Emotional abuse is the ultimate brainwashing technique. It often hides in the form of feigned helplessness, generosity, compassion, and love. The perpetrator knows how to appear kind and caring while intertwining abusive behavior, causing the person on the receiving end to become powerless.

Emotional abuse is a method of controlling, manipulating, belittling, and invalidating a person over time. It is often hard to spot in the moment as it can be seen as benign or even “normal” to most observers.

But as this behavior is repeated time and time again, the insidious compound effect of this form of hidden abuse causes its victims to lose confidence in themselves, stop trusting in their own decisions, feel devalued and unimportant, and blame themselves for being the cause of, and sometimes even deserving, of the abusive behavior.