This post is an excerpt from The Possibility Contract
Intellectual abuse is the systematic manipulation of a person's emotions, self-worth, and mental well-being. Unlike physical abuse, it leaves no visible scars but can have profound and lasting effects on a person's mental health. Intellectual abuse takes various forms, including constant criticism, humiliation, belittling, gaslighting, and manipulation. Criticism in intellectual abuse can be relentless and unjustified, slowly destroying a person’s confidence. Gaslighting makes another person doubt their perception, memory, or sanity. Emotional manipulation tactics—such as guilt-tripping, playing mind games, or the silent treatment—are rampant.
I had a client, Willing Wife, who expressed this sentiment to me. She had been married more than 25 years to Hangover Hubby. But he had a big, ugly secret. He was determined she would never find out. So Hangover Hubby would behave in ways that left Willing Wife feeling confused.
Hangover Hubby was concealing an addiction. He was going through all of the motions to make Willing Wife and everyone else believe that he was maintaining sobriety. She would ask him questions about behaviors. Then he would lie, shrug her concerns away, and leave her feeling lost. Hangover Hubby even began calling Willing Wife “the 12-steps police” in his efforts to shake her off his trail. She began thinking she was “doing too much.” But then, she was finally confronted with evidence of his addiction she simply could not explain away with the convenient familiarity of his false testimony.
One day, while transporting their sfour year-old son to a sporting event, Hangover Hubby fell asleep at the wheel. He was suddenly awakened when he made impact with a guardrail. The police officer who was just about to pull him over for erratic driving witnessed the whole thing. Hangover Hubby was sloppy drunk, but the child was unscathed in his booster seat.
When Willing Wife found out, she could no longer deny what her gut was telling her. She gave her husband space to finally come clean and tell her how long he had been boozing. Her world was completely turned inside out when he admitted he had not only been drinking, but also taking recreational drugs for several years. He went through great pains to hide it. But all of his chickens had finally come home to roost.
When we began working with this couple to mediate and renegotiate their relationship for moving forward, we discovered an unhealed pattern (contract) for the wife. Her mother had also remained married to an alcoholic for decades. As a little girl, Willing Wife learned how to retreat within herself and to tell herself “everything is okay.” Willing Wife hated her mother for never doing anything about Drunk Dad. And now, decades later, Willing Wife was faced with the reality that she had actually been living in the same exact type of contractual arrangement with Hangover Hubby.
Mental or intellectual abuse of this type reinforces the idea that you should not trust yourself. The person seeking to maintain the benefit of the relationship without the necessary consideration to share value for your connection knows that you do not trust yourself and are willing to delegate your trust to them.
In Handbook to Higher Consciousness, Ken Keyes Jr. addresses the boundary between past trauma and present responsibility[i]:
“You are not responsible for the programming you received in childhood. However, as an adult, you are one hundred percent responsible for fixing it.”
The good news is that you have the power to set boundaries and safeguard yourself from mental abuse. You have the power to recognize the signs of manipulation and break free. For many people, they condition their own healing on whether or not the abuser will change. My encouragement and wisdom is to assume the other person may never change—and to realize you are not responsible for changing them.
In my book, I teach you how to spot the hidden contracts underlying relationship dysfunction, neglect and abuse. When you approach your relationships with the power and authority of your rights under contract law, you can finally terminate toxic cycles that have been holding you back from experiencing the life you have been dreaming of.
Get your copy of The Possibility Contract today. https://lawforlove.com/possibility-contract
Be blessed and encouraged,
Sherlyn "Char" Selassie, Esq.
Founder, Law for Love
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