And so the cycle continues. Emotional abuse is both the most pervasive and the least understood form of child maltreatment. Its victims are often dismissed simply because their wounds are not visible. We understand and accept that victims of physical or sexual abuse need both time and specialized treatment to heal. That assumption is dangerously wrong.
Emotional abuse scars the heart and damages the soul.
Like cancer, it does its most deadly work internally. And, like cancer, it can metastasize if untreated. When it comes to damage, there is no real difference between physical, sexual and emotional abuse. All that distinguishes one from the other is the abuser's choice of weapons. I remember a woman, a grandmother whose abusers had long since died, telling me that time had not conquered her pain.