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Silenced Traumas: Emotional Abuse During the Quarantine

Silenced Traumas: Emotional Abuse During the Quarantine

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Home can be a source of recurrent trauma for some. The fact that women are being forced to quarantine with abusive husbands and the spike in the rate of domestic violence has been a subject of much discussion.

Another group that’s being spoken about is queer individuals who are being forced to quarantine with their families of origin, which can be an extremely invalidating and non-affirming environment for several members of the community.

As a result, there have been some efforts to provide support and resources for these groups.

There’s a scarcity of discourse, however, on individuals who have to quarantine with parents who are psychologically or emotionally abusive.

This isn’t surprising, because emotional abuse is under-researched, unrecognised and unreported despite being the most prevalent form of child and adolescent abuse.

The ‘alcoholic, physically abusive father’ is a common enough media trope, but there’s scarce media representation of this particular kind of violation. And if you haven’t heard of it before or seen it on the television, does it even exist?

The American Psychological Association defines emotional abuse as, “A pattern of behaviour in which one person deliberately and repeatedly subjects another to nonphysical acts that are detrimental to behavioural and affective functioning and overall mental well-being”.

Actions that count as emotional or psychological abuse include verbal abuse, intimidation, humiliation, degradation, harassment, rejection, isolation or excessive control.

As a society, we prioritise physical health over mental well-being, despite the fact that they are inextricably linked.

Similarly, the violation of our physical boundaries (sexual abuse, physical abuse) is considered more problematic than the violation of our emotional ones. Emotional abuse is not ‘tangible’. It leaves no scars. There are no strict social taboos against parents who shame, ridicule, scream at their children or make them feel worthless and unloved. The definition, too, of emotional abuse as ‘detrimental to one’s well-being’ seems sanitised and clinical; it evokes no horror or discomfort in the minds of people who have never experienced it.

These aspects tie together to make emotional abuse all the more complex, invisible and insidious.

It may seem absurd and almost flippant, to compare sexual abuse or physical violence to emotional abuse, which, after all, is ‘just words’.

Research, however, shows otherwise; studies done on early childhood trauma indicate that the long term consequences for individuals who have experienced emotional abuse are as bad, if not worse than those experienced by individuals who have experienced physical and/or sexual abuse.

Persons who have experienced emotional abuse show higher symptoms of anxiety, stress and depression, indicating that emotional abuse is likely to be the most damaging form of maltreatment.

Abuse from a primary caregiver can also result in the survivor experiencing Complex Trauma, which is a kind of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

This leaves survivors vulnerable to several mental health concerns, substance use disorders and also makes it difficult for them to form healthy relationships with others.

What makes complex trauma so much more damaging than other forms of trauma is the fact that no one ever validates the experience as traumatic or difficult. A death in someone’s family or an earthquake are universally considered traumatic and would likely elicit a barrage of support from people. Neurobiologically, emotional abuse elicits the same trauma response within the brain as these events, but the social response to psychological abuse is likely to be drastically different.

Given the invisible nature of emotional abuse and lack of awareness about it, a child or adolescent experiencing abuse may not recognise this as a violation of their boundaries or may believe they deserve it.

Socio-culturally, the Indian heteropatriarchal family structure often silences voices of younger members of the family, which make seeking help from the abuse all the more difficult.

When help is sought, discourses around ‘family being the most important’ or ‘parents always wanting the best for you’ or ‘parents having done so much for you’ can be weaponised and used to minimise and trivialise trauma, even by people who are peddling these discourses with the best of intentions.

Shame, lack of support and validation make the experience of abuse all the more isolating and painful.

Healthcare systems need to account for this form of abuse and mental health professionals need to collectivise and develop resources and support systems for people undergoing this, especially during quarantine where people have no respite from the trauma.

Society, in general too, needs to be more informed and empathetic about the subject. At the same time, however, I don’t wish to paint survivors of emotional abuse, or those undergoing it as passive recipients of it.

At all times, persons undergoing this trauma are resisting, even if they are children. Resistance is small, simple acts that indicate that they are not accepting of the manner in which they are being treated or fighting the injustice of it. Spending more time in the shower to avoid being attacked is an act of resistance. So is crying. And so, in fact, is writing.

(Farah Maneckshaw is studying applied psychology (clinical) at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.)

(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)

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