Some of us were lucky enough to get both kinds!
this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2025
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Verbally abused children more likely to have poor mental health as adults, study finds
(www.theguardian.com)
It hurts me more than it hurts you!
I am doing this for your own good!
I honestly would have loved some kind of reasoning or explanation or even a platitude. Alright maybe not 'loved' but having a mentally ill parent I never knew what I actually did wrong to deserve being thrown to the ground and kicked and called stupid.
There is abuse due to poor upbringing of the parent.
And then there is torture.
Do both at the same time by getting your kids to go pick the switch (young, thin tree branch that’s still bendy) that they’re going to be whipped with!
-a huge portion of southern parents
Had a weeping willow tree in the front yard. Been there done that!
My mom would threaten to have my sibling pick the switch. Never actually did, but the threat was there. She told us that her parents would actually do it, implying we should be grateful she was a gentler parent.
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All boils down to chronic anxiety. Verbally abusing your kids raises their anxiety and stunts their development.
Similarly, children who are chronically bullied by their neighbors, perpetually harassed by the local police or mall security, abused by child care workers, or subject to an anxious environment (malnutrition, chronic illness, unreliable/impoverished caretakers, war-time violence and social conditions) develop poor mental health into adulthood.
On the flip side, adults who are sleep deprived, impoverished, overworked, subject to harassment from police or debt collectors, terrified by social panics and media-driven hysterias, and deprived of basic health care for themselves or those in their care will show more signs of their own stress and mental well-being. That can often manifest in a short temper, angry outbursts, fits of depression or anxious sobbing, and emotional neglect towards those around them.
Stabilize the life and well-being of the caregivers and you can often radically improve the quality of life of the children in their care.
Furthermore, the prevalence of physical abuse halved from about 20% among those born between 1950 and 1979 to 10% among participants born in or after 2000. However, for verbal abuse, the prevalence increased from 12% among those born before 1950 to about 20% among those born in 2000 or later.
“Any gains made in reducing physical abuse risk being undone by rising rates of verbal abuse. We must act now to confront the lasting harm caused by cruel, critical or controlling language. We need to build children up – not knock them down. The mental health of the next generation and our shared future depend on it.”
Both my parents were physically and mentally abusive. When I was around 16, I was too big for my mom to hurt me much, and I was almost on par with my dad, so them being physically violent was reduced, as it started to be consequential for them. Nothing ever stopped them from being cruel, manipulative, or spiteful to me.
I think it's a lot easier to justify to one's self that you aren't abusing someone when you aren't physically hurting them. They're "just words" after all. But when I wasn't being hit, it was mostly over. It still sucked that I knew I couldn't trust them, but without active physical assault, not much is going on. But when you tear into a person's conscious and subconscious, I always thought that stuff keeps hurting long after the action is done. I remember just a handful of times I was hurt physically really bad, but some of the hate and insults from 20-30 years ago still have effects on me from time to time.
I got help for my depression a few years back now, and have largely moved on, but what was done to me absolutely has left lifelong issues for me. All you others in this thread that have been through similar, I hope you're all at least doing alright today. None of us deserved what we got taken out on us.
I remember a speaker from when I was about 11-12 doing an assembly about the power of words. They used a metaphor of a plank of wood, and every insult is a hole drilled into it - it doesn't go away.
The intent was to reduce bullying, but I remember walking away thinking, "I must have nothing but wood shavings left over by now."
I'm sorry you went through what you did. Some things truly never leave you.
Kids really can go through a lot and everyone just acts like we have to move on. In a way that's true, as it's the only real option, but people that went through stuff didn't ask for it.
Me and my brother still don't get why our parents ever had us. We just got treated like big inconveniences and they fought with each other and just sucked us into their misery.
I'm as far past stuff as possible now, like in your analogy, what's done is done, and I'm better than I was at my worst, but it really grinds me and my brother that they will never acknowledge they should have been better for us. It's like, you did this to us, and while you can't fix it, you're still blaming us for not being what we could have, but you guys were the ones tearing us down our whole lives.
They get all upset when we go a long time without talking, but I say you didn't want us when we were there and needed you. Now we're on our own and you're upset you don't have a more inclusive role in our lives? We were forced to live without you, other than being scared of you, be glad you get this much.
Ugh, I forget what my point was, but I liked your story. 😂. Wood shavings gang unite!
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No shit
I wonder how much of this overlaps with Sunday sermons. Surely all those "you're going to hell" messages classify as verbal abuse in this case.
I would say absolutely yes. I went to a Pentecostal Baptist church as a child and the hellfire and brimstone messaging was very strong and scary.
The selfloathing and fear is still getting to me after 20 years. Christianity is a death cult and i am happy i got out.
Especially when your dad is delivering the sermons. I've heard.
Thankfully my dad was not a hellfire and brimstone pastor, unlike my uncle, whose kids almost all hate him.
My dad was, my brother followed in his footsteps, and I had two uncles who were pastors, too. Because fuck me, I guess.
Damn, god must've called on a partly line.
As I recall it, my Grandpa said God called him and he didn't pick up. I narrowly missed the "call," too.
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Well yeah, no shit, Sherlock. Abuse causes mental health problems. How is this news?
Because science isnt based on "A-duh-doy".
It’s for the boomers still in denial about how bad they fucked up their kids.
And everything else.
They ain't done either... Economic abuse is happening as we speak and it will continue for another 2 decades.
More so proof than shocking revelation, most likely.
Would visit my dad every other weekend and occasionally get a light smack on the back of the head and be called an idiot. Go "home" to a stepfather that wouldn't use my name, it was idiot, moron, jerk off, etc...
Now I work in a factory because I never felt I had the capacity to aim for anything and often "joke" about how Hitler had more redeeming qualities than I do.
Headline checks out. Lol
I relate to this. I didn’t have many people I could rely on growing up, though I didn’t recognize it at the time. It left me with a lot of doubt about myself and about others. I often wonder who I might’ve been if genuine human connection had come more naturally, if I hadn’t learned to see myself in such a harsh light.
Now I work in a factory because I never felt I had the capacity to aim for anything
Having no motivation is still my biggest drag on myself. I still don't feel I deserve things, and I feel I've lost a lot of the ability to really even want things, so if I can't set goals or have desires, it's hard to find that ambition. I used to have lots of dreams, but my parents pushed them out of me. My life now is...fine...but I don't know if it will ever be what young and innocent me would have wanted for me.
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I was lucky to get both physical and verbal abuse from my family, so I’m just a grown up mess now.
I am glad to see the studies come out that validate these experiences on a more empirical level.
I read a comment recently explaining that a child's nervous system cannot differentiate between pain or threat of pain inflicted due to discipline or pain or threat of pain inflicted due to abuse and honestly that changed something in my head. Like. It doesn't matter if the kid knows they have done something wrong and understands that there's a punishment as a result. The nervous system cannot tell the difference.
And then their kids grow up with parents that don't make a sound when they move around the house (developed skill to not be noticed and subsequently harassed/abused) and they develop hyper vigilance and have to try re-learn how to relax when living on their own.
Damn, that's me. I'm a big boy, but i move so silently that i scare the shit outta my wife on the regular when i appear next to her. i also cannot relax if i can't see all people and exits in the room. More than a one-on-one meeting sucks ass because the more people there are, the less i can keep a person under observation to make sure i'm safe from mood swings.
That's exhausting and so i just avoid it if possible. In public i am nothing without my noise cancelling headphones; worst experience i can have is a mess hall where everyone speaks because i just can't stop listening if someone's voice becomes threatening, so my mind tries to listen to a thousand conversations at once. I'd rather go hungry lol
My father never acknowledged what he did to me before he died; but i'm pretty sure he had similar issues and coped by drinking. I am very relaxed and a very social guy when drunk, so at least he serves as a warning for me to not rely on that crutch. he drank himself to death after everyone fled from his choleric drunkenness, i will not share the same fate.
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Can confirm
Can confirm.
Oooohh. That explains it.
Can confirm...
Another study to state the obvious!
Sometimes it is useful to document the obvious.
Very much this. Especially when you need to inoculate the public against far right propaganda that will soon become "common sense." Why should anybody be able to tell you how to raise your kid?
Parental Rights are Constitutionally Established and Deeply Rooted in the Supreme Law of the Land
If you're in the U.S. and don't know who AFPI is, you might want to look into them.
Oh yeah, well you're just like your father!
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That's why you ain't never gonna be shit, boy
I'll show you. I'm gonna be so much shit
Checking in ✋
I’m glad that verbal abuse is getting the spotlight it deserves, but we should include emotional abuse too. I’ve always heard about verbal about but not emotional abuse.
No way
"I don't gotta like ya, I just have to love ya."
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