Dr Rosemary Parkinson
How does subtle abuse link to other kinds of abuse?
When you read currently available examples of non-physical abuse on the internet or in popular books, you can easily conclude that your experiences do not involve abuse. Subtle abuse includes all kinds of abuse. You may have read about emotional abuse, psychological abuse, narcissistic abuse or gaslighting and be wondering how these link with subtle abuse. I provide some information on each of these categories of abuse below. The difference between what you may have read about and subtle abuse is the degree of overtness used by a perpetrator to deliver the abuse.
"Subtle abuse makes you confused. You need a clear understanding of subtle abuse to help you unravel that confusion."
Subtle abuse can include emotional, psychological, economic or sexual abuse, or any other form of abuse. It may be delivered by someone you could call a narcissist or a psychopath or neither. The key factor is that the abuse is conducted throughout the relationship on a subtle level.
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Emotional abuse is usually described as abuse that affects your emotions. It makes you feel worse about yourself, your life, your friends and family.
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Psychological abuse is usually described as abuse that affects your thoughts and the sense you make of the world.
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Economic abuse is when an abuser uses economic resources to control you. This may take the form of denying you access to money or financial independence, or it may instead involve the abuser relying on you to support them financially.
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Non-physical abuse is a frequently used term to include a range of abuse that is enacted on victims without the use of direct physical abuse. It includes emotional, psychological, economic, sexual abuse etc.
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Sexual abuse refers to any abuse conducted around your sexual self. This can be conducted emotionally, psychologically or physically.
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Gaslighting is described as when an abuser denies your reality and instead insists that their way of seeing things is right.
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Narcissistic abuse is linked to the idea of someone seeing themselves as the most important person in the room and expecting everyone else to dance to their tune and focus on what they want.
​​When reading about individual types of abuse such as emotional abuse or narcissistic abuse, you will usually find the descriptions include obvious or overt ways of abusing someone as well as subtle or invisible abuses. If your experience of abuse is one where someone uses only subtle tactics you may have found that the descriptions and examples of more overt abuse, which you have read online or in books, make you think your relationship is not abusive. This was the case for several of my clients, until we explored their relationship in more detail.
The longer you are unable to recognise your relationship as abusive, the longer you risk exposing yourself to more abuse and the resultant negative mental and physical health consequences.
Katie
When Katie read about abuse online or in popular books, she saw behaviours which seemed more extreme than her husband Paul’s behaviour. She didn’t read experiences which resonated with hers, and reading about abuse which was not solely conducted on a subtle level prevented Katie from realising that Paul was abusing her. In our therapy sessions she told me ‘No. There’s nothing like this going on in my relationship’. Katie felt confirmed in her belief that she was part of the problem. Without reading about experiences that validated their own, clients reverted to self-blame, describing themselves as ‘over-sensitive’, ‘demanding’, ‘difficult’ and ‘over-controlling’.