Emotional Abuse is About Violations of Humanity and Dignity

A woman was recently sentenced to 6 years in prison for 2 counts of child abuse.

The woman and her husband had locked their (step) children in small rooms and starved them. The judge who sentenced the woman believed that the woman treated the children like animals and deprived them of their humanity and dignity. The woman was also accused of using humiliation tactics in her abuse. On the other hand, the accused’s side was a parade of people who begged for the judge’s mercy and said that the woman was a loving individual.

The victims’ lawyers summed up the heart of the case as follows:

“The evidence bore out that she is a step-monster,” Schroeder said, referencing a term Wilson used to describe herself to the children’s school teachers. “She has shown no remorse, and she continues to portray the children as the culprits. She’s being punished because the children made her do it.”

You may draw parallels between emotional abusers and sexual offenders. We often have an image of what abusers should look like: monsters with dark ugly faces and disheveled appearances or ogres with warts at the ends of their noses. Yet tmost abusers look normal and kind and like neighbors next door to whom you would entrust your babies.

That’s why abusers are so dangerous. These are otherwise regular and nice human beings – at least they are nice to most and dangerous to their victims.