ABUSE. A topic so painful to lean into that most people end up avoiding it altogether.
Abuse comes in several different forms and all of them are damaging and have the potential to produce short and/or long-term effects. It has such shock value that when it is brought up in conversation, most people instantly enter denial. No one wants to believe another human being is capable of inflicting such pain and horror on another person so they begin to rationalize it, which is damaging as well. Rationalizing can happen for both victims and abusers, which is how the cycle continues.
There are many forms of abuse and while we encourage you to learn about them all, here are 4 important terms in this arena that we need to identify and understand together before we can continue:
Verbal / Emotional Abuse: intentional or unintentional behavior, body language, or words that are used to insult,…