克里斯汀·米尔斯特德，《人际关系中的言语虐待》一书的作者

我是言语和情感虐待的受害者。
直到最近我才知道有这么个东西。
我读了你在《健康之地》上的几篇文章，它们实际上让我感觉好多了——不管有多少女性经历过这种事，受害者仍然会感到孤独。好像没人能真正理解我的感受。
我很高兴谷歌在我寻找帮助的时候提供了这个网站。我没有朋友了，他把他们都赶走了。我是说，他并没有让他们离开，但他霸占了我的时间以至于他们都不想和我在一起了。相反，他一直试图让我和他朋友的女朋友做朋友，因为我真的感觉不到和那些女人有什么联系，我只是有点习惯了没有朋友。

我是言语虐待的受害者。这不是几个月发生的事情，而是几年来慢慢发生的。我和高中时的恋人在一起25年了。和他结婚的最后十七年。我的故事可以被拍成恐怖电影。除了比我大17岁的同父异母哥哥外，我是家里唯一的孩子。在我七岁之前，生活一直很美好。我哥哥死于一场事故。我的母亲被悲伤摧毁了，我在情感上失去了她。她把所有的爱和关注都倾注在我两岁的侄女身上。 She quit speaking to me with her soft loving voice, that was reserved only for my niece. From then on my mother was a very angry person and very negative. My father thru all this kept quiet and started drinking more. As a child I felt more in the way, unwanted. So I spent most of my time at my bestfriend’s home. Her mother would tuck us in at night and kiss our foreheads. The first time made me cry. Oh how I wished my mom would love me again.
快进到我的高中时代。事实上，我在上小学的时候就遇到了我未来的丈夫。我们做了很短一段时间的男女朋友。然后我开始上高中我们又开始见面了。他要去参军，并将以普通教育水平(GED)证书结束学业。我就知道我会非常想念他。但我没有意识到有多深。我身体生病了，我错过了很多课。我找到了爱，但它却又离开了我。我现在看得很清楚了。 A young girl that needed to feel loved. We broke up two years later when he married a philipino woman 8 years older than him. After crying my heart out for a few days I got angry. Any boy that looked my way I would destroy. It took a year to smile again. Another two years later he was discharged from the service. She did not come with him, she had caught the eye of an officer. I was dropping off his little sister, who also hung out at my best friends, at her parents home. He walked to the door and I was shocked at how thin and pale he was. I heard he had some type of break down, but never heard anything more about it. When I was nineteen we moved in together. He was always “protective” and didn’t want me around certain people. I thought it was because he loved me so much. We did everything together. I could visit my girlfriends for a couple hours but be home before dark. “So he wouldn’t worry”! He’d come into the store I worked at to take me on breaks all the time. He knew when my breaks would be, my lunches, back then he kept me on a short rope. I still didn’t see it. I thought it had everything to do with love. He was in charge of our finances, all of them. His logic to me was, if there was a mistake we’d know who to blame. He did everything, I mean everything except laundry, and dishes. He cooked, grocery shopped every Sunday morning while I slept in. He always got up early. Sounds like I was a princess. There is a dark side to this story. If he was upset over anything I’d become his whipping post. Once I was making a stew just the way mom made it. He got home from work, grabbed the ketchup bottle and squeezed half of it in my stew then tasted it. Through the spoon down and said, “tastes like shit”! Stormed out of our apartment. I was devastated, what did I do? Why would he treat me this way? There were numerous times like this sped out through the seven years we lived together. So it didn’t seem like it was anything bad. Then we got married. I got pregnant six months after the wedding . He pampered me, over fed me, but would still lose his temper from time to time. Usually over something stupid. When Sara was born, he was a very proud dad. As she grew I noticed I was in charge of the diaper changing and he was setting all the rules. He started telling me, “Don’t think honey, it just gets you in trouble”. He had a job where it was flexible enough for him to make it to all her school functions, while mine wasn’t so easy. He just took over. I never knew what was going on. He slowly started talking down to me. Started jokingly, then got meaner and meaner. Our daughter watching all this as she grew up. While she was little she loved her mommy. But after starting school and the older she got the further she drifted from me. Now I know why! We moved out to my mothers property so I could take care of mom. She deeded everything to me so we could get a loan on a new modular. He knew I was paranoid about getting in over our heads and losing the place where I grew up. He reassured me nothing like that would happen, yeah right. Our daughter wouldn’t do the dishes one night when I asked her to so I grounded her, she was 13. When he got home from work he asked why I was doing them and I told him. She came out of her room and was standing there while I told him I grounded her. He started laughing and looked at her and said, “honey you don’t have to listen to your mother.” I never could recover any authority with her after that. I questioned what was my purpose in this life. I had no voice, I had to ask before I did anything. He found something wrong with everything I did. I had no self esteem, or self worth, I was nothing. The doctor put me on two different antidepressants that helped a little. I excelled at my jobs. I only had three during our twenty five years together. I asked him once why he thought I did everything wrong when I was very efficient at work. They kept training me to do more and more . ( I worked for a doctor.). He told me I was one of those people that just wasn’t good at taking care of family and home. He also told me over and over I was lucky to have him because no one else would ever love me. I remember there was a time I stuttered for awhile during one of his long relentless rages that went on for days. He’d be angry when he’d get home from work and inform me I was going to have a bad weekend. I’d just start crying.
现在人们说，你为什么不离开他?恐惧，我不受控制，他是主人，我是奴隶。他会威胁要离开我，然后告诉我我会失去一切，流落街头。然后我哭着睡着，醒来时眼睛肿得几乎闭上了。他会在水槽里装满冷水，然后往里面加冰块。温柔地和我说话，不要道歉，告诉我他改变主意了他不会离开我。我知道这听起来很疯狂，但我以为我爱他，我真的爱他。但我觉得没有他我一个人活不下去。他必须在那里告诉我该怎么做。
他决定在伊拉克战区中部的一家承包公司找份工作。他会喷洒杀虫剂消灭携带疾病的白蛉。当他在那里的时候，事情迅速升级成了他让我经历过的最糟糕的地狱。他每天晚上7点给我打电话。我最好在那里回答。他会让我热泪盈眶，告诉我如果他在那里被杀了，那是我的错。一天晚上，我失去了理智，开始尖叫回去，但我没有这样做。他打给我的每件事我都同意，告诉他没有我他会过得更好，所以我再也不会打扰他，也不会跟他说再见。我好几天都不接电话。他的一个老同事过来问我是否还好。 My husband had called him. So we started talking again a little. But he started it again. This time I did quit talking to him. He was due to fly home i just had surgery and when he got there I told him to leave. I was numb. Something inside of me broke. A week later he came home to stay and I noticed he was shaking all over and asked where his gun was at. I told him it was put up and safe. He insisted on seeing it, that’s when I left. I stayed at a friends house. He tried to get me alone one night there at the house on a Saturday. He had our mattresses outside set up and made up with my sheets and blankets doused in lighter fluid then covered with a tarp so it didn’t evaporate before he could light them. He had a plane ticket already bought to fly to Puerto Rico to visit his mom and sister scheduled the next morning for the first flight out. That airport he left from was three hours drive away. I know in my heart I would have died that night. Two weeks later he committed suicide. His suicide notes he left blamed me for everything. Said to save his daughter from me, and that I was buried in debt. Made it sound like I was the bully. I was 44 years old at the time. Never dreamed I’d be a widow at 44. I was so lost for over two years until I slowly, very slowly started to have a clear mind. The things I learned after his death were hard to deal with. Other women, not just one or two. So many lies. I am now 56 and I will never remarry. I still suffer from issues he has scared me with. There is so much more to my story, this is just the tip of the iceberg. He came back from Iraq mentally unstable. Outside of our home everyone thought he was such a wonderful guy, but those that were close to him knew. He used to joke about me being his whipping post, saying, “We always get over it”! We? I never got over it. These wounds go deep. It was a gradual progression into hell over twenty five years. So, yes I do feel I am a victim of emotional verbal abuse.
谢谢大家的聆听。对不起，这么长时间。