Verbal abuse, a definition of which can be found here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbal_abuse
I grew up with it, surrounded by it, both parents were regularly verbally abusive towards me, as were my two younger brothers, and having grown up in such an environment, I’m sure that I’ve been so too, because, within reason, it falls within the range of what can be considered “normal” human behaviour.
But I was frequently the main victim of it, and continue to be, but it’s the intensity and prolonged nature that is no longer “normal”.
I had a bad stutter as a child, and I regularly had to endue my father and brothers making fun of me about it, sat there in the evenings together:
“Tttttt, mmmmmm, nnnnn, kkkkk …”
while my mother rolled around in uncontrollable tears of laughter:
“It’s only a bit of fun Andrew, don’t take it so seriously”
It wasn’t fun for me though, that stutter has been the bane of my life, and although the stutter is now largely gone, the abuse has evolved to reflect the changing conditions, taken on different forms, continuing to this day.
“Haha you are a sad old man Andrew with no (one) to care for you. The only way you make anyone turn the rock you hide underneath, is to pinch their feet. You are powerless, the ramblings of (a) deranged man …”
This is just the latest example in a series of abusive Facebook messages I have received, but this time from a nephew, who, after sending it, blocked my account, and therefore my ability to reply – like a digital version of that old children’s favourite game “knock down ginger”.
The author, Archibald Kirkwood, someone who believes himself to have an above average social conscience, the man who once posted on Facebook his musings about how men in their 50’s and 60’s are increasingly becoming marginalised, social outcasts, and often die alone, mainly because their families stop communicating with them, and yet here is this same person creating the very problem he is berating everyone else about.
What a colossal hypocrite.
Well, I’ve had enough of it, and have decided to redress the balance, in the hope that others may become aware of the nature of prolonged abusive behaviour, and the wholly destructive effects it has on relationships.