Bullying, Betrayal, Manipulative, Controlling, Anger Problem, Walking on Egg Shells. These are safe words we use to make unacceptable behavior appear normal. In fact, they are all ways to hide the truth from ourselves and from society at large. We think that the term abuse is only appropriate when talking about physical abuse, sexual abuse or incest. What is less well known is that all of these words express the experience of emotional or psychological abuse. Since awareness is 99% of change, we must stop hiding the truth from ourselves by using words that normalize abusive behavior. Otherwise
|