 Hey Psych2Goers, welcome back to another Psych2Go video. Before we begin, we would like to thank you for all the love and support you've given us. Psych2Go's mission is to make mental health more accessible to everyone. Now, let's begin the video. Have you ever been concerned you could be a target of emotional abuse? Emotional abuse is defined as the continued and deliberate mistreatment of another person by means of psychological aggression, intimidation, coercion, control, and emotional manipulation. Emotional or verbal abuse is one of the most rampant but also most overlooked forms of abuse. Abuse, in any form, is never okay, and it's something no one should ever have to go through. With this video, we hope to educate and offer support if you think you might be a victim of emotional abuse. Emotional abuse is often misunderstood and is also much more difficult to recognize. The negative impact it can have on your physical health, mental health, and emotional well-being should not be taken lightly. With that said, let's discuss the eight ways emotional abuse can cause upheaval and trauma in your life. One, it takes a long time to recover from. The emotional trauma that results from emotional abuse can be felt for much longer than any sort of physical pain. Where physical pain can eventually heal, psychological scars often stay with you for life. It's hard to forget the hurtful things someone says to you, especially if this person was near and dear to your heart. They ultimately betray your trust by humiliating you and belittling you, and that kind of emotional pain isn't easy to move on from. Sometimes even the mere memory of the event is enough to make someone re-experience that emotional type of hurt all over again. Two, most people don't understand what you've been through. Emotional abuse can be hard to understand and is sometimes a difficult concept to grasp. Many people remain ignorant of the way it can negatively affect your life and others tend to be much less sympathetic towards emotional abuse victims than they are towards physical abuse victims. Emotional suffering is personal, and it's not something other people can see on the surface. People are more likely to intervene and help you when you're being physically threatened than they are when they see you being verbally and emotionally assaulted. Three, it gives you a negative outlook on life. If you've ever fallen victim to emotional abuse, especially at a young age, it can do a lot to shape the way you view the world and those around you. Oftentimes, you tend to form a negative perspective on life and struggle with constant feelings of loneliness, emptiness and hopelessness as you get older. If you were ever ignored, rejected, abandoned, manipulated or isolated in any way as a child or an adolescent, it's going to leave you with a lot of emotional baggage. Four, it gives you a negative view of yourself. There's no arguing that both physical and emotional abuse can have very damaging and dangerous effects on a person, but while the former robs you of your sense of safety and security, the latter has a way of messing with your head and tearing down your self-esteem. Emotional abuse is extremely detrimental to your sense of self-worth and self-confidence, and it can lead you to develop an inferiority complex. It's hard to feel good about yourself when you have someone in your life who is constantly criticizing you and preying on all of your insecurities. Five, it has long-term psychological effects. Do you have difficulty forming and maintaining close relationships with others and struggle with matters of intimacy and emotional security? Emotional abuse can bring out a sense of constant fear, dread and anxiety. It can put you at a higher risk for depression and PTSD as well as self-harm and suicidal behavior. People who have been emotionally abused can have a harder time controlling their emotions, which could lead to problems with anger management or emotional instability. Six, emotional abuse can also have physical side effects. Aside from the psychological toll emotional abuse can take on you, it can also leave you with a lot of physically painful side effects. The most common symptoms include chronic pain, chronic fatigue, muscle tension, insomnia and other physical symptoms of stress such as low energy, nausea, chest pains, chest palpitations and headaches. Not only that, but emotional abuse has been found to precede physical abuse in a large majority of cases. Seven, it puts you at risk for mental illness. People going through emotional abuse aren't likely to reach out to others and ask them for help because they often feel that their experiences are something to be ashamed of or dismissed or that they should deal with it on their own. But the longer the abuse goes on, the more likely you might be to resort to harmful ways of coping with your psychological and emotional distress. And this is why a lot of studies show that emotional abuse is a large contributing factor to the development of substance abuse and eating disorders in most people. End date, it puts you at risk of becoming an abuser yourself. Being a victim of emotional abuse makes you more likely to become an abuser yourself because everyone else is so quick to dismiss emotional abuse and make it seem like it's not really a big deal. You might be tempted to take your frustrations out on others or reclaim your sense of power by emotionally abusing someone else. Studies show that an alarming majority of children who have been victims of abuse, be it physical or verbal, grow up to become abusers too later on in their lives. Do you relate to any of these points mentioned? If you were or currently are ever emotionally abused, it's important you understand that it wasn't and is not your fault. No one deserves to be treated that way. Don't hesitate to talk to a friend or reach out to a mental health care professional today and get the help that you need. If you found this video helpful, be sure to like it and share this video with someone else who might benefit from it. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button for more Psych2Go videos. The references and studies used in this video are added in the description below. Thanks for watching and we'll see you in our next video.