Can You Develop PTSD From Emotional Abuse?

Can Emotional Abuse Cause PTSD?

Any form of abuse, including emotional abuse, can cause PTSD. Each person’s reaction to emotional abuse will be specific to their situation and the things that they experienced, which means that symptoms can show up uniquely in each person. The impacts of emotional abuse can be long-lasting and are often difficult and painful to heal from.

Here are some ways emotional abuse can cause PTSD:

• Withholding attention, love, or affection: Withholding emotional intimacy, particularly if it is done in a retaliatory or controlling way, can leave the receiver feeling like they need to pursue the withdrawing partner to restore the relationship, which can be abusive and controlling. This chronic stress and emotional instability can lead to symptoms of PTSD as individuals struggle with feelings of unworthiness and abandonment.
• Frequent and extreme criticism: Being extremely harsh and judgmental of a person can be a way for an abuser to maintain control over their victim. Receiving this message consistently over time can also lead a person to become accustomed to the criticism that they believe is true. This erodes a person’s self-worth and can contribute to the development of PTSD, as the individual feels continually threatened and demeaned.
• Gaslighting: Gaslighting is when someone tries to convince you that you don’t have a true grasp on your reality. This can look like making you question your memories, your feelings, the validity of your needs, and even your relationships. Over time, this emotional manipulation can cause the victim to distrust their own memory, a state that can be traumatic and potentially lead to PTSD.
• Neglecting emotional needs: Dismissing, minimizing, or ignoring emotional needs is deeply hurtful and can erode a person’s self-esteem and self-worth over time. This consistent disregard can feel like emotional abandonment and may result in PTSD.
• Blackmailing: Forcing someone to comply by threatening them with negative public humiliation is abusive and illegal in many states. The constant fear and stress from being emotionally blackmailed can be traumatic, potentially leading to PTSD as the victim lives in fear of the threats being realized.
• Disregard for personal boundaries: Personal boundaries are the communicated limits that a person needs in order to feel safe and continue to stay in the relationship. If a person repeatedly disregards boundaries, it can result in psychological trauma, contributing to the development of PTSD.
• Controlling behavior: Controlling behaviors communicate that the controlling person’s needs and feelings are more important than the person being controlled, as well as the person being controlled cannot be trusted to make their own decisions.
• Making threats: The purpose of threats is to convince someone that their safety is in question and scare them into the desired behavior of the person making the threat. This loss of safety can lead to a traumatic environment, where the victim may develop PTSD symptoms.
• Blame shifting: If someone is never able to take responsibility for their actions and instead shifts the blame onto you, you may be dealing with emotional abuse and manipulation. Living in such an unpredictable and accusatory environment can be distressing and traumatic, possibly leading to PTSD as the victim internalizes the blame and doubt.
• Dehumanization: Dehumanization is the process of convincing a person that they do not deserve to be treated with human decency, to be able to treat that person cruelly or inhumanely. Such extreme treatment can be inherently traumatic, significantly increasing the risk of PTSD as the individual struggles with feelings of worthlessness.
• Isolation: Isolation can also be a control tactic that abusers use in order to keep their victims from others’ reflections on their relationship, access to support, and being able to overcome gaslighting.  Human beings are inherently social creatures, and this enforced solitude can lead to significant emotional distress and trauma, leading to PTSD.

Emotional Abuse & C-PTSD

Oftentimes, a person who is experiencing PTSD from emotional abuse may actually be struggling with a subtype of PTSD that is called complex PTSD (C-PTSD). C-PTSD often occurs when a person has prolonged and repeated exposure to traumas, which can include the interpersonal traumas of emotional abuse. C-PTSD includes the same symptoms as PTSD but also includes heightened difficulty in regulating your emotions, interpersonal issues, and a negative view of yourself and the world.

Symptoms of PTSD From Emotional Abuse

PTSD after emotional abuse can look like typical symptoms of PTSD, but symptoms often center around themes of trust, self-worth, and interpersonal relationships. Common signs include intense fear of rejection, consistently questioning one’s own sanity, and extreme feelings of worthlessness.

Common symptoms of PTSD from emotional abuse may include:

• Flashbacks: PTSD flashbacks are intrusive memories where you relive a past experience. These can leave you feeling disconnected from your body and the current moment, as well as losing track of a chunk of time.
• Avoidance of trauma triggers: Since past experiences led you to develop PTSD, it is normal to avoid trauma triggers or things that may remind you of past experiences and feelings related to the emotional abuse. This could mean avoiding going to places where emotional abuse happened, movies or shows that contain emotional abuse or harsh language, or avoiding people who talk loudly or harshly.
• Being self-critical when you make a mistake: Developing a negative view of yourself is understandable if you constantly have your mistakes and flaws (real or perceived) highlighted. Beginning to believe in these things can lead you to berate yourself before anyone else notices a mistake, talk to yourself harshly, or even believe that you deserve punishment/consequences.
• Hypervigilance: Your brain and nervous systems are wired to anticipate threats and stress based on past experiences. If you have a past history of emotional abuse, you may find yourself hypervigilant and scared in social interactions with others and waiting on the other person to be emotionally abusive like you have experienced in the past.
• Struggling with regulation: Struggling with emotional dysregulation can include a variety of presentations, including increased irritability, low and depressed mood, guilt, shame, and intense fear. Feeling like you have no influence on your mood can be a sign of a lack of ability to regulate your emotions effectively.
• A decrease in functioning: If you’ve experienced trauma, it can make it difficult to function normally in the different ways that are required for your day-to-day life, such as interacting with coworkers or peers, taking care of yourself/children/pets, and even eating and sleeping properly.

Effects of PTSD & Emotional Abuse

PTSD and emotional abuse significantly impact various aspects of life. Those who experience PTSD from emotional abuse may show changes in behavior, personality, and mood that limit their ability to work or care for themselves and their loved ones. Some identifiable features of post-traumatic stress from emotional abuse include relationship difficulties, low self-esteem, and worsened mental health.

Effects of PTSD and emotional abuse include:

Mental Health

Individuals who have PTSD from emotional abuse may feel confused, paranoid, or worried, with many exhibiting symptoms of depression or anxiety. Some may avoid or numb their feelings, especially if their abusers invalidated or undermined these emotions.¹ Some people who have PTSD from emotional abuse may become so frustrated and distressed that they lash out when they feel threatened.¹

Physical Health

Prolonged PTSD from emotional abuse can also affect the brain and body. Stress can negatively impact cardiovascular health, weight, and hormone balance or induce chronic pain.^{2, 3} Additionally, many studies have cited a correlation between PTSD from emotional abuse and certain comorbid physical and mental health conditions, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), eating disorders, and autoimmune disorders.^{4, 5}

Interpersonal Relationships

PTSD from an abusive relationship can lead to trust issues or avoidance of social interactions. Some abuse victims struggle with believing people, while others feel indifferent toward relationships. They may also focus too much on reading facial expressions or body language.^{4, 6, 7, 8} These behaviors may result from negative cognitions or thoughts about relationships in general.

Future Relationships

Individuals with PTSD from emotional abuse may question the true and good intentions of others because of the damaging and confusing nature of their trauma. Some people with histories of emotional abuse might think they deserve mistreatment. Therefore, they may accept further emotional abuse in many of their relationships because they do not know what a “normal” partnership looks like.

How to Heal From PTSD & Emotional Abuse

Healing from trauma and emotional abuse is not an easy journey. However, it is possible with healthy coping skills. You may not forget your experiences, but you can learn from them and rebuild trust in yourself and others. Start by building a positive support system that validates your emotions, and remember to practice this same empathy and understanding with yourself.

Here are seven tips for how to heal from PTSD and emotional abuse:

1. Gather a Support System

Having a support system will boost your recovery. Loved ones can listen and support you as you begin to unravel what had occurred and how the PTSD is impacting your life. However, talking about the abuse and trauma can feel triggering at times, and loved ones can support them with a lot of other things as well. You can ask them for help with specific responsibilities, do activities together to distract from your symptoms, or practice mindfulness together.

2. Tune Into Your Body

When being present in your body is too painful – such as in cases of abuse – your brain will learn to disconnect itself from your body in order to keep moving forward. While it’s helpful to get through a stressful experience, this overall coping mechanism can be harmful to our physical and emotional health.

Learning to listen to the things happening in your body and to respond appropriately to your needs can be a freeing experience once you get used to it. Some ways to begin doing this can include dancing to your favorite music, walking in environments you find beautiful, and using the 54321 method to bring your awareness to sensory input.

3. Practice Healthy Coping Skills

Human beings have a wonderful and strong inclination to do what is necessary to survive. Unfortunately, if you experienced emotional abuse and only had access to coping skills that your abuser deemed acceptable, you may have developed some unhealthy coping skills (such as isolating yourself from others, substance use, overworking, etc.). Taking a look at the coping skills that you currently use and determining their overall effectiveness in your life can be a helpful place to start in taking charge of your own story after the abuse.

4. Express Yourself Creatively

Getting your feelings and experiences out and processed through creativity can be a powerful way to make sense of your experience and to move through the places where you feel stuck. You can write, paint, sing, sculpt your emotions, your story, and your healing journey. Creativity not only helps us to express ourselves but also helps us to connect more fully with our bodies and our emotions.

5. Tune In to Your Own Feelings

Emotional abuse often focuses on the abuser and their wants and needs, so much so that the people who experience emotional abuse often distance themselves from their own emotions and emotional needs. Work to identify and respond to your own emotional needs. This is a major way that you can begin to teach your brain and nervous system that you are no longer in the situations that require you to do this disconnection, and it can help you to begin to nurture yourself more effectively as well. This can be done through journaling about your trauma, meditation for PTSD, or within therapy.

6. Find Your Home a Safe Space

A critical piece of recovering from PTSD and emotional abuse is rebuilding a sense of safety. Finding a place where you feel safe and comforted is a huge piece of this because it acts as your safe “home base” to return to when things are difficult. Your safe space can be your home, a specific space within a room, or a safe outdoor location where you feel calm (such as the ocean or a forest). Identifying this place and returning to it when things get hard not only helps you to build regulation but it helps you to know that you can trust yourself to do what is needed when you are dysregulated.

7. Remember that It’s Not Your Fault

It’s important to return to the truth that there is nothing that you could have done to deserve to receive emotional abuse. You are inherently worthy of being treated with decency and respect without having to do anything to earn it. You were not the one who chose to abuse you emotionally, and you are not at fault for receiving this treatment.

When to Seek Professional Support

Speaking to a therapist when struggling with PTSD from emotional abuse can be extremely helpful. There are many different types of therapy for trauma that can help you learn and build self-empowerment skills that promote healing. If talking about the abuse is scary, treatments such as EMDR for PTSD focus on reworking associations with abuse through bilateral stimulation rather than talk therapy.

A local therapist directory is a great way to find a trauma-informed therapist who takes your insurance. You can also ask your GP or friends and family for a recommendation. If you prefer seeing a therapist remotely, an online therapy service can set you up with a therapist from the comfort of your home.