I've been thinking and talking about mental health quite a bit in the past few weeks. Last week I was asked to present on culture and mental health on a mental health support platform. One of the things I found whilst preparing for that was that Zimbabwe has a ridiculously high number of suicides each year and yet the topic of mental health is one that hasn't gotten enough attention in the Zimbabwean context. There are so many things that are ingrained within our very culture that makes us oblivious to mental wellness challenges, the triggers of mental illness as well as the identifying markers of mental illness. In fact, when we hear mental illness many of us equate it with insanity (kupenga) and yet there are a range of illnesses/disorders, the most common being anxiety and depression.
There's a lot that could be said about this but today let's talk about the toxic/abusive behaviour traits we exhibit and tolerate in our romantic relationships. Up until recently I realised how lightly I myself take such matters, in fact I'm convinced most of us do. I have no doubt there are others who will read this and trivialise it. Trivialise my experiences and those of others, but it is what it is. We cannot argue with the effects that certain behaviours have on the wellbeing of others. Sometimes we are the unwitting perpetrators and sometimes the unwitting victims. Those of us who fall into the latter category would be termed "less resilient". I argue that the notion of resilience has been normalised negatively in a way that makes many deny that they are facing challenges, and this is a narrative we need to change.
Emotional abuse is a way to control another person by using emotions to criticize, embarrass, shame, blame, or otherwise manipulate another person. In general, a relationship is emotionally abusive when there is a consistent pattern of abusive words and bullying behaviors that wear down a person's self-esteem and undermine their mental health. (Gordon, 2020)
This definition may bring to mind some painful or shameful experiences for you, but then you think we'll it wasn't consistent so that rules me out as a victim of or perpetrator of emotional abuse. It is for this very reason that I said let's talk about toxic/abusive traits.
Emotional abuse in and of itself is one of the hardest forms of abuse to recognize. It can be subtle and insidious or overt and manipulative. Either way, it chips away at the victim's self-esteem and they begin to doubt their perceptions and reality. (Godron, 2020)
Dismissiveness, sarcasm, denial of true events, guilt tripping, gaslighting, and trivialising of feelings are often viewed as a normal part of relationships and yet if we look closer, these are some of the characteristics of emotional and mental abuse. Because of the way we have normalised the toxicity we find in some relationships because "men will be men" , and "women are emotional", we have continued to smile in the face of abuse and trivialised the experiences of those who speak about the emotional toll of such relationships. Shinga! Namata zvinoita. (Be strong! Pray, it will all work out). These are statements many, especially married women have heard. These are also the things we grew up listening to and so we have this mentality where we see nothing wrong with continuing to exhibit or tolerate behaviours that could be labelled as abusive.
If you feel wounded, frustrated, confused, misunderstood, depressed, anxious, or worthless any time you interact, chances are high that your relationship is emotionally abusive. (Gordon, 2020)
As I was coming off the euphoria of what had seemed like it had the potential to be a really great relationship, I read the quote above and ticked 6 out of the 7 markers. But this man was amazing! We had an amazing chemistry. He was attentive, had a similar sense of humor, thoughtful, intelligent, patient, gentle and yet still a man! (Ladies will know what I mean lol). But every other week we'd have conversations that left me feeling some type of way. I doubted myself, my worth, my character, my reasoning. Never have I experienced such manipulation, guilt tripping and character assassination from someone who claimed they care for me. To top it all off everything I said in those conversations was misconstrued. But I didn't view it as a problem initially, I saw it as an issue of differing opinions, of negotiating the relationship waters to see if things could work out. But it seemed to somehow escalate, and ended with a full blown character assassination that left me feeling like utter trash. I was bruised. I was confused. Do I actually have a problem? Am I actually selfish? Am I not giving my best? Am I controlling? Am I out of touch with reality? Have I been terrible this whole time and not known it? These are all questions I asked myself. Thankfully the camel's back eventually broke and that entanglement ended. The fog lifted and looking back I am amazed at how I continued to make excuses for someone who made me feel so wrung up on the inside simply because besides that one area everything else was AMAZING as I said.
Looking back over the years I also began to see the number of friends who went through varying degrees of mental and emotional abuse and didn't even know it. How the abusers themselves although manipulative didn't necessarily their behaviour as abusive.
And so where does that leave us? I have a few suggestions. We've got to stop normalising behaviours that impact our own or the mental wellbeing of others. Let's take time out to look within and see whether we have any abusive traits that need to be addressed. And from my end, if there is anyone I have ever harmed through emotionally abusive behaviours, I would like to extend my heartfelt apology. And to those whose situations I didn't take as seriously as I should have in the past, I send you my love and it is my hope that you have healed from those cuts.
Let's mind our words! And remember, you deserve a love that doesn't hurt!
Quotes from:
What is emotional abuse? By author and bullying prevention expert Sherri Gordon https://www.verywellmind.com/identify-and-cope-with-emotional-abuse-4156673
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