If a man does something deliberately nasty once a year to a child

[Oversensitiv]

Is that low level emotional abuse? If the rest of the time they mostly just ignore them or are a little snappy?

Of course it is as is the ignoring and snappiness. It is not low level. Keep the piece of shit away from the child and out the child first. Otherwise toy are complicit

That’s scant on info. But no one who’s horrible to a child should be around the child. Obviously.

Assuming the man is the child's father, then the ignoring thing is terrible too

What are they doing though? Once a year am assuming is their or someone else's birthday?

Sorry no it isn't a current child so no child is suffering now. This was my own situation as a child and I am wondering how much impact it had on self-confidence. Or if I am too oversensitive.

If you were routinely ignored and snapped at, even if the deliberate nastiness was very occasional I’d still call that other behaviour emotional abuse. It’s being deliberately unkind to a child. Hope you’re okay.

Oh no not a birthday. I meant on average it was one bad incident per year which isn't too often in the grand scheme of things.

If I think about the incidents they seem emotionally abusive but I think for it to be abuse there has to be a pattern of it happening much more often not a one off so it is confusing.

It doesn't have to regular to be abusive.

You may not want to say what it was, but if you do want to give an example people would be able to comment.

I doubt you are oversensitive.

If it still upsets you know after so many years then it can't have been very nice

It took me years to connect my lack of confidence to emotional abuse I suffered as a child because it was just my ‘normal’ so I never thought of it as abuse.

I don’t think it has to be frequent for it to be damaging. This is why LC doesn’t work with emotional abusers - you really have to go NC with them to protect yourself.

I think that if someone deliberately hurts you even once it’s difficult to ever feel safe with them. If it’s a parent, it’s takes effort to ever feel truly safe with anyone. Does that make sense?

I used to worry that the fact I had complex trauma issues from abuse that "only happened some of the times" and "wasn't that bad all of the time" meant I was making a mountain out of a molehill. But my therapist persuaded me to stay in therapy and reminded me that I had told her my abusive parent often told me I was exaggerating things and often belittled the things I told them.

I have come to find therapy very helpful and I'm glad I stayed. One thing that has become so clear to me now is that I was raised to doubt everything I believed about myself and others . And I was actually invalidating and gaslighting myself because that's all I had known.

sometimes the self doubt tries to attack me though, I make some huge steps forwards then it comes again. I've been finding myself struggling a bit this week.

My previous therapist in the place I was before told me "how much of the time did your father have to be abusive for it to be not ok? 30% of the time ? 20%? 10%? Abuse is abuse, no matter how often it happened. It is never ok and it always it leaves some damage. "

Once a year abuse isn't a one off, it's regular.

Sounds like long term neglect and cruelty to me.

I’m sorry you had to go through that 💐

read up on how our brains are formed in the first 5 years of life, the roles our primary caretakers play in that and how it all shapes who we are as human beings and had lasting life long effects. Of course being routinely ignored or snapped at will affect you all your life.

Ignoring and snapping is abusive too if it happens regularly as is being sworn at, by todays standards anyway. It probably wouldn't trigger any sort of official intervention but would meet the NSPCCs Emotional Abuse criteria.

The only acceptable amount of abusive behaviour is zero.

Ignoring alone is emotional abuse.

Anything else is just extra abuse.

I’m sorry you went through this.

Yes but all adults sometimes lose their shit with a child and that doesn't make them abusive?

Agreed, but your OP says “deliberately nasty” which is a whole other ball game.

He just had an explosive temper and when I was very little I remember being frozen and thinking I might die when I could hear him screaming with rage as he came up to my room.

Obviously I didn't die so that was just my child self being overdramatic?

It was normal for kids in the late 80's or early 90's to be genuinely frightened if they were in trouble wasn't it?

No

Definitely not frightened to that extent

Again, it’s the “deliberately nasty” that you need to clarify or give examples of

Yes that's a fair point.

It's actually quite confusing I understand losing your cool and exploding at a child now and again but I don't understand the more low key mean parts.

Both of them together well I just don't know why I brought out the worst in him.