Emotional Abuse Help, Support and Recovery

Emotional abuse help may be needed to escape some severe emotionally abusive situations. Situations in which one party feels powerless against the other and in which the victim feels helpless and controlled may require intervention to facilitate emotional abuse recovery. Emotional abuse help is available in multiple forms and can aid in ending an emotionally abusive relationship.

When to Get Emotional Abuse Help

People often live with emotional abuse for a very long time without getting help. This could be for many reasons. Often the abuse starts small and builds up in severity over time and so it takes a while before the victim truly sees the abuse. The victim might also stay in an emotionally abusive relationship due to marriage vows, kids, finances or weakened self-esteem.

Regardless, there is a time when many people come to the conclusion they need emotional abuse support and help. This is typically when the emotional abuse becomes severe and daily. It's also time to get emotional abuse help when:

• The emotional abuse starts to negatively impact parts of life like work, school, and friendships
• Friends and relatives start to express concerns about the emotionally abusive relationship
• Abusive patterns are long-term and are ingrained

Emotional abuse help is almost always needed in long-term emotionally abusive situations as these tend to wear down the self-worth of the victim; making them believe they cannot leave the relationship or that they deserve nothing better. Emotional abuse help can support a person through these feelings to escape the abusive relationship.

What is Emotional Abuse Help?

There are two main kinds of emotional abuse help:

1. help to get out of an emotionally abusive relationship and
2. help to facilitate emotional abuse recovery

Both kinds can be useful.

For some, looking to get out of an emotionally abusive relationship involves more than just a break-up talk; it involves outside help to protect against the threats and other things the abuser might do to the person leaving the relationship. If you need emotional abuse help to leave a relationship, people you can turn to include:

• Doctors
• Psychiatrists
• Counselors / psychotherapists
• Faith leaders
• Help-lines (Check helplines on HealthyPlace)
• Womanslaw.org
• Peer support mentoring for emotional abuse recovery

Once a victim has left their abuser, they are on the path to emotional abuse recovery.

How to Recover from Emotional Abuse

It's important to remember that emotional abuse is not the victim's fault and that no one deserves to be abused. Armed with these two pieces of information, emotional abuse recovery is possible.

Any of the organizations listed under the emotional abuse help section can point the way to emotional abuse recovery resources. Typically some form of therapy is needed to fully recover from severe emotional abuse. These abusive patterns often become deep-seated and without help, abuse victims may repeat the pattern in other abusive relationships.

General counseling, psychotherapy (talk therapy) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can all have a place in emotional abuse recovery.¹

Read comprehensive information on Emotional Abuse Treatment and Therapy.

article references