Read How Emotional Abuse Can Damage Your Mental Health | Emotional Abuse Impact on Mental Health.
Most of us still don’t take Mental and emotional issues seriously. but we need to understand, mental health is more like physical health. It is commonly believed that while sticks and stones can break your bones, words can’t hurt you.
There are many people out there who Believe on this phrase. but science doesn’t approve this. While physical abuse is obvious, how do you notice emotional abuse? Emotional abuse is like thin air, we can’t see it. but it can be dangerous and even deadly.
Emotional abuse can harm the structure of your brain. The hippocampus shrinks in victims who are subjected to persistent emotional abuse. hippocampus is a brain area that is crucial for learning. The hippocampus is vital for both short-term memory and learning. The first step is to retain short-term memory. every information in your brain is first stored in short-term memory before being converted to permanent memory or discarded. There can be no learning without short-term memory.
This hippocampal damage is even more distressing than scientists originally imagined. When you are stressed, your body produces cortisol, a stress hormone. according to a research Cortisol affects the neurons in the hippocampus, causing it to shrink in size. As a result, the more stressed you are, the more cortisol is released and the hippocampus shrinks.
The amygdala is another area of the brain that is altered by emotional abuse. Emotional abuse victims can be seen anxious and fearful all of the time. This is due to the swelling of their amygdala caused by long-term emotional abuse. Your respiration and heart rate are controlled by this area of the brain. It’s also your emotional control centre, deciding how you deal with emotions like love, lust, hate, and fear. When a person is emotionally abused, their amygdala is always on high alert and reacts to even the smallest evidence of abuse.
As a result, the victims are always in a fight or flight situation. This is also why some people find it difficult to leave an emotionally abusive relationship. Embarrassment, shouting, and name-calling are just as harmful to the brain as physical abuse, especially in children’s developing brains.
Researchers discovered a loss of connection between the right and left sides of the brain in young, healthy people who had been bullied in their teenage. Failure to build these brain connections raises the likelihood of anxiety, depression, rage, hostility, dissociation, and drug dependence later in life. A person’s brain goes into survival mode when they are emotionally assaulted.
To avoid overload, the brain tries to protect itself by rerouting high amounts of stress and pain. People who have been emotionally abused have reduced brain areas that are critical for cognition and behavior, and this has long-term consequences.
As a result, individuals are unable to respond in a healthy manner even after a threat or distressing circumstance is no longer present. People who are in abusive relationships are physically and emotionally exhausted all of the time. Because their brain is continuously on alert, all of their energy is consumed, so while words don’t immediately leave marks like sticks or stones, the science shows that the way we treat each other on an emotional level can have far longer-lasting impacts than a broken bone.
So Next Time, think deep before hurting anyone. mentally and emotionally.
