Christian Counseling for Emotionally Abusive Parents. Online Domestic Abuse Therapy.

Emotionally abusive parents tend to take their unhealed trauma out on the people closest to and around them. Unfortunately, this makes children the number one target.

Emotional abuse is a form of domestic abuse, it is an extremely traumatic and damaging form of abuse and leaves long-term effects as a consequence.

How do I find a good christian family therapist near me?

Faithful Counseling aims to make sure that you are connected to the best online Christian family near me.

When families or individuals have experienced any form of abuse, the effects can be severely damaging to their mental, psychological and emotional well-being.

We encourage you to take the steps toward healing with a professional emotional abuse therapist.

Finding a Christian family therapist that aligns with your core values, faith and morals is important.

Faithful Counseling has a wide range of therapists and psychologists that have been extensively trained to help you and your family deal with challenges such as emotional child abuse. Understanding why you may have had emotionally abusive parents. Unpacking and diving into understanding what is emotional child abuse, the depths emotional abuse from father to daughter, an emotionally abusive father or an emotionally abusive mother.

We have made the process of getting started with emotional abuse therapy or domestic abuse therapy simple, seamless and stress-free.

Answer this questionnaire carefully (less than 5 minutes). Shortly thereafter we will select the best matched therapists that you will be able to choose between.

Faithful Counseling gives you the advantage of selecting your own domestic abuse therapist, emotional abuse therapist or Christian family therapist that best suits you.

If you’re not satisfied, you can request to change at any time.

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Faithful Counseling has a team of the most professional, certified and eligible emotional abuse, domestic abuse therapists and Christian family therapists that have curated this questionnaire carefully to be able to better understand you and your needs and match you with the best therapist for you.

What is emotional child abuse?

Emotional child abuse is a form of verbal or non-physical abuse that is done to overpower, intimidate, control and frighten a child.

Caregivers, parents or other family members who emotionally abuse children cause significant mental and psychological damage to the child which has negative impacts on the child’s life and could be prolonged into their adulthood which has been known to affect their ability to create and maintain new relationships.

According to the US government, emotional or psychological abuse is a pattern of behavior that directly affects and impairs a child’s self-esteem.

The signs of emotional child abuse:

Insults and overly critical statements
Shouting or swearing
Withholding love, affection or emotional support
Threats
Allowing a child to witness other forms abuse, physical or verbal

Emotionally abusive parents use their children as a “scapegoat” to offload their own anger, emotions or unresolved trauma. It’s challenging to clearly identify how common child abuse is, there are a wide range of behaviors that categorize emotional child abuse.

A study done by ChildHelp in the United States showed that over 6.6 million children were involved in referrals to child protective services, in 2014, over 20 000 children were reported as being abused or neglected in some way.

Child abuse occures in all kinds of families with their own dynamics, however, these are the most common family dynamics that report emotional child abuse, domestic abuse or emotionally abusive parents:

Households challenged with financial problems
Single parenthood
Experiencing or experienced divorce
Substance abuse

It is unfortunate that children experience abuse as a result of external factors or living conditions.

If you or anyone you know has experienced an emotionally abusive parent or have witnessed forms of domestic abuse, we highly encourage you to seek help from a professional domestic abuse therapist or a Christian family therapist near me in order to help you deal with the effects of emotional abuse or find the best ways how to help a child with an emotionally abusive parent.

Identifying the signs of emotional abuse in a child can look like this:

Being irrationally fearful of a parent
Saying they hate a parent
Negative self-talk (I’m stupid, I’m a bad child, etc.)
Emotionally immature compared to their peers
Speech interruptions – stuttering or confusion
Doing poorly in school

Some forms of abuse may not be immediately damaging, however, psychological damage as a consequence of any form of abuse can affect you later in life which causes trauma, PTSD, depression, anxiety, or even personality disorders.

There are ways to help yourself or a family member that may have experienced or are currently experiencing emotional abuse.

Reach out to a domestic abuse therapist to advise you on what to do next.

Dealing with a personal and intimate situation such as abuse can be traumatic and may require professional help in order to safely and effectively improve the situation or help the people involved.

What are the signs of an emotionally abusive parent?

Emotionally abusive parents leave invisible scars that affect young children much later in life. It is one of the most damaging forms of abuse that directly affects a child’s development.

Emotionally abusive parents use isolation, humiliation or even intimidation as a form of psychological pressure on their children in order for them to either get work done or have personal time. Forms of these psychological or emotional abuse can be:

Verbal abuse, insulting, name calling
Constantly nitpicking on the child
Isolation and avoidance
Inflicting severe punishments
Ignoring or neglecting them
Making them feel worthless

In order to identify the signs of emotionally abusive parents, you need to look at what the abuse entails. This means looking at how the emotionally abusive mother or emotionally abusive parent acts toward the child, considering the previously discussed forms of emotional abuse toward a child.

Signs of emotionally abusive parents or caregivers:

Emotionally inattentive to the child
Not tending to the child’s medical needs
Little or no affection or love towards the child
Talking badly or negatively about the child

Adults that grew up in abusive homes and have experienced emotionally abusive parents can use these key behavioral indicators to help you find the signs of emotionally abusive parents:

1․Moodiness and rapid mood changes

Emotionally abusive parents struggle to maintain a constant mood. They may suddenly lash out at a child for something insignificant, or overly loving and warm one day, and cold the next. Adversely, they can become excited about an event that they were negative about before. This causes confusion and anxiety in the child as they become unsure of what to expect from their parents.

2․Blaming the child for their problems

They may blame their child for perhaps not getting a promotion because they had to rush to tend to their child. Emotionally abusive parents rarely take responsibility for their shortcomings, as a result the child suffers.

3․Necessities become a privilege

An emotionally abusive mother or an emotionally abusive father can make their child feel as though they are better off than others when that is not necessarily the case. If a child speaks against being called derogatory names, emotionally abusive parents will start to withhold or make necessities such as food and clothes seem like a privilege.

4․Destructive criticism

Constructive and supportive criticism is crucial for a child’s psychological development. Emotionally abusive parents continuously critique their child and highlight their flaws and mistakes.

5․No attention to emotions

An emotionally abusive father or an emotionally abusive mother are desensitized to a child’s emotions. If the child becomes sad, irritated or angry, emotionally abusive parents will dismiss it and call their child weak or make jokes about their inability to laugh.

6․Comparison

Comparing their children to others, ‘why can’t you be more like Chelsea? She’s so well behaved and quiet.’. It doesn’t make a difference if the child graduates with honorary colors, emotionally abusive parents will always downplay their child’s achievement and compare them to others.

7․Encouraged sibling rivalry.

Parents will encourage their kids to compete for their love, attention or affection. If a child loses the rivalry, they are isolated or ignored having to watch their sibling get attention and love.

8․Teasing and name-calling

Emotionally abusive parents don’t hesitate when making fun of their kids or making them the subject of ridicule. They use their kids as a subject of ridicule and feel as though it’s funny, expecting the child to put up with it.

9․Using a child to retaliate

When there is a divorce between parents, one or both parents will use the child to get back at the ex-partner. Children may be asked to not trust a new partner or even spy on and gather information about the other person’s personal life. Emotionally abusive parents poison the child’s mind against the other parent.

10․Guilt tripping

Emotionally abusive parents will turn around and tell their child about sacrifices they made to have the child as an act to make the child feel guilty or ashamed.

What are the scars of emotional abuse?

The scars of emotional abuse range from psychological to mental damage. In cases where someone has gone through the experience and trauma of growing up in an abusive home, the scars can cause lifelong damage. These scars develop into various effects of emotional abuse in adulthood.

When we talk about abuse, physical abuse initially comes to mind, however there are multiple forms of abuse – mental and emotional forms of abuse are just as damaging. The first step is to to recognize the signs or effects of emotional abuse:

Invading your privacy

Yelling or excessive shouting
Name-calling
Insults or ridiculing you
Punishing you for acts you not going along with their ideals
Attempting to make you question your sanity (gas lighting)
Isolation from friends and family
Subtle or overt threats

These are basic signs of emotional abuse. It’s important to know that emotional abuse is not your fault, in situations where children grow up in abusive homes, most of the time, physically and emotionally abusive parents have unresolved challenges and end up protecting these feelings onto their children as a result of not healing. Adults who grew up in abusive homes tend to find themselves asking, ‘why was I abused?’. Emotional abuse is not normal, but your feelings are.

We encourage you to find an emotional abuse therapist near me to help you uncover the damage and and scars of emotional abuse, as well as to talk about what happens to adults who grew up in abusive homes, and learn to deal with those damages effectively in order to heal and grow.

Short-term effects of emotional abuse can cause feelings and emotions like:

Hopelessness

Shame
Guilt
Frustration
Confusion
Fear

Consequently, these effects of emotional abuse can cause physical, mental and behavioral challenges:

Unstable mood or random mood swings

Muscle tension
Difficulty concentrating
Racing or irregular heartbeat
Various aches and pains

Studies show that in cases of severe emotional abuse can cause similar effects to that of physical and mental abuse. It can result in long-term effects that contribute to anxiety and depression.

Over time you can begin to develop serious mental and physical health issues.

Anxiety

Chronic pain
Guilt
Insomnia
Social withdrawal or avoidance
Loneliness

As an adult who grew up in an abusive home, the likelihood of you developing behavioral, mental, emotional and possibly physical challenges is very high as an effect of either an emotionally abusive parent, physically abusive parent, or a verbally abusive parent (guardians, caretakers as well). Abusive households or environments are extremely damaging to a child’s development, as consequently, the effects can last throughout your adulthood. Many victims of emotional abuse struggle with learning how to deal with emotionally abusive parents, how to confront an emotionally abusive parent or are unable to figure out how to forgive an emotionally abusive parent. All these feelings are completely normal and validated – your emotions, pain and scars are validated.

With the professional help of an emotional abuse therapist for adults who grew up in abusive homes will closely guide and teach you how to manage and deal with the emotions and feelings you are facing as a result of emotional abuse. You will find answers to conflicting questions like, ‘Why was I abused?’, ‘How do I know if I was abused?’, ‘Why do parents deny abuse?’, ‘How do I confront an abusive parent?’. These are extremely challenging and heavy emotions to carry and unpack, why not share the load with an emotional abuse therapist?

Was I abused? How can I know that?

Figuring out if you were abused can be very challenging, as well as extremely triggering as you start to unpack the trauma of the abuse. Not everyone that grew up in an abusive home will suffer the same effects as an adult, it heavily depends on the type of individual you are as well as the form of abuse you faced, physical, mental or emotional abuse.

When you begin to unravel the layers of emotional abuse, there will be questions that you may have about why you were abused and sometimes feel as though it may have been your fault. However, emotionally abusive parents or verbally abusive parents are suffering from their own personal challenges. Parents who deny abuse are in denial of their actions as they may be embarrassed or sometimes even unaware of their actions. Understand that it is not your fault.

As kids you don’t always recognize the sign of an abusive parent, you find yourself making excuses for their actions or dismissing it with things like, ‘they’re just having a bad day’. Oftentimes adults only realize and acknowledge the abuse much later in life. When this happens, it can change your entire perception of your childhood and your memories.

There are a few indicators to look for if you are trying to figure out if you were abused.

Noticing parents’ mood swings

It’s important to go back and look at how moody your parents were when you were growing up. A parent’s mood and emotions directly affect their children, when you feel like you’re constantly walking on eggshells around your parents and feel nervous that they may suddenly have a dramatic mood shift as a result of you doing something, that is a sign of emotional abuse in the most passive aggressive manner. This highers your stress levels as a child and starts to cause damage in the brain and the body.

2․You felt as though they were overly-critical or extremely negative towards you

If a parent is continually focused on negative feelings or emotions towards you, it is a form of emotional abuse. If you experience negative comments from a parent, they continue to play in your head long after it has been said. You start to always trace back to the small things they said to you daily that made you feel bad about yourself, as you grow older, this starts to develop into habits of negative self-esteem and constantly talking down to yourself and being unable to see your self-worth. The voice of an abusive parent may have internalized. This is one of the identifying signs of verbal abuse from a parent.

3․Your feelings and emotions were dismissed or downplayed

As a child when you react to something as a natural response, abusive parents may say things like, ‘you’re just being overly sensitive’ or ‘you’re overreacting’. Those are signs of an emotionally unavailable parent.

4․Passive-aggressive behavior towards you

Parents may act a certain way toward you that would leave you feeling confused. They won’t tell you directly what’s bothering them but just start to act differently around you. This is a form of psychological and emotional abuse.

5․Overly anxious

Parents who were overly anxious and constantly asking you to take care of them and their needs can lead to a child inhibiting that anxiety, causing higher levels of cortisol in the brain that later can lead to health challenges.

6․Guilted

Emotionally abusive parents usually manipulate their children into doing things, they may say things like, ‘Do you know how much I gave up for you?’, this leads to adults adopting the same behavior and consequently manipulating others around them.

7․Silent treatment

If you did something wrong that upset your parents, you were flat out ignored and given the silent treatment until you apologized, sometimes even after you were still ignored. This is extremely damaging to a child’s psychological development. A huge signal of an emotionally abusive parent.

8․Physically there but emotionally absent

Emotionally abusive parents are usually very cold under the surface, they’re physically present but unable to fully give you the emotional attention you need. Children feel very neglected by parents who take note of them but are occupied or distracted by being on the phone or watching TV.

9․Blaming yourself for other people’s bad behavior

When you don’t understand the actions of a parent towards you, many times you start to blame yourself. When people mistreat you as an adult you automatically feel like you are at fault as a survival coping mechanism to survive during childhood. As an adult you start to recreate these dynamics in other relationships.

10․Self-destructive behavior and anger toward your parent

High-risk behavior like unprotected sex, drug or substance abuse or self-harm are signs of adults who suffered emotional abuse as a child. This may be a psychological effect of internalized anger, hurt and frustration toward the parent that abused you, sometimes you may not even understand or be able to explain why as you have blocked it out subconsciously.

If you have found yourself wondering whether you were abused, whether you experienced emotional, physical or verbal abuse growing up – our team of certified experts at Faithful Counseling strongly recommend that you reach out to an emotional abuse therapist for adults as soon as possible to avoid any further damage.

How does online Christian domestic abuse therapy work?

As experienced, certified and professional psychologists, therapists and coaches.

We highly encourage you or anyone that you know who may have experienced emotional child abuse from an emotionally abusive mother or an emotionally abusive father to seek help from a professional domestic abuse therapist or a Christian family therapist near me to assist and support you with dealing with your trauma.

Online Christian domestic abuse therapy is a convenient, effective and affordable method of therapy where you are given the freedom of not only choosing your own therapist, but also your preferred method of therapy.

Whether you choose to have your sessions via phone call, video call, text or mail – you are guaranteed a high-standard of professional therapy from wherever you are.

How will online Christian domestic abuse therapy improve my life?

We always remind our people that healing is important in order to grow, we understand that traumatic events happen in almost everyone’s life and unfortunately at times it is not dealt with in time or properly.

This hinders someone’s ability to reach their full potential as an individual.

Online Christian domestic abuse therapy is there to offer you advice, guidance and knowledge when going through the process of healing from emotional abuse and the effects of emotionally abusive parents, not only that – our therapists are there to offer you the support you need.

With online Christian domestic abuse therapy, emotional abuse therapy or Christian family therapy, you are given the safe space you need to be vulnerable and overcome your challenges.

We put your healing first at Faithful Counseling.