Your Words Hurt More Than Any Blow

Your words hurt more than any slap you’ve ever given me. Your words hurt more than any blow. Because they penetrate my mind, settle in it and transform me. They exchange my security for fear, my joy for deep sadness. I wasn’t like that, until I met you. It was then that I became someone different, who I am now. Someone who believes that he is worth nothing, that he deserves all the harm done to him.

Abuse is usually linked to physical abuse, however verbal abuse is much more common. Those insults and words that are camouflaged under jokes are not so funny when they cause deep wounds.

We are talking about a type of  violence that becomes normalized and goes unnoticed, of a weapon that every time it strikes tears a little more skin. Unfortunately, the usual thing is that we are not able to see everything that has been destroyed until it reaches the bone and the anesthesia no longer works.

Your words hurt, why?

People who are responsible for this type of verbal abuse are authoritarian and seek to have others under their control. They live off blackmail and manipulation, perhaps to make others feel as they once did. His constant way of proceeding is based on lies and criticism. They are perfect, they will never admit they were wrong. It is always the others who are not right.

These people also have low self-esteem that they try to protect with a disguise. The problem is that they harm others, perhaps so as not to feel so alone in their misery. As they cover up their inferiority complex through manipulative tactics, they feel accompanied by those who are beginning to feel like them. If the relationship is close, the victims will show their sadness and open their hearts to their own executioners.

It is difficult to discover the culprit, because apparently he is a good person, kind and trustworthy. Someone whose actions could never be thought to harbor any kind of evil. When he gets excited or loses control and offenses against the other person begin, he believes that it is his fault.

Detecting this situation as soon as possible to put an end to it, will avoid many problems that will arise if it lasts over time. Above all, special care must be taken if it is present in the first stages of a person’s life –childhood and adolescence-, since we are more vulnerable. Let’s not forget that identity construction is taking place.

What you have told me has changed me

When someone is the victim of verbal abuse, not only will their self-esteem be damaged, but there are many more problems that will derive from this toxic attitude that they are having against it. For example, the fact of feeling worthless, believing that everything is wrong or worthless can generate a series of bad habits that will affect your health. In this way, it is possible that he begins to neglect his diet, to cause himself physical harm to alleviate the emotional one or to isolate himself from others.

In other cases, a criminal and antisocial attitude will be chosen that will lead to many problems. The victim of hurtful words may experience a need to commit criminal acts, the result of those emotions that are overwhelmed and that have hatched inside.

If the verbal violence is directed at young children, the damage will be more profound as their defenses are lower. Remember that love is a very powerful feeling that changes our behavior. Well imagine the power of the other side of the coin and what the consequences of verbal aggression can be.

Therefore, the fact that some parents humiliate and reject their children will have a very negative emotional impact. They may never get over this damage done for free and it will take time to heal.

Verbal aggression is present in families in which frustrated parents unload all the stress they feel on their children, in couples where jealousy and doubts provoke an attempt to subdue the other, in school where young people with problems and deficiencies commit bullying.  The subtlety of this type of violence still makes it invisible to many of us, because opening our eyes to an unpleasant reality has never been easy.

Images courtesy Kyle Thompson, Amy Judd.