Recognizing Abuse: Signs to Watch For

Recognizing abuse is often a challenge because it can be easy to misunderstand. The stereotype of abuse is that it always involves black eyes, bruises, or other kinds of visible injuries. But the reality of abuse, neglect, and maltreatment is that they also involve an invisible web of confusion, manipulation, entitlement, and control.

The dynamics of abuse mean that the abuse target often remains confused. Outsiders can miss the subtle signs. Or they might be charmed by the abuser into thinking, “That person couldn’t possibly be abusive.”

Yet it’s crucial to identify abuse. And that means we have to learn the signs, be able to distinguish between the different kinds of abuse, and understand the manipulative tactics that abusers often, perhaps even subconsciously, use.

This need for understanding is especially vital for any adult who works with children, as well as anyone in a “helper” position within a church, school, or other organization. Because abuse is so common, it’s likely at some point in your life you will be in a position to identify it, whether in one of the above situations or with a friend or family member.

Take some time to familiarize yourself with how to recognize abuse and contact a counselor if you need more help understanding and addressing a given situation.

Why is Abuse Easy to Miss?

There are specific dynamics within abuse that make it easy to overlook. Part of the problem is a societal or cultural one; some parts of society or culture make it easier for abusers to be trusted and accepted. But the actual process of how an abuser targets a victim, grooms them, abuses them, discards them, and grooms them again, makes the abuse hard for outsiders to recognize, and sometimes even harder for the target to see.

Gaslighting

Gaslighting is a term that has become popular over the past several years. It was first introduced in the 1944 Film Gaslight when a husband convinced his wife she was going crazy by constantly turning the lights in the house off and on but convincing her she was the only one seeing it.

Abusers often use similar, perhaps subtler tactics to convince their target they are crazy. A common one is where the abuser pretends to forget what has happened when a victim brings up a past incident. Or they might use “future faking,” making promises they never intend to fulfill.

Maybe they speak about the dynamics of the relationship in such a way as to convince the target that what they’re experiencing is normal. An abusive husband might say, “Couples fight in every marriage. What did you expect?”

According to Britannica, “[Gaslighting’s] effect is to gradually undermine the victim’s confidence in his own ability to distinguish truth from falsehood, right from wrong, or reality from appearance, thereby rendering him pathologically dependent on the gaslighter in his thinking or feelings.”

The cycle of abuse

Intimate partner violence, otherwise known as domestic abuse, follows a predictable cycle:

As you can see, the abuse cycle involves the honeymoon phase, tension building, abusive incident, and then reparations in another honeymoon period. If you notice, two out of the three stages do not involve actual abuse. This dynamic is one reason many women often stay with their abusive partners.

Besides the fact that they can intuit leaving would be dangerous (and leaving is, by far, the most dangerous time), abuse victims also spend a portion of the abuse cycle in the honeymoon phase. Thus, it can be hard to recognize whether the abuser has truly changed (a claim they often make), or whether they are simply building back towards more eventual abuse.

Abuse builds gradually

Abusers, especially in intimate relationships, rarely start with extreme abuse. They start with small actions that gradually normalize the abusive interactions until the victim is in over their heads. Abused children may also become accustomed to the abuse because they have no other standard of normalcy. This sad reality sometimes makes it difficult for them to alert others to the situation.

Abuse is normalized

Whether it’s normalized on an individual or cultural level can make a difference, but no matter what, we’re often conditioned to accept abuse, possibly without even knowing it.

When you’re in a setting where abusive behavior is normalized, eventually, people with abusive tendencies will take advantage of that. For example, Michael Pearl’s book To Train up a Child conditioned fundamentalist Christian parents to accept child abuse, and eventually, children died as a result.

Blame is used

Abusers almost always blame their victims for causing the abuse. If you’ve never been abused, it might be unclear how well this tactic works. Isn’t it obvious that hitting or punching someone is wrong, no matter what the provocation? On the contrary, blame is one of the mind control techniques abusers use.

The abuse victim may think, “If I can just avoid angering them in the future, I’ll be okay.” This mentality leads to a life of walking on eggshells and always waiting for the other shoe to drop, living in denial about the abuse.

If you’ve experienced this, please know it is not your fault. This dynamic is one reason it’s so important to get an outside perspective on your situation, from someone who is experienced in understanding and detecting abuse dynamics.

Recognizing Child Abuse and Maltreatment

If you’re trying to learn about signs of child abuse, neglect, or maltreatment, here are some important signs to know. Warning: these descriptions can be difficult or triggering for some to read.)

Signs of physical abuse:

• Frequent injuries.
• Aggressive behavior.
• Withdrawn behavior.
• Fear of going home or fear of parents.

Signs of sexual abuse:

• Sexually transmitted infections.
• Genital injuries.
• Difficulty walking or sitting.
• Inappropriate/sexualized conversation or behavior.

Signs of maltreatment:

• Hunger.
• Fatigue.
• Stealing/begging for food.
• Lack of medical attention.
• Lack of personal care.
• Frequent school absences or tardiness.
• Lack of supervision.

Understanding Psychological Abuse

While physical and sexual abuse are dangerous and damaging, verbal, mental, and emotional abuse can sometimes be downplayed by comparison. But they are also damaging.

Often, victims of physical abuse will say that the psychological abuse they experienced was just as, or even more damaging than the physical abuse. Psychological abuse creates an atmosphere of chaos, confusion, and unpredictability. Like intimate partner violence, it is often interspersed with periods of loving and kind treatment, which only serves to enhance the confusion.

Verbal abuse is often more overt than mental or emotional abuse. It can involve name-calling, shaming, cursing, condescension, circular arguments, degradation, threats, insults, etc.

Mental abuse is a form of behavior that attacks how people think. Signs of mental abuse range from subtle brainwashing to gaslighting, saying things like, “You’re not thinking straight,” or other ways to attack and undermine the target’s thoughts and beliefs, such as guilt-tripping, minimizing, denying, blaming, and invalidating.

Emotional abuse, according to Verywell Mind, is: “A pattern of abusive words and bullying behaviors that wear down a person’s self-esteem and undermine their mental health.”

Emotional abuse of children involves “a pattern of behavior that impairs a child’s emotional development or sense of self-worth” (Verywell Mind). Emotionally abusive parents hinder their child’s healthy development and wound them in ways that leave lasting scars.

Examples of emotional abuse include the silent treatment, accusations, constant arguing, demands, isolating, refusing to engage in the relationship, withholding affection, jealousy, possessiveness, control, etc.

The goal of emotional abuse, and psychological abuse in general, is: “To discredit the victim by discrediting, isolating, and silencing.” (Verywell Mind)

This type of abuse often influences the enablers around the abuser, which explains “victim-blaming.” Even the most heinous forms of abuse will often be accompanied by the claim that the victim “asked for it.” It’s part of the pathology underlying the abusive mentality.

For individuals, groups, and organizations to create safe, abuse-free environments, this dynamic must be understood, identified, and refuted.

Why Recognizing Abuse Matters

All abuse is damaging. When you are educated on how to identify and respond to it, you can help the helpless. Be careful about how you choose to help. In some cases, confronting an abuser can place the victim in even more danger.

If you are aware of a child being abused, call 911. If you have any suspicions and even if you have doubts, you can go to childhelp.org to text, call, or chat about how to help.

Recognizing any problem is the first step towards changing it. Remember that you cannot fix an abuser. Sometimes church leaders have made the grave mistake of thinking they can handle criminal matters that should be taken to the authorities, such as in cases of child abuse. All known instances of criminal abuse should never be handled “in house.” The proper authorities must be contacted.

Non-physical abuse in adult relationships may not be dangerous, but it is still damaging. Seek qualified help to know how to handle the situation. If you are an adult and you think you may be experiencing psychological abuse in your relationship, it’s important to seek help.

A Christian counselor can help you sort through your experience and understand whether you’re in an abusive situation and what the implications are for your choices moving forward. Contact our office today at (949) 386-7182.