You Carry the Cure In Your Own Heart

by Andrew Vachss
Originally published in Parade Magazine, August 28, 1994

The attorney and author Andrew Vachss has devoted his life toprotecting children. We asked Vachss, an expert on the subject ofchild abuse, to examine perhaps one of its most complex andwidespread forms—emotional abuse: What it is, what it does tochildren, what can be done about it. Vachss' latest novel, "Down inthe Zero," just published by Knopf, depicts emotional abuse at itsmost monstrous.

I'm a lawyer with an unusual specialty. Myclients are all children—damaged, hurting children who have beensexually assaulted, physically abused, starved, ignored, abandonedand every other lousy thing one human can do to another. Peoplewho know what I do always ask: "What is the worst case you everhandled?" When you're in a business where a baby who dies earlymay be the luckiest child in the family, there's no easy answer. But Ihave thought about it—I think about it every day. My answer isthat, of all the many forms of child abuse, emotional abuse may bethe cruelest and longest-lasting of all.

Emotional abuse is the systematic diminishment of another. It may beintentional or subconscious (or both), but it is always a course ofconduct, not a single event. It is designed to reduce a child'sself-concept to the point where the victim considers himselfunworthy—unworthy of respect, unworthy of friendship, unworthy of thenatural birthright of all children: love and protection.

Emotional abuse can be as deliberate as a gunshot: "You're fat. You're stupid. You're ugly."

Emotional abuse can be as random as the fallout from a nuclearexplosion. In matrimonial battles, for example, the children all toooften become the battlefield. I remember a young boy, barely into histeens, absently rubbing the fresh scars on his wrists. "It was the onlyway to make them all happy," he said. His mother and father were lockedin a bitter divorce battle, and each was demanding total loyalty andcommitment from the child.

Emotional abuse can be active. Vicious belittling: "You'll never bethe success your brother was." Deliberate humiliation: "You're sostupid. I'm ashamed you're my son."

It also can be passive, the emotional equivalent of child neglect—a sin of omission, true, but one no less destructive.

And it may be a combination of the two, which increases the negative effects geometrically.

Emotional abuse can be verbal or behavioral, active or passive,frequent or occasional. Regardless, it is often as painful as physicalassault. And, with rare exceptions, the pain lasts much longer. Aparent's love is so important to a child that withholding it can causea "failure to thrive" condition similar to that of children who havebeen denied adequate nutrition.

Even the natural solace of siblings is denied to those victims ofemotional abuse who have been designated as the family's "targetchild." The other children are quick to imitate their parents. Insteadof learning the qualities every child will need as an adult—empathy,nurturing and protectiveness—they learn the viciousness of a peckingorder. And so the cycle continues.

But whether as a deliberate target or an innocent bystander, theemotionally abused child inevitably struggles to "explain" the conductof his abusers—and ends up struggling for survival in a quicksand ofself-blame.

Emotional abuse is both the most pervasive and the least understoodform of child maltreatment. Its victims are often dismissed simplybecause their wounds are not visible. In an era in which freshdisclosures of unspeakable child abuse are everyday fare, the pain andtorment of those who experience "only" emotional abuse is oftentrivialized. We understand and accept that victims of physical orsexual abuse need both time and specialized treatment to heal. But whenit comes to emotional abuse, we are more likely to believe the victimswill "just get over it" when they become adults.

That assumption is dangerously wrong. Emotional abuse scars theheart and damages the soul. Like cancer, it does its most deadly workinternally. And, like cancer, it can metastasize if untreated.

When it comes to damage, there is no real difference betweenphysical, sexual and emotional abuse. All that distinguishes one fromthe other is the abuser's choice of weapons. I remember a woman, agrandmother whose abusers had long since died, telling me that time hadnot conquered her pain. "It wasn't just the incest," she said quietly."It was that he didn't love me. If he loved me, he couldn't have donethat to me."

But emotional abuse is unique because it is designed to make thevictim feel guilty. Emotional abuse is repetitive and eventuallycumulative behavior—very easy to imitate—and some victims laterperpetuate the cycle with their own children. Although most victimscourageously reject that response, their lives often are marked by adeep, pervasive sadness, a severely damaged self-concept and aninability to truly engage and bond with others.

Emotionally abused children grow up with significantly alteredperceptions so that they "see" behaviors—their own and others'—througha filter of distortion. Many emotionally abused children engage in alifelong drive for the approval (which they translate as "love") ofothers. So eager are they for love—and so convinced that they don'tdeserve it—that they are prime candidates for abuse within intimaterelationships.

The emotionally abused child can be heard inside every batteredwoman who insists: "It was my fault, really. I just seem to provoke himsomehow."

And the almost-inevitable failure of adult relationships reinforcesthat sense of unworthiness, compounding the felony, reverberatingthroughout the victim's life.

Emotional abuse conditions the child to expect abuse in later life.Emotional abuse is a time bomb, but its effects are rarely visible,because the emotionally abused tend to implode, turning the angeragainst themselves. And when someone is outwardly successful in mostareas of life, who looks within to see the hidden wounds?

Members of a therapy group may range widely in age, social class,ethnicity and occupation, but all display some form of self-destructiveconduct: obesity, drug addiction, anorexia, bulimia, domestic violence,child abuse, attempted suicide, self-mutilation, depression and fits ofrage. What brought them into treatment was their symptoms. But untilthey address the one thing that they have in common—a childhood ofemotional abuse—true recovery is impossible.

One of the goals of any child-protective effort is to "break thecycle" of abuse. We should not delude ourselves that we are winningthis battle simply because so few victims of emotional abuse becomeabusers themselves. Some emotionally abused children are programmed tofail so effectively that a part of their own personality "self-parents"by belittling and humiliating themselves.

The pain does not stop with adulthood. Indeed, for some, it worsens.I remember a young woman, an accomplished professional, charming andfriendly, well-liked by all who knew her. She told me she would neverhave children. "I'd always be afraid I would act like them," she said.

Unlike other forms of child abuse, emotional abuse is rarely deniedby those who practice it. In fact, many actively defend theirpsychological brutality, asserting that a childhood of emotional abusehelped their children to "toughen up." It is not enough for us torenounce the perverted notion that beating children produces goodcitizens—we must also renounce the lie that emotional abuse is good forchildren because it prepares them for a hard life in a tough world.I've met some individuals who were prepared for a hard life that way—Imet them while they were doing life.

The primary weapons of emotional abusers is the deliberateinfliction of guilt. They use guilt the same way a loan shark usesmoney: They don't want the "debt" paid off, because they live quitehappily on the "interest."

Because emotional abuse comes in so many forms (and so manydisguises), recognition is the key to effective response. For example,when allegations of child sexual abuse surface, it is a particularlyhideous form of emotional abuse to pressure the victim to recant,saying he or she is "hurting the family" by telling the truth. Andprecisely the same holds true when a child is pressured to sustain alie by a "loving" parent.

Emotional abuse requires no physical conduct whatsoever. In oneextraordinary case, a jury in Florida recognized the lethal potentialof emotional abuse by finding a mother guilty of child abuse inconnection with the suicide of her 17-year-old daughter, whom she hadforced to work as a nude dancer (and had lived off her earnings).

Another rarely understood form of emotional abuse makes victimsresponsible for their own abuse by demanding that they "understand" theperpetrator. Telling a 12-year-old girl that she was an "enabler" ofher own incest is emotional abuse at its most repulsive.

A particularly pernicious myth is that "healing requiresforgiveness" of the abuser. For the victim of emotional abuse, the mostviable form of help is self-help—and a victim handicapped bythe need to "forgive" the abuser is a handicapped helper indeed. Themost damaging mistake an emotional-abuse victim can make is to investin the "rehabilitation" of the abuser. Too often this becomes stillanother wish that didn't come true—and emotionally abused children willconclude that they deserve no better result.

The costs of emotional abuse cannot be measured by visible scars,but each victim loses some percentage of capacity. And that capacityremains lost so long as the victim is stuck in the cycle of"understanding" and "forgiveness." The abuser has no "right" toforgiveness—such blessings can only be earned. And although the damagewas done with words, true forgiveness can only be earned with deeds.

For those with an idealized notion of "family," the task of refusingto accept the blame for their own victimization is even more difficult.For such searchers, the key to freedom is always truth—the real truth,not the distorted, self-serving version served by the abuser.

Emotional abuse threatens to become a national illness. Thepopularity of nasty, mean-spirited, personal-attack cruelty that passesfor "entertainment" is but one example. If society is in the midst ofmoral and spiritual erosion, a "family" bedrocked on the emotionalabuse of its children will not hold the line. And the tide shows noimmediate signs of turning.

Effective treatment of emotional abusers depends on the motivationfor the original conduct, insight into the roots of such conduct andthe genuine desire to alter that conduct. For some abusers, seeing whatthey are doing to their child—or, better yet, feeling whatthey forced their child to feel—is enough to make them halt. Otherabusers need help with strategies to deal with their own stress so thatit doesn't overload onto their children.

But for some emotional abusers, rehabilitation is not possible. Forsuch people, manipulation is a way of life. They coldly anddeliberately set up a "family" system in which the child can nevermanage to "earn" the parent's love. In such situations, any emphasis on"healing the whole family" is doomed to failure.

If you are a victim of emotional abuse, there can be no self-help until you learn to self-reference.That means developing your own standards, deciding for yourself what"goodness" really is. Adopting the abuser's calculated labels—"You'recrazy. You're ungrateful. It didn't happen the way you say"—onlycontinues the cycle.

Adult survivors of emotional child abuse have only two life-choices:learn to self-reference or remain a victim. When your self-concept hasbeen shredded, when you have been deeply injured and made to feel theinjury was all your fault, when you look for approval to those who cannot or will not provide it—you play the role assigned to you by yourabusers.

It's time to stop playing that role, time to write your own script.Victims of emotional abuse carry the cure in their own hearts andsouls. Salvation means learning self-respect, earning the respect ofothers and making that respect the absolutely irreducible minimumrequirement for all intimate relationships. For the emotionally abusedchild, healing does come down to "forgiveness"—forgiveness of yourself.

How you forgive yourself is as individual as you are. But knowingyou deserve to be loved and respected and empowering yourself with acommitment to try is more than half the battle. Much more.

And it is never too soon—or too late—to start.

Andrew Vachss has been writing for Parade since 1985. In response to endless requests, we have collected all his past Parade articles here.