An Example of a Subtle, but Powerful Emotional Abuse

The following statement was the first part of a message written by my sister to our younger brother, whom I will refer to as M. And my sister also texted a copy of it to me.)

"[M], I must tell you that Dad cried his heart out after he got off the phone from you, because he saw right through it and he saw exactly who and what you are. And it broke his heart..."

1. The parts of this statement which say, "Dad cried his heart out" and "it broke his heart" are exaggerated (or possibly completely fabricated) just to make my brother feel guilty. Its a mean guilt trip. Since my father is not an emotional type of person, it is doubtful that he even cried at all, especially not in front of them. But if he did, his heart was surely not "broken" to that degree, no matter what happened in the conversation with my brother. And I know that my brother was actually on his best behavior and did nothing horrible during that conversation... So, this part of this statement was definitely an intentionally mean guilt trip.

2. The part that says "he saw right through it and he saw exactly who and what you are," is the equivalent of saying 'You are a rotten person and your father thinks you are a rotten person.' This is one of the more subtle forms of BOTH of my sister's life long habits of trying to convince the rest of us that our parents do not love us and do not approve of us, which is VERY abusive. This is also a manipulative attempt to sabotage the relationship between my father and brother; The normal reaction to this sort of statement would be for my brother to feel hurt and betrayed by our father; hurt because his own father thinks so badly of him that he would be "crying his heart out,"... and betrayed because it implies that his father was bashing him with our sisters, instead of talking to him about a problem between them.
   This statement is also emotional abuse, because it intentionally inflicts emotional pain; inside most people is a yearning to be loved and approved of by our parents, and when we are convinced that our father or mother do not love us or do not approve of us, it DEEPLY hurts us in ways that have life-long ill effects.

3. The fact that the message was also texted to me, shows a VERY obvious attempt to make me think badly of my brother. I told them that I did not want to receive their attacks against my bother or anyone else and slammed a door in their face...and rightfully so.

Sadly, most victims of this sort of abuse believe things that people like my sister's say, because its hard for an honest and caring person to even fathom anyone performing such deceitful and cruel manipulations or such mean aims to inflict emotional pain. We often do not realize what is being done to us and our relationships until some kind and aware person points it out to us.
   Subtle forms of abuse actually have a worse impact than the blatantly obvious forms; We can more easily blow off someone angrily degrading us, because our defenses go up in the face of obvious attacks. But calm and subtle manipulative attacks like these tend to cut much deeper, because they hit us when our guards are down, and because we often do not even realize that we are being manipulated by someone who has ill intentions. Subtle manipulative verbal abuse is far more hurtful than blatantly obvious abuse, and it can be devastatingly harmful when the aim is to sabotage relationships between parents and children.