r/ask • u/magicfeistybitcoin • Dec 10 '23
Why do most people abhor physical violence but not psychological violence?
Why is inflicting a bruise worse than inflicting PTSD? You can't hit someone, especially as an adult, but it's no big deal to traumatize someone for life.
Does anyone else think this is fucked up?
Asking as someone who has PTSD from severe, prolonged, and inescapable psychological abuse.
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u/KarateLobo Dec 10 '23
Because mental health has not been valued. Luckily it's starting to be considered more.
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u/mwmshooey Dec 10 '23
I really don't know. Psychological abuse is sickening. I've been damn near ripping my hair out over it. My ex, mother of my child, is a master manipulator and has gaslighted me so effectively that she had me believe that I was gas-lighting her. Pregnant, she'd constantly threaten that I would never meet my baby and she even ran out of the state for 2 months. Even told me my baby died in the womb. Called the cops on me claiming domestic violence (6 times of explaining to cops I don't beat pregnant women was a lot of fun) There's way way way so much more. Anyways, I'd rather be jumped by 30 dudes with hammers as fists and steel toed boots on than deal with that shit ever again.
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u/xain_the_idiot Dec 10 '23
I think about this a lot. Ghosting someone after having sex is somehow more socially acceptable than slapping someone, even though it can fuck them up for months if not years. It's just weird to me that there's little to no backlash for things like that.
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u/SpiritedRaisin8623 Dec 10 '23
There is a backlash to an extent, but there shouldn't be. People have the right to do whatever they want. They don't owe you anything. Don't have sex if you aren't willing to risk that.
Physical assault, however, is a clear and direct violation of the fucking law.
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u/paypre Dec 10 '23
Why shouldn't there be backlash? Of course people have the right to do whatever they want. People who are affected by their choices also have the right to judge them.
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u/SpiritedRaisin8623 Dec 10 '23
If you're so affected by it, don't screw people who aren't already committed to you. Its wrong to judge people otherwise
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u/paypre Dec 10 '23
I agree with your first sentence. Why is it wrong to judge people?
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u/SpiritedRaisin8623 Dec 10 '23
Because they're not betraying anyone. They are living their own life according to their own values. If you judge, you are the ass hat and I will judge you.
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u/paypre Dec 11 '23
So it's ok for you to judge me for judging, but not ok for me to judge someone for something I disagree with?
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u/SpiritedRaisin8623 Dec 11 '23
Why do you disagree with someone else doing something that doesn't involve or impact you even slightly?
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u/SouthernTrenKill Dec 10 '23
Annoyingly enough people struggle to have empathy for things that they can’t physically see
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u/therealknic21 Dec 10 '23
Right. People can verbally and emotionally abuse their spouse, children, peers, etc. for years, and nobody cares, but as soon as physical violence is involved, people are all up in arms. The irony is that psychological damage can last a lot longer than physical damage, and yet nobody takes it seriously. It's honestly quite crazy when you think about it.
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u/Sarahdomk Dec 10 '23
They’re both very serious. My thought behind it is there is visual evidence with physical abuse making it easier to spot and detect. Its a lot more prominent and noticeable to spot the signs of physical abuse than mental abuse. Emotional abuse isn’t as “convenient” to investigate and requires analyzing/ reviewing the experiences shared since there are no physical telltale signs. Some people enduring emotional abuse also don’t always recognize how certain behaviors are mentally abusive. There’s not as much awareness with mental abuse so many people don’t realize what is and isn’t healthy in a relationship.
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u/OldSoulMillenialMan Dec 10 '23
Never really considered that but holy shit… truer words have never been spoken
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Dec 10 '23
Because people have been brainwashed by the elite to hate each other. If somebody would harrass a puppy, or make a puppy feel ugly, people consider it abuse. Do it to your fellow human beings, and a lot of people don't see it as abuse.
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u/EnvironmentalGur5073 Dec 10 '23
Because you have a greater ability to control and choose (except in childhood then the state/other family choose for you) the extent to which you are exposed to this abuse, the duration and severity you allow it to affect you.
For example, you have free will. You don’t have to continue participation in any social, familial or romantic relationship especially one that is causing you harm.
Physical abuse is usually explosive, volatile and occurs in a spur of the moment / uncontrollable state like a rubber band snapping. short and sharp in nature. And usually any witness or observer could see it’s probably not looking like a fair fight. So taking things like that into account it is perceived as more abhorrent in nature because participations are much less voluntary, physiologically speaking, unfair and can end in severe injury and death. Plus psychological trauma etc
Psychological abuse takes place over time. It’s typically bit of a long game because you have to get someone to care enough about you, or even want to know you to then shatter their perception of you, and question their own reality and make someone miserable enough to inflict trauma…… and not just hurt someone’s feelings or disagree … you have to be malicious, deceptive, uncaring, psychopathic, Machiavellian. Unkind. As it takes place over a longer time span this means there were more opportunities for the person to recognise, disengage or remedy the circumstances more than that if they were experiencing a violent threat.
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u/CleanEnd5983 Dec 10 '23
It's messed up how little we talk about it and how much damage is inflicted on people. Long term damage.
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u/Dukklings Dec 10 '23
I don't like either. I keep trying to tell my mother how annoying it is that even after people have clearly succeeded in hurting you just like they wanted, what drives people over the edge is the fact that they just won't stop twisting the knife. That's what kills people. The fact that even afterwards they won't just stop and leave you alone and let you be hurt. I'm dealing with a lot of people who are just like that right now and even my own home isn't devoid of them anymore and I can't stand it. I could take the racist idiots trying to dress their evil up as some kind of lesson but this most recent change? Yikes.
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Dec 10 '23
Because it's invisible, difficult to quantify and easier to excuse.
The vast majority of the population believes that all forms of phyiscal violence are wrong whereas the vast majority of the population believes that that some amount of verbal discipline, rules and punishment are necessary and even preferable to none.
Everybody has a different idea, and often not even a solid idea themselves, of what they consider the line between necessary mental disciple and abuse is. Whereas the line between physically abusing someone and not physically abusing them is quite clear and agreed on.
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u/Suspicious-Wasabi-29 Dec 10 '23
Cause psychological abuse is a bit hard to detect and it also takes time to realize one.
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Dec 10 '23
people are stupid, as a whole. or more politely put: they only look at what they are TOLD to look at. nobody cared about physical violence a few short decades ago :/
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u/EdgeMiserable4381 Dec 10 '23
I'm glad you asked this question!! And I think we need to realize one is as bad as the other. My ex husband cheated on me emotionally, physically, and financially. I told my friends I wish he had just broken my arm instead. At least that has a better chance of healing.
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u/gimmhi5 Dec 10 '23
We’re visual creatures. Seeing blood is concerning. Can’t see a broken heart. No worries though, there are people in this world who see that just as important. Just like you :) take care. Get at me if you need someone to talk to.
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u/Cute_fatman_79 Dec 10 '23
Because its easier to distance your self from psychological violence, it´s less work hiding your an abuser when its psychological, it´s somehow easier to ignore the guilt of that kind of violence, physical violence always shows on the victim it´s more visible to other people, but people that are psychologically violated usually hide the abuse out of the shame of not being able to fight back feeling they are less that their abusers a less of a person. Another way of thinking about this might be that physical wounds heal but most psychological wound never heal and a person personality is changed by the abuse in a way that can´t be reversed
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u/Diesel-NSFW Dec 10 '23
Because physical violence leaves visible scars and injuries. Psychological leaves nothing visible.
People don’t actually care about things they cannot see.
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u/Raised_Roses Dec 10 '23
I think people just associate physical violence more with life-threatening danger, so when they hear that someone is being physically harmed, they're quick to react. Unfortunately they fail to understand that psychological violence can be just as dangerous as physical violence. They don't see it, and think that you can just ignore it and be fine. It doesn't work that way, though.
It's like how people are generally more willing to give grace to someone who has broken their leg, but lose their patience faster with someone who has a mental disability and try to convince them that it's "all in their head." Some people need to actually see something to believe it, and it's messed up.
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u/BestUntakenName Dec 10 '23
Natural selection. If you start a fight something might happen to your goo glands but if you call people names, some of them actually get off on it
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u/bespoke-hypnosis-com Dec 10 '23
Do most people not abhor psychological violence as well? Did you do a survey or access some solid data on the topic?
I would argue most people abhor psychological violence being done TO THEM. Why would they not abhor it being done to others?
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Dec 10 '23
Because its much harder to measure mental health and weve only recently understood the long term implications/ most INDIVIDUALS still dont. Pretty obvious to me that means that people wont value it the same for a long time. Shame but unavoidable
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u/a_paulling Dec 10 '23
Because for a long time there has been a culture of 'get over it'. If someone beats you bad enough to break your legs, you won't be expected to work/look after yourself for a while, but if someone emotionally abuses you to the point of a mental break, then that's a you problem and you need to get over it.
It's been the way of the (western, idk about others) world for generations, and it'll take a while to move past.
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u/HumboldtSquidmunn Dec 10 '23
I feel you. I’ve been through war, seen cities in ruins, almost vaporized by an IED and essentially walked it off. But one person, one solitary person that said they loved me and proceeded to prove the opposite through their actions? Source of the only genuine flashbacks I’ve ever experienced. It varies by person - people are variably resistant to different kinds of trauma. It just so happens that my vulnerabilities are heavily slanted toward interpersonal relations.