How abuse affects mental health

Abuse affects mental health in the short term as the abuse is happening and can impact mental health in the long term if one is never allowed to heal from the abuse.

Short-term impacts

To survive abuse, we respond by either fleeing, fighting back, dissociating or freezing, flopping or surrendering (animals do this by playing dead), and/or fawning (trying to please the abuser in an attempt to decrease abuse). When faced with abuse, we might:

-disconnect from our aliveness/ true selves by dissociating so that we don’t have to feel present while the abuse is happening,

-shut down our natural emotional responses to abuse such as anger or upset because those responses might make the abuser more abusive,

-endure our boundaries being violated in an attempt to get the abuse over with. 

Long-term impacts

The long-term impacts of abuse are basically healthy responses to disconnecting from ourselves, shutting down our emotions, and having our boundaries violated.  When I say healthy, I mean that it is a healthy response to anger if someone is abusing you.  If we need to shut down our awareness of our anger repeatedly, that can lead to what looks like depression or anxiety.  However, that depression and/or anxiety is actually just healthy anger trapped in the body.  Anxiety can be a healthy response to being constantly afraid that someone is going to violate your boundaries.  I realize that in North American culture, depression and anxiety are stigmatized. Still, I want to clarify that what is actually unhealthy is the abuse itself, not one’s reaction to abuse. 

Healing

While depression and anxiety are healthy reactions to abuse, they are not often sustainable emotions to be having and can cause a lot of suffering.  The abuse itself can lead to feelings of worthlessness and depression. On top of that, from surviving, the abuse can lead to feelings of shame.  Anxiety is a very uncomfortable emotion and can make it difficult to have the confidence to try new things, interact with people, and even make it difficult to work.  Healing from abuse is possible and is necessary to regain a state of inner peace.  Our mental health directly correlates to what is happening around us, us, and us, and is nothing to be ashamed of.  We all deserve support to move towards a feeling of inner peace.