The name of this website was inspired by the brilliant “You Carry the Cure in Your Heart” Parade Magazine essay by lawyer, author, and child advocate Andrew Vachss.
Emotional abuse is both the most pervasive and the least understood form of child maltreatment. Its victims are often dismissed simply because their wounds are not visible. In an era in which fresh disclosures of unspeakable child abuse are everyday fare, the pain and torment of those who experience ‘only’ emotional abuse is often trivialized. We understand and accept that victims of physical or sexual abuse need both time and specialized treatment to heal. But when it comes to emotional abuse, we are more likely to believe the victims will ‘just get over it’ when they become adults.
That assumption is dangerously wrong. Emotional abuse scars the heart and damages the soul. Like cancer, it does its most deadly work internally.”
The Invisible Scar 
Reading this quote made me tear up instantly. After all these years of being speechless behind uncountably many words – the paradox of so many authors and journalists with wounded souls who discovered reading and writing as a way to survive somehow – I feel understood, finally, and somehow embraced by human beings who do believe me, us, and have what I have not experienced so far: empathy and the wish/ability to listen/understand/feel for another person… thank you. That means the world to me to read this today…
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I’m a survivor of all forms of abuse including emotional. I agree emotional abuse is just as bad. Thanks for raising awareness.
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Both my parents were narcissistic abusers. What was worse, both parents were psychologists, oh the games and experiments all on my behalf.
I can’t ever figure out who was worse, I’m leaning towards my mother because I have a particular dislike to being around woman. I prefer the company of men (not talking sexually). Even then I watch and study them like a hawk, waiting for the wrong move. It doesn’t take much, a word, a gesture, an innuendo. No discussion required, I phase them out of my life I no longer feel like communicating with them. They become basic and uninteresting.
Finally while growing up, my friends would say, “oh I wish my Mom like yours.” She was ever the chameleon, one act for this group, one for that, and on. But behind closed doors it was a full on assault on my character, tear me down, humiliate me, punish me for signing after she was through. Horrible woman and weak father.
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