult, crit­i­cise and judge some­one," Carter ex­plains.

She said for the per­son won­der­ing why some­one might be ver­bal­ly abu­sive, ver­bal abuse is a form of con­trol.

"It gives the abuser the sense that I am in con­trol of the sit­u­a­tion…I’m in con­trol of this per­son and it even gives them a false sense of pride and pow­er. So they shout, yell or ridicule that per­son and get them to stay qui­et or to con­form to what they want them to do," Carter says.

She said in a so­cial set­ting, there is al­ways that one per­son who seems to be giv­ing a joke but the jokes that they are giv­ing, they are at­tack­ing peo­ple per­son­al­ly. Ac­cord­ing to Carter, apart from the out­right in­sults and hu­mil­i­a­tion, jokes are just an­oth­er way that peo­ple ad­min­is­ter ver­bal abuse.

 She re­it­er­at­ed that the is­sue of ver­bal abuse is far-reach­ing but peo­ple don’t un­der­stand how im­pact­ing it is be­cause there are no phys­i­cal signs.

"Ver­bal abuse in it­self can cut as deep as a wound in­side some­one. It cuts through their minds, hearts, and souls. And it can have a life long ef­fect on the per­son form child­hood way in­to adult­hood, hav­ing se­ri­ous reper­cus­sions, if not ad­dressed," Carter says.

 Asked about the reper­cus­sions of which she speaks, Carter spoke of im­me­di­ate as well as long-term ef­fects.

Im­me­di­ate ef­fects, she ex­plained, take on feel­ings of shame, low self-es­teem, guilt (de­pend­ing on what has been said to them), self-doubt, self-crit­i­cism, and even with­draw­al.

"They may not speak much, be­cause they feel if they open their mouth to say some­thing to coun­ter­act what was said to them, they might be fur­ther in­sult­ed and hu­mil­i­at­ed. So they be­come with­drawn and sad. These are the im­me­di­ate feel­ings the per­son is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing," she says.

 As it re­lates to long-term ef­fects, she said a per­son ex­pe­ri­enc­ing ver­bal abuse over a pro­longed pe­ri­od can de­vel­op eat­ing dis­or­ders to cope with the abuse, ad­dic­tions, anx­i­ety (a long-last­ing reper­cus­sion of ver­bal abuse). They may be over­com­pen­sat­ing in their lifestyle to cope with the abuse or have feel­ings of un­wor­thi­ness. They may al­so strug­gle with so­cial in­ter­ac­tion re­sult­ing in self-iso­la­tion and ex­treme cas­es of con­stant ver­bal abuse; it can even lead to sui­cide.

Carter said we have all been ver­bal­ly abused at some point in our lives but the dif­fer­ence was, it might have oc­curred just once and there­fore we know how to deal with it. But when it’s con­stant, where the per­son ex­pe­ri­enc­ing it every day or week, the ef­fects of it are long-last­ing and wreck­ing.

 "Af­ter a while of telling some­one neg­a­tive things about them­selves, they be­gin to be­lieve it," Carter says.

 She said a per­son who is con­stant­ly ver­bal­ly abused can even get to the point where they’re un­able to dis­tin­guish con­struc­tive crit­i­cism from an in­sult or a "put down".

 Carter said it was al­so im­por­tant to note, that while peo­ple who are abused in any form may have com­mon symp­toms, they would al­so re­act dif­fer­ent­ly as re­ac­tions de­pend on the per­son’s per­son­al­i­ty as well.

"One per­son is a vic­tim of abuse and they may be­come to­tal­ly with­drawn and an­oth­er per­son could be­come more ag­gres­sive. 'Okay, you bul­ly me, so I’ll bul­ly you back.' The re­ac­tions re­al­ly de­pend on the per­son­al­i­ty of the per­son be­ing ver­bal­ly abused."

 Asked how ver­bal abuse could be ad­dressed on a so­cial lev­el, Carter rec­om­mend­ed pub­lic aware­ness cam­paigns on an on­go­ing ba­sis, which teach­es and sen­si­tis­es peo­ple about the var­i­ous types of abuse and the ef­fects they have on vic­tims.

 She said in be­com­ing aware of ver­bal abuse, each per­son (es­pe­cial­ly the abuser) needs to look with­in them­selves, as most times they are un­will­ing to ad­mit that they have at the prob­lem.

"As a so­ci­ety recog­nis­ing that ver­bal abuse is a re­al form of abuse, we must al­so know we can­not change a per­son’s be­hav­iour. I can in­flu­ence the change of your be­hav­iour by what I say and do, but you ul­ti­mate­ly must change your be­hav­iour. It is a de­ci­sion each in­di­vid­ual must make to change," Carter ad­vis­es.

 She said prac­tis­ing sim­ple use of kind words would al­so be a good start. "Words can de­stroy or cel­e­brate a per­son. They can break­down or build up a per­son. Words can heal and there­fore we must un­der­stand the pow­er of words."

 Carter al­so called on par­ents to be mind­ful of the words they use when speak­ing to their chil­dren be­cause quite of­ten they might be ver­bal­ly abus­ing them, which is wound­ing to their chil­dren, some­thing she said she of­ten en­coun­ters in her prac­tice.

 "Those who have ex­pe­ri­enced or are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing ver­bal abuse must ad­dress their is­sues and find a way to speak up and seek help in or­der to heal. They must al­so learn to set bound­aries and im­me­di­ate­ly ad­dress the first in­stance of ex­pe­ri­enc­ing ver­bal abuse. And I sug­gest on the road to heal­ing, sur­vivors should be­come in­volved in ac­tiv­i­ties that re­con­nect them with their self-worth."


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