By now, you’ve probably listened to the recordings that allegedly have Mel Gibson spewing verbal tirades against former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva. Some have called it verbal abuse. According to Joan Gold, a Berkeley marriage and family therapist, Gibson used his violent and often racist words like weapons, with an intent to do harm.
To better understand, we asked Gold about the impact words can have.
Q:How do you define verbal abuse? Is it the same as emotional abuse?
A: Verbal and emotional abuse undermine self-esteem and there are many ways they overlap. I think of emotional abuse as more subtle. It is really about an abuse of power that shows up in things like devaluing, undermining and coercive behaviors.
Verbal abuse is more direct — it’s about using words to control, debase and ultimately destroy the inner world of another human being. This is usually an unconscious process. People abuse who were abused. It’s a learned behavior.
Q: Some people grow up with put downs and say it doesn’t bother them.
A: People who grow up in this kind of poisonous stew may have consciously “adapted” but frequent put-downs can have long lasting effects.
I talk to people every day whose sense of themselves and their ability to function in the world has been severely undermined. Smart women who grow up believing they’re stupid. Men and women of all backgrounds who feel doomed to fail, who lack energy, purpose or joy.
Q: What do you say to folks who claim it is not as serious or hurtful as physical abuse?
A: Actually, it can be even more serious. Physical abuse can be named and defended against. You can get a restraining order. Ugly, hate-filled words from people who purport to love us are insidious. They worm themselves into our delicate consciousness and live there forever, making our choices for us and cutting short our dreams.
Q: What about the idea of the victim provoking their abuser, like naysayers have claimed that about Oksana Grigorieva?
A: There is no justification for abuse. “I was provoked” is a common defense. But it’s like using a sledgehammer to hang a picture. It is not necessary to deliberately destroy a person’s sense of self in order to let them know you are angry.
What kind of provocation calls for annihilation? When you examine it closely, this is illogical and that is a hallmark of abusers.
Q: What are you supposed to do if you are a victim of verbal abuse? How do you prevent it from becoming a pattern?
A: A healthy sense of self and good boundaries are the best ways to stop yourself from becoming a victim of any kind of abuse. You need to be able to speak up from the beginning; if you are the sort of person who will not tolerate disrespectful behavior, potential abusers will soon learn to look elsewhere.
However, left unchallenged, verbal abuse almost always becomes a pattern over time.
Q: Is there a correlation between verbal abuse and physical or sexual abuse?
A: Unchecked verbal abuse can often escalate into physical abuse. As the victim’s dependency increases, so does the abuser’s need for power and control.
Q: A lot of people say “If this happened to me, I’d leave,” but in reality many don’t. Why is this?
A: I think of it as the frog-in-the-pot syndrome. Try to put a frog in a pot of boiling water and it will immediately jump out. Put a frog in a pot of cold water, then slowly turn the temperature up and it will sit there and boil to death.
There is a lot of testing that goes on in abusive relationships. If the person doesn’t protest from the start, the abuse increases. Financial or emotional dependency, like being isolated and cut off from resources, often adds to the difficulties of leaving an abusive relationship.
Q: Can a relationship be saved?
A: The only way an abusive relationship can be saved is if both parties are willing to step out of denial and actively seek professional help. This rarely happens, so the response to this question has traditionally been “once an abuser, always an abuser.” But the profession has learned a lot about intimate partner abuse over the years. There is always hope.
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