Suffering persistent verbal abuse as a child can affect you very deeply.
Often, you react based on your own painful experiences and you are likely not even aware that you are doing it.
As a child when you go through verbal abuse—for example your mother repeatedly shouting and verbally abusing you—it marks you. Out of that hurt, you make a decision for yourself, like: "I hate you" or "I will never be like you".
The Outcome of the Reactive Patterns of Childhood Verbal Abuse
By the time you are an adult, this mindset has become completely integrated, and you will act on it as your righteous reality.
When you have your own children, for example, you might find it hard to set boundaries or give them direction out of a fear that you will repeat your mother’s verbally abusive behavior. It is a reactive pattern that will play itself out from going from one extreme, abuse, to another extreme, neglect, which can be equally harmful.
How Awareness Creates Potential for Change
Either extreme will do damage in some manner or another. Bringing awareness to these patterns and the underlying pain gives you the opportunity to find the middle ground of neither too much nor too little.
Do you recognize some of these above-described patterns? Leave your comment below.