What is Abuse?

This article has been written in the hopes of shedding some light on abuse in various forms. The purpose in writing about this subject is to aid people in how to help those who have been abused and to know how to recognize different types of abuse and stop it all together. We will not cover all that there is to know about this subject, but we do hope to provide some information that will increase the awareness and understanding of abuse overall.

If we are to notice abuse, stop abuse and help those who have been abused we need to know what abuse really is?

Abuse can come in various forms and may be targeted in different areas. There are varying degrees of damage that can occur based on what actions and words are used to hurt another person and based on who the person is and what the circumstances are. Certain types of abuse will cause the same amount of devastation to everyone (i.e. torture, sexual abuse etc.) and then other types of abuse will affect certain people differently.

One person may be affected very deeply by an action or event whereas another person may move on fairly unscathed (mostly those who have a strong foundation and sense of self-worth) depending on the severity of the abuse. Children are more vulnerable to various types of verbal abuse and emotional abuse because of their delicate nature and age.

One can be abused mentally/psychologically, physically, financially, relationally, sexually and spiritually. Various types of abuse will be mentioned in this article, but we will categorize the main ones below.

Below are the six categories (they are in no way conclusive, but they do provide examples and descriptions under each category):

 

The six categories:

1) Types of Financial Abuse:

– someone underpays their employee (especially the underprivileged),

– someone taking another person’s income from them without consent,

– someone forces another person to work and then forcibly taking their income

– someone is not allowed to have control over their own money or income

– someone uses your money, credit cards or sells your possessions without permission

– when your partner says that you are not allowed to have a job so that you will be dependent upon them for money and survival

– when someone hinders your ability to get a job and have your own income

 

2) Types of Emotional, Mental Abuse/ Psychological Abuse:

– breaking one’s sense of self-worth, belittling and using name calling attached to one’s value

– locking someone up for long periods of time

– withholding education and knowledge

– gaslighting

– speaking derogatory words

– constant yelling and harsh speaking (for no reason)

– making someone afraid (using threats)

– abuse causing anxiety or depression

– all forms of ridicule and humiliation

– using flattery and love-bombing to get someone to open their heart and then turning on them and breaking their trust

– using drugs or substances to disorient a person and then manipulating their thoughts, mind or memories

– ridiculing a person’s body, mind, intelligence, abilities, talents and comparing them to others with the purpose of causing emotional harm and mental blocks to their own abilities

– forcing someone to perform acts and then blaming the person for what they did

– making someone believe that they did something that they didn’t do

 

3) Types of Physical Abuse:

– unwanted physical contact or touch

– beating using fists/hands or objects

– the body forced into uncomfortable positions or dislocating body parts as a means of punishment or torture

– burning

– kicking

– scratching

– shoving or pushing

– strangulation

– stretching a body part or dislocation

– using restraints (material or nonmaterial)

– any other type of physical damage done to the body

– using an object or weapon to threaten or harm (not used in self-defence)

– physical imprisonment for any length of time (outside legitimate law enforcement) including: small spaces, cages, holes, rooms or prisons

– forced starvation and deprivation

– water torture/drowning (water boarding)

– suffocation

 

4) Types of Sexual Abuse:

– any and all unwanted sexual touch, contact and/or involvement

– being forced to be involved in, watch or be submitted to anything of a sexual nature (including all rape, molestation, exposure, touching, etc.)

– manipulating someone or a child into sexual experiences using lies and deceit (all exploitation of children is wrong even if they submit to the abuse)

– selling a person or one’s child for sexual experiences with others (human trafficking/sexual slavery)

– the taking of videos or photos of a person’s nudity or sexual involvement without consent (all pornography or pedophilia)

– removing someone’s clothing or touching/raping someone who is under the influence or unconscious

– drugging and any sexual exploitation of a person or child

– the viewing, producing, buying or selling of nude or sexually explicit pictures or videos of children

– cyber bullying by using sexually explicit pictures or videos of others

– taking or threatening to reveal or use sexually explicit or nude pictures or videos of a person to force them into submission

– manipulating someone into providing sexual services for basic needs or desires

– raping a person and then forcing them to have an abortion

– using someone to have a baby through manipulation or force

 

5) Types of Spiritual Abuse:

– destroying one’s view of God,

– telling someone that God hates them or any lies using God as “the source” to control another person,

– using the Bible or any “religious” book to abuse someone

– mistreating or abusing someone in the name of God (or saying that it was God leading them to perform those actions)

– forcing someone to commit a crime in the “name of God”

– forcing someone to do something using the Bible or “God” as the reason behind it

 

6) Types of Verbal Abuse:

– includes the use of name-calling and put-downs that break a person’s sense of self-worth and value

– verbal abuse can seriously interfere with one’s emotional development and over time, can lead to significant detriment to one’s emotional well-being, and physical state. Verbal abuse, although not visibly apparent, is damaging nonetheless

– malicious words about one’s worth, body, intelligence and abilities (or saying that they don’t have any)

– saying things like, “I wish you were dead” or “why don’t you just kill yourself” etc. to edge someone on to hurt themselves

 

Specific Abuse that affects children:

Types of Emotional Abuse affecting children:

– includes all of the emotional abuse that affects adults, but goes further to include anything that would harm the vulnerable emotional state of a child

– constant accusing, belittling, criticizing, ignoring, isolating, insulting, name-calling, rejecting and teasing

– placing unreasonable demands or expectations on a child beyond the child’s capacity to perform

– abandonment and betrayal

– using emotional blackmail to twist a child’s will to fit the adult by playing on their emotional vulnerabilities

– anything that attacks a child’s emotional health and development especially as it pertains to their identity and self-worth

– lying to a child to protect oneself and cause harm to the child

– deceit and manipulation that damages the child’s psyche and ability to trust or open up emotionally

– punishing the child for being honest about their emotions

– forbidding the child to have their own emotions or cry by using aggression and harming the child’s emotional well being

– exposing the child to things that are beyond their capacity to endure like domestic violence

 

Types of Neglect affecting children:

– this type of neglect can be unique to children due to their need for adults to provide particular needs that they cannot meet on their own

– neglect happens when a parent or caregiver willingly fails to provide the child with any of the following essential needs when they can and should: adequate clothing, education, food, housing, medical/dentistry treatment, safety, and sleep

– neglect includes failing to provide adequate supervision and adult protection so that the child’s needs are met, and no harm comes to the child from lack of oversight

– neglect also involves failing to meet the emotional needs of a child based on their age and emotional state. Babies and toddlers need a lot of attention, affection and emotional care. Children also need emotional care if they are traumatized, hurt or experience negative events. All children need physical affection, affirmation, and attention as the need arises

 

Types of Physical Abuse affecting children:

– includes all of the abuses for adults, but goes further to any action taken that puts a child in harm’s way because of a child’s inability to take care of themselves

– tickling or any physical action when the child says stop and the adult or another person continues until the child is crying and obviously distressed and can’t stop what is going on

– using belts, sticks or other objects to punish a child causing any injury, bruises or marks

– keeping a child locked up especially for long periods of time and leaving a child in isolation for hours, days or beyond what a child can bare

– withholding food or basic needs to control a child or to get them to perform wrong acts

– any act (like pinching) that would leave bruises and marks

– showing aggression and extreme violence toward or in front of a child to get them to comply

– using an object, knife, gun or any type of weapon against the child

– using one’s physical force and strength to make the child comply to unreasonable or wrong acts

 

Types of Sexual Abuse affecting children:

Sexual abuse perpetrated against children creates much confusion in a child about themselves, their sexuality, their body, their self-worth and how they view others. It can shatter their heart and hinder every aspect of their lives from then on, not to mention the physical damage that can occur.

– sexual abuse includes all of the sexual abuse mentioned above to adults but, it also involves greater harm because of the sensitivity of a child and is especially damaging in how it can affect the rest of their life, relationships and quality of existence

– sexual abuse to children involves using a child for the sexual gratification of an adult (or older child) or could include using the child for a sense of “control” or power over the child being abused

– sexual abuse of children can include: exposing or touching a child’s private areas, forcing them to undress in front of others, indecent phone calls or communication, forcing a child to watch, or perform in pornographic pictures or videos, grooming a child to believe that sexual involvement is okay for a child as long as “love” is involved

– the viewing, producing, buying or selling of nude or sexually explicit pictures or videos of children

– rape or coerced sexual acts and forcing the child to have an abortion

 

Other forms of abuse include:

– gender abuse (gender based violence and abuse has become an umbrella term for any harm that is perpetrated against a person’s will, and that results from power inequalities that are based on gender role i.e. female genital mutilation, forced marriage, forced castration etc.)

– hazing and humiliation (involves any act including harassment and abuse as a means of initiating a person into a group i.e. a gang, sports team, work, sorority, etc.)

– human rights abuse (involves hindering a person’s basic human rights which are the basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled)

– legal abuse/malpractice (involves abuse and wrongdoing by any person or organization involved in law or legal action i. e. lawyers, law enforcement, the judiciary system etc.)

– market abuse (involves financial investors being unreasonably disadvantaged, directly or indirectly, by others who have information that should be made known to the investors)

– mobbing or ganging up on a person (involves a group bullying an individual in any context i.e. in the work place, neighborhood, family etc.)

– peer abuse (involves a person being targeted by their peers with aggressive behaviour and bullying)

– persecution (mistreatment of an individual or group by another group, the most common forms are religious persecution and ethnic persecution)

– professional abuse (professional abusers: take advantage of their client or patient’s trust, exploit their vulnerability, do not act in their best interests)

– sectarianism (a form of bigotry, discrimination, or hatred arising from attaching relations of inferiority and superiority to differences between subdivisions within a group)

– surveillance abuse (involves the use of surveillance on an individual or group outside of the proper confines of the law and violating the human right to privacy)

– spousal abuse (involves abuse of any kind from one spouse to another and can include rape or sexual abuse, emotional, mental, financial and social abuse)

– racism (involves any kind of abuse towards someone based on their race and can include discrimination, hate crimes, physical, verbal, economic, emotional, financial, sexual abuse etc.)

– institutional abuse (in nursing homes, hospitals or special needs facilities)

– discriminatory abuse (involves any kind of abuse by the abuser because something about the abused is different like age, gender, disability, occupation, social class, appearance, religion or race i. e. Anti-Semitism, Anti-Christian, etc.)

– torture and sadistic abuse (involves the intentional abuse of a person or group by creating intense and extreme pain and suffering)

– vandalism (involves deliberate destruction of public or private property)

 

There is a type of abuse called “Abusive Power and Control” that is very important to note because it encompasses many of the characteristics and aspects of various types of abuse and abusers. The explanation below is taken from Wikipedia and is an excellent description of this type of abuse and how many abusers operate:

 

Abusive power and control

Main article: Abusive power and control
See also: Coercive power

Abusive power and control (or controlling behavior or coercive control) is the way that abusers gain and maintain power and control over a victim for an abusive purpose such as psychological, physical, sexual, or financial abuse. The abuse can be for various reasons such as personal gain, personal gratification, psychological projection, devaluation, envy, or just for the sake of it as the abuser may simply enjoy exercising power and control.

Controlling abusers may use multiple tactics to exert power and control over their victims. The tactics themselves are psychologically and sometimes physically abusive. Control may be helped through economic abuse thus limiting the victim’s actions as they may then lack the necessary resources to resist the abuse.[89] The goal of the abuser is to control and intimidate the victim or to influence them to feel that they do not have an equal voice in the relationship.[90]

Manipulators and abusers control their victims with a range of tactics, including positive reinforcement (such as praise, flattery, ingratiation, love bombing, smiling, gifts, attention), negative reinforcement, intermittent or partial reinforcement, psychological punishment (such as nagging, silent treatment, swearing, threats, intimidation, emotional blackmail, guilt trips, inattention) and traumatic tactics (such as verbal abuse or explosive anger).[91]

The vulnerabilities of the victim are exploited with those who are particularly vulnerable being most often selected as targets.[91][92][93] Traumatic bonding can occur between the abuser and victim as the result of ongoing cycles of abuse in which the intermittent reinforcement of reward and punishment creates powerful emotional bonds that are resistant to change and a climate of fear.[94] An attempt may be made to normalize, legitimize, rationalize, deny, or minimize the abusive behavior, or blame the victim for it.[95][96][97]  Isolation, gaslighting, mind games and divide and rule are other strategies that are often used. The victim may be plied with alcohol or drugs to help disorientate them.

Another critical thing to note is that actions that are abusive to one person, may not be abusive to another, for example, the way you speak to a child and the way you speak to an adult will be different based on the child’s sensitivity and vulnerability. Children lack certain cognitive functions during their growth period and are dependent on adults around them to guide and protect them.

Sometimes a person abuses another person without realizing it. A person who has been traumatized as a child (or who has experienced some type of hurtful event or circumstances) may be effected negatively by an action that wouldn’t negatively affect an adult who hasn’t experienced the same type of experiences.

Abuse can be intentional and unintentional. If a person is unaware of a person’s past, and unintentionally says or does something that wouldn’t normally harm a healthy adult who hasn’t been abused then the abuse is unintentional. If someone knows about a person’s past, their vulnerabilities and still intentionally exploits those vulnerabilities, then the abuse becomes intentional.

If the abuse has been unintentional and the person who has accidentally caused the abuse comes to find out that what they have said or done has caused another person harm, then the right thing to do would be to apologize and do anything that they can to make it right for the person who experienced the abuse.

There are varying degrees of abuse and certain types of abuse that are more serious (like child abuse, sexual abuse, and abuse that can cause death and long-term damage to the mind, body or spirit). Verbal and emotional abuse could also be just as harmful if it leads to a person committing suicide. All abuse causes harm and needs to be stopped and addressed based on what type of abuse has occurred.

Awareness is a very important part of preventing abuse and helping those who have been abused.

 

Again, the purpose of this article is to shed some light on certain types of abuse and aid in stopping abuse in “all” of its forms through education and awareness and in no way covers all that there is to know about this subject.