Category: Emotional Incest

Q & A – what is the best treatment for emotional abuse?

The best treatment for emotional abuse will depend on the individual and their specific situation. However, some common treatments and strategies that may be effective for emotional abuse include:

  1. Therapy: A mental health professional, such as a psychologist, counselor, or therapist, can work with the person who has experienced emotional abuse to identify the effects of the abuse and develop strategies for coping with those effects. Therapy can also help the person develop healthier relationships in the future.
  2. Support groups: Joining a support group for survivors of emotional abuse can be helpful for those who feel isolated or misunderstood. Support groups can provide validation, encouragement, and a sense of community.
  3. Safety planning: If the emotional abuse is ongoing or has the potential to escalate to physical violence, it may be important to develop a safety plan. This may involve seeking help from a domestic violence shelter or hotline, informing trusted friends or family members, or taking other steps to protect oneself.
  4. Education: Learning about the dynamics of emotional abuse can be helpful in understanding and recognizing it. Educational resources may include books, articles, videos, or online courses.
  5. Medication: In some cases, medication may be prescribed to address symptoms of depression, anxiety, or other mental health concerns that may result from emotional abuse.

It’s important to note that emotional abuse can have long-lasting effects, and it may take time and a combination of different treatments and strategies to heal. It’s always best to consult with a qualified mental health professional to determine the most appropriate treatment approach for your specific situation.

Q & A – what is emotional incest?

Emotional incest, also known as covert or psychic incest, is a form of boundary violation in which a parent or caregiver uses their child to meet their emotional needs in a way that is inappropriate or harmful. Emotional incest does not involve physical sexual contact, but rather involves a kind of emotional intimacy that is usually reserved for adult romantic relationships.

Examples of emotional incest may include:

  • Confiding in the child about adult problems or relationships
  • Relying on the child for emotional support or comfort
  • Treating the child as a surrogate spouse or partner
  • Using the child as a substitute for a lost or absent spouse or partner
  • Engaging in inappropriate physical contact, such as hugging or cuddling in a way that feels uncomfortable or sexualized to the child
  • Encouraging the child to take on adult responsibilities or roles within the family

Emotional incest can have serious negative effects on the child’s emotional and psychological development, including increased risk of anxiety, depression, and attachment issues. Children who experience emotional incest may also struggle with boundary-setting and may have difficulty forming healthy relationships later in life.

If you suspect that you or someone you know has experienced emotional incest, it is important to seek help from a qualified mental health professional who is experienced in treating trauma and attachment issues.

©Linda Turner http://parentalalienationpas.com 2023

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Q & A perspecticide

What is perspecticide?

Perspecticide is a neologism used to describe the act of deliberately and systematically destroying or distorting another person’s perspective. It is often used in the context of political or ideological debates, where one party attempts to discredit the other’s point of view by attacking their beliefs or values.

Why do people use perspecticide?

Perspecticide is a term used to describe the intentional destruction of another person’s perspective or point of view. It is often used to describe the actions of people who are trying to control or manipulate another person’s thoughts and feelings. It is a form of psychological abuse and can be used to manipulate, control, and intimidate another person.

Examples of perspecticide in families?

1. Alienation: When one family member is isolated or excluded from the family unit, either through physical or emotional means.

2. Gaslighting: When one family member attempts to manipulate another family member into questioning their own reality or sanity.

3. Emotional Abuse: When one family member uses verbal or emotional abuse to control or manipulate another family member.

4. Financial Abuse: When one family member uses financial control or manipulation to gain power over another family member

Emotional Pain

The current study found that 95% of participants experienced some form of emotional pain that they attributed to being exposed to parental alienating behaviours. Eight sub-categories were identified: shame and guilt; self-esteem; loneliness and isolation; helplessness; anger; abandonment; trust issues; grief and loss. Grief and loss were the most frequently described experience (60%). These findings are consistent with previous literature demonstrating an association between emotional pain and exposure to parental alienating behaviours in childhood [5,11,16,17,20]. Participants in the current study described feeling invalidated, invisible, and unrecognised by greater society. Recent research conducted by Harman, Matthewson, and Baker [10] focused on the losses experienced by alienated children. Their research explained how alienated children exposed to parental alienating behaviours suffered a gradual “cascade of losses” including: loss of individual self; loss of childhood and innocence; loss of a “good enough” parent; loss of extended family; loss of community. These losses lead to disenfranchised grief, especially in relation to time lost with the targeted parent [10]. Participants in the current study had difficulty describing the origins of their grief. Harman and colleagues’ [10] explanation of ambiguous loss leading to disenfranchised grief may help to clarify the grief and loss experience of adults exposed to parental alienating behaviours in childhood. Some participants were informed about disenfranchised grief and loss during their interview for this study. The researchers observed that these participants reacted to this information with a profound sense of relief, stating that the information had validated their experience.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9026878/

Perspecticide and percepticide

Perspecticide and percepticide, therefore, are two different words meaning two different, although similar, psychological phenomena.

Learn more: Start your recovery from emotional and psychological abuse

  • Perspecticide means losing your agency, meaning your ability to think for yourself and make choices in your life, because of the abuse you have suffered.
  • Percepticide means refusing to believe what you know, deep down, to be true.

They are both psychological defenses against the effects of trauma. They are both caused by terror, either in an intimate relationship or in a society. And they both show the power of the human mind to ignore or distort reality in order to survive.

The signs you’re a victim of perspecticide

For the victim, their life is overwhelmed with wondering how to appease their controlling partner. Fontes said they may even experience physical signs of stress over time such as changes to eating and sleeping, head or back aches, and digestive problems, because they are too worried about their partner’s wrath Continue reading “The signs you’re a victim of perspecticide”

HOW INVALIDATION AND PERSPECTICIDE EFFECTS US

For children, as I have mentioned before, it means their parent taking over the narrative in terms of what the child is experiencing, feeling, thinking, and believing. The child is rendered without a voice.
This means that the child cannot have his needs met by the parent. Depending on how much of it is going on, it can mean child neglect on every level: physical, emotional, psychological, learning, safety, etc.
Some instances:
* “Mom, I’m hungry.” Invalidating answer: “No you’re not. You just had food an hour ago.”
Continued: “That was just a cracker.” Invalidating answer: “I don’t want to hear another word of this.”
* “Mom, I’m being beaten up in school by a gang of boys.” Invalidating answer: “What did you do to deserve it?” or “What did you say to them that made them do that to you.”
* “Mom, grandpa sneaks into my bedroom every night to play doctor with me. I don’t want to play doctor!” – sexual abuse. Invalidating answer: “How dare you say something like that about your own grandfather! He would never do that! Little liar!”
* “Mom, I feel sick.” Invalidating answer: “No, you don’t. You’re faking it.” – typical for scapegoats.
* “Dad, (my brother) is hurting me. He’s always finding an excuse to punch me. My guts are so sore from being punched there.” Invalidating answer: “Boys will be boys! Just slug him back!”
Continued: “But he’s stronger than me. I don’t want to do this any more.” Invalidating answer: “You’re a sissy then. Is that what you’re telling me?”
* “Dad, I’m feeling sad. I don’t want to go that party.” Perspecticide answer: “No, you’re not. You are angry and you are going to go, and that is all there is to it. Put on a happy face.” – teaches a child to be inauthentic if it is done a lot.
If you grew up with a lot of this (weekly or daily basis), no, it is not normal by a long shot. It is definitely a sign of either substance addiction in the parent, or a Cluster B personality disorder.
Rejection and being retaliated against does a lot of damage to a child, and to the relationship between parent and child. The child’s main relationship to the parent will be filtered through the child’s fear: they will not look to their parent for love, care or comfort, for truth, for reasonableness, for safety, for stability and constancy, for acceptance — all the things we associate with a good family. The child will also be seen as not not seeing the parent as an exceptional being (except in the way that the parent gets away with hurting the child over and over again) – so the parent feels insulted by that instead of working towards being a better parent. The main way that the parent is viewed is “Scary, inconsistent, subject to rage at any moment, is out to hurt me and destroy me.”

Continue reading “HOW INVALIDATION AND PERSPECTICIDE EFFECTS US”

Emotional Incest | The Fix

Emotional incest from either parent is devastating to the child’s ability to be able to set boundaries and take care of getting their own needs met when they become an adult. This type of abuse, when inflicted by the opposite sex parent, can have a devastating effect on the adult/child’s relationship with his/her own sexuality and gender, and their ability to have successful intimate relationships as an adult.

What often happens is that ‘Daddy’s little princess’ or ‘Mommy’s big boy’ becomes an adult who has good friends of the opposite sex that they can be emotionally intimate with but would never think of being sexually involved with (and feel dreadfully betrayed by, when those friends express sexual interest) and are sexually excited by members of the opposite sex whom they don’t like and can’t trust (they may feel they are desperately ‘in love’ with such a person but in reality don’t really like their personality). This is an unconscious way of not betraying mommy or daddy by having sex with someone that they are emotionally intimate with and truly care about as a person.

Continue reading “Emotional Incest | The Fix”

Identity Crisis – Understand the Full Impact

It isn’t enough to understand the identity crisis symptoms or those of perspecticide.

I see it all the time: survivors don’t realize just how deeply the narcissist inflicted a loss of identity onto them until the survivor remove themselves from the situation.

When we’re suffering from perspecticide, we can’t see it that way because the narcissist has led us to believe that our perspective is wrong.

The narcissist slowly but surely infiltrates your sense of self and kills your sense of perspective.

Most narcissists won’t come out and say, “I’m not allowing you to leave the house.” No, they’re subtler than that. A narcissist will make you think it’s in your best interest to stay home – and they will consider your leaving the house a personal attack on them.

They will use gentle implications of guilt and worthlessness to make you completely dependent on them for all of your thoughts and actions. This is what leads to a loss of identity or perspecticide. Continue reading “Identity Crisis – Understand the Full Impact”

Loss of Identity: Examples of Perspecticide from Narcissistic Abuse

Loss of identity is unavoidable after being in an emotionally abusive and manipulative relationship.

I often hear people compare living with a narcissistic partner to living in a cult – but with even more isolation.

In a cult, you have fellow comrades sharing the same abusive experience. With narcissistic abuse, however, you’re totally alone.

Just like living in a cult, it’s difficult to understand the full range of perspecticide aka an intense loss of identity until after you’ve left the narcissistic abuse for good.

The narcissist’s control over their target’s thoughts is sometimes so subtle, severe, and deeply ingrained that the survivor struggles to manage life on their own after they begin to recover.

I’ve put together some identity crisis examples to help you figure out if you’re experiencing perspecticide so you can start to dig yourself out.

You deserve to have your own thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

Source: Loss of Identity: Examples of Perspecticide from Narcissistic Abuse

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