Why do people use verbal abuse? What makes them do it?
Anybody can be verbally abusive once in a while; you’ve had a long hard day, you’re worn out, something unpleasant happens, and you just lose it for a minute. That’s normal, and part of being human. Chronic verbal abuse is something very different. The goal of chronic verbal abusers isn’t to cause you pain; they’re telling the truth when they say “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Their real goal is to get and keep your attention. They cause pain not because they’re sadists but because they’ve learned that causing pain almost always works as a way to get and keep attention. That doesn’t excuse their behavior, but it has to be understood, so that you won’t react to verbal abuse with the automatic anger and/or fear that makes the participating-victim role hard to resist. (Of course someone who really is sadistic will use words to cause pain, just as he or she will use any other form of cruelty, but this is rare, and it’s a serious illness; if you’re dealing with a sadist, you’ll have plenty of
