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Original poster

'Emotional rape'

205 replies

Eckhart · 03/09/2019 16:54

I was emotionally abused a few years ago, and ended up quite a wreck. It took me a long time to get my head around what had happened, and the way I'd been treated, and, after a while, I allowed myself to call it 'emotional rape', as I felt fully emotionally violated.

When I told my recent partner what had happened, she told me she didn't want me to call it 'rape', as she had been physically raped in the past, and the word was not appropriate to describe any other circumstance.

I repeated to her that I'd said 'emotional rape', and that I was not under the impression that the two were the same, but she insisted that I was not to use that word in front of her. She told me it was correctly referred to as 'emotional abuse'.

Am I not supposed to decide for myself how to define what happened to me? Or is she reasonable in claiming the word to describe purely physical rape?

OP posts:
DontBuyANewMumCashmere · 03/09/2019 17:55

If someone financially abused you would you think it OK to tell a rape victim you'd been 'financially raped'?

I think the term is specific and it does you (and rape victims) a disservice for you to continue to use this phrase.

I'm sorry suffered abuse. Flowers

DontBuyANewMumCashmere · 03/09/2019 17:56

Sorry you suffered... Blush

TheCatInAHat · 03/09/2019 17:57

Flowers it sounds like you suffered horrible abuse, but it wasn’t rape and I can see why she was offended. I’m sure you wouldn’t have used that terminology if you’d known she had actually been raped.

Original poster
Eckhart · 03/09/2019 17:59

@yulet and others for acknowledging that it's not about the severity of the abuse, and yes, I've been having counselling. @Reallynowdear, I know it's not a competition. My whole point was that 'emotional rape' is not the same as 'physical rape'. Otherwise I wouldn't be specifying that it was emotional.

OP posts:
Original poster
Eckhart · 03/09/2019 18:03

@DontBuyANewMumCashmere no, but that's interesting because I've heard 'financial rape' referred to before. It's 'urban lingo' for something that REALLY shouldn't be described as rape. Good point.

OP posts:
YouJustDoYou · 03/09/2019 18:04

So are you saying because her rape was "many years ago", it's not as "valid" as your emotional abuse?

Rape is fucking soul destroyingly horrific. And that doesn't even begin to even partly describe what it does. You imply that because she was raped "years ago" it doesn't matter as much- for some of us, we remember every single detail. Decades later. And some of us have been emotionally abused too - I would nowhere near equate the two as being anywhere near the same.

MaggietheHorseThief · 03/09/2019 18:05

I think it's really important to only use the word rape when you are actually discussing rape. Otherwise not only is it triggering to victims, it's really disrespectful to those who have been raped. The word isn't there to just be shorthand for every bad thing that happens.

I think 'emotional abuse' is a more accurate and sensitive descriptor of your experiences. It isn't minimising it to call it what it is.

Newmumma83 · 03/09/2019 18:12

People can get stuck on the correct terms my husband is the same ... I get annoyed but he isn’t wrong so it’s a tough one to argue.

Absolutely it is upsetting that your partner was more concerned about correct wording than your upset at that time ... and absolutely the pain is more recent for you but technically you are doing the same with her ? Honestly I get where you are coming from emotionally and when you calm you will perhaps understand that your I a similar boat ... your concern is not that your partner is raped on here it’s about wording.

Honestly time for a nice takeaway ( I do solve most things with food it’s not great for the waist line ) a nice cup Of tea ... calm down and really hash it out , show interest in her pain and share your pain ... and heal together and support each other .. both abuses are so hard to heal from so build each other back up.

She should apologise in my eyes for jumping on that part of what you said to her but then you should also apologise for the wrong wording ... but move past that and be partners again x

Reallynowdear · 03/09/2019 18:12

That is why there are different words to describe different actions.

Rape is one awful thing, abuse is another awful thing.

We cant just use words as we chose to suit ourselves. I hope you can see I don't mean to be antagonistic.

Original poster
Eckhart · 03/09/2019 18:13

@YouJustDoYou No, I wasn't saying that. I don't doubt the effects of rape. I also don't doubt the effects of emotional abuse. I don't think it's a competition, or that anybody's experience is any more or less valid than anybody else's.

I'm sorry that you, and many of us, have been through any kind of abuse.

This is a terminology question, not a question of the validity of anyone's experience.

I think that part of why it upset me was that I was upset and opening up to her. I can see from this thread that I phrased it offensively. I'm not sure I would pick that exact moment to correct someone, though, myself.

OP posts:
BogglesGoggles · 03/09/2019 18:16

It’s offensive to compare it to rape. Why not emotional assault. Still communicates the sense of violation without minimising rape.

Original poster
Eckhart · 03/09/2019 18:21

@Newmumma83 Thank you for recognising that correcting somebody's wording when they are upset is not great. I appreciate that.

I also appreciate that I was using the wrong term. I'm a bit shocked because I've seen it used so much, but I won't use it again.

I was destroyed by what happened to me. 'Emotional abuse' doesn't seem strong enough, somehow.

OP posts:
Original poster
Eckhart · 03/09/2019 18:24

@BogglesGoggles I think 'assault' feels a bit like a single event, but I agree there needs to be something that linguistically differentiates someone being a bit controlling/gaslighty and someone who is systematically ruining another persons life.

OP posts:
Dinosauratemydaffodils · 03/09/2019 18:28

I've always been a big believer in people choosing their own terms but I've had a similar issue with a friend over the phrase "birth rape". I tried to be understanding but I realised that I did find that offensive, what she went through was traumatic, just like I imagine what you went through OP was also traumatic but it was still different to what I went through when I was raped. Those 3 things are not the same and I'm not sure it helps any of us to link them.

Her physical abuse was many many years ago.

That stood out to me for a couple of reasons.

A. time doesn't always help. I was raped over 20 years ago. I still have nightmares, my only "memory" of my 1st child's delivery was reliving said rape on the operating table and I'm a shadow of the person I could have been.

B. Rape isn't just physical, it also has an emotional effect which is possibly where her issues with you using that phase stems from. You can't separate the two. It can redefine who you are forever. He made me feel worthless and every time I have to tell someone (new dr for example) when I see that look of pity of on their faces, it's as if they are seeing me through his eyes. Nothing I've ever done since, not my Masters, not the degree I'm currently studying for, not the friends, the travel, the jobs, the "successes" has ever managed to do undo that sense of being lesser.

Physical rape isn't just physical rape and that's where I think my issue lies. Adding "physical" dimimishes the experience of women who have been raped as it only focuses on the damage to the body not the mind. My bruises healed along time ago, my mental wounds are still wide open and from her response, I'd say the same is probably true of your partner.

Would I have corrected your wording, possibly and not necessarily intentionally either. As I found out when my friend brought up "birth rape" I have a bit of a knee jerk reaction to things relating to rape.

Original poster
Eckhart · 03/09/2019 18:29

@TheBatsHaveLeftTheBellTower I didn't mean to trivialise anything. I don't understand how I have, unless you are saying that emotional abuse is trivial when compared to physical rape?

OP posts:
Sagradafamiliar · 03/09/2019 18:33

I agree with your partner. The word you're looking for is abuse, severe abuse maybe. Not rape.

Original poster
Eckhart · 03/09/2019 18:38

@Raphael34 If you are describing 'emotional abuse' as 'being made upset', you are not understanding emotional abuse.

OP posts:
Original poster
Eckhart · 03/09/2019 18:48

Thank you @Dinosauratemydaffodils, it can't have been easy to write that post or to be going through what you're going through.

A lot of what you said about being re-defined by the experience is true for purely emotional abuse too.

I think I phrased the 'many years ago' wrongly. I was trying to get across that I was openly upset and trying to share something hard with her, whilst she was calm and settled - it wasn't meant to sound like 'she should be over it by now'.

OP posts:
vanillaicedtea · 03/09/2019 18:57

I think 'emotional abuse' is strong enough to describe what happened to you. Because that's exactly what happened. You could most definitely call it severe emotional abuse or similar, but I think it's important to use the term emotional abuse because it's factual.

As plenty of posters have pointed out on this thread, rape has a completely different definition. It is important that everyone who has gone through and survived rape has that factual word to describe their experience. Rape, like emotional abuse, has different 'levels'. However, even as someone who was raped a few years ago, it isn't my place to say that someone being raped by their partner (which is what happened to me), is or isn't as bad as someone who was raped by a stranger.

Likewise, it isn't for you to compare 'gas lighting' and what happened to you, and say what is worse. Someone with other issues and compromised MH very well may find gas lighting to be what pushes them over the edge, with others, they could brush gas lighting off.

PS: I didn't appreciate your comment about the time frame of your partner's rape. I found that tasteless. Some things will never leave you, no matter how long it's been, and to brush it off as happening "ages ago", doesn't paint you in a good light. It's almost as if you want to come out as the worse off party when you say stuff like that. I hope that wasn't your intention. Rape is horrendous and it should never, ever be trivialised.

SoloNow · 03/09/2019 18:59

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Reallynowdear · 03/09/2019 19:05

I think that is the problem op, you don't seem to understand what you have done.

It seems you are continually trying to compare emotional abuse to rape.

The two are not comparable.

Bananaboy9 · 03/09/2019 19:14

Your partner has been through worse than you and I think you’re struggling to let go of your monopoly on trauma.

Original poster
Eckhart · 03/09/2019 19:17

@vanillaicedtea I did phrase the time frame thing badly, as I said in a pp. I wasn't brushing anything off or trivialising.

I didn't think that 'rape' (sexual - I'm not using it in any other way now) defined many different levels of thing. It's got a one sentence definition.

'Emotional abuse' has a massive definition and lots of degrees of 'did it happen or not?' and 'did it just happen again?'

I'm not trying to compare anyone's experiences (except perhaps myself experiencing a bit of gaslighting compared to myself experiencing serious emotional abuse - there's a difference), and I understand that everybody experiences things differently.

I think in using the word 'rape' incorrectly for what happened to me, I was looking for a word to convey extreme severity and deliberate destructiveness.

OP posts:
Actionhasmagic · 03/09/2019 19:20

Sorry that happened to you. I was emotionally abused and took years to recover. I think I wouldn’t use that word to describe though

Poochandmutt · 03/09/2019 19:23

Why on earth would you call it that knowing yr dp was raped ..are you deliberately trying to hurt her

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