Hi Meredith, I thought about your post today too. You have your own language what with way-tres! Way cool! The following from BTT was probably my first recognition of "verbal abuse" only of course I did not know it was wrong. ***When I was four years old, I was listening from my room one night while my mother and father tossed insults at each other.
“You’re a lousy excuse for a human being,” I heard my mother say.
“Well, excuse the hell out of me for living,” my father said.
Their phrases flew through the air like a Ping-Pong ball, paddled back and forth over a net. I was like the net, suspended by two poles, waiting to catch and contain the last word. If only they could stop fighting, then they could love each other, love me, and love my brother. They continued their torrent.
“I wish you were dead.”
“I hope you drop dead.”
“I’m gonna kill you if it’s the last thing I do, so help me God.”
“Over my dead body.”
“Get out of my life.”
“You think you can get away with murder, don’t you?”
I was scared to death. While I waited for the fight to end, I held my breath and my pee. *** So, when boyfriends and that man I was married to called me a bitch, I didn't think of it as abusive. I even confess to verbally abusing my current husband, way back when we used to fight. He'd say "EFF U" and I'd say "EFF U back" until we one day looked at each other and said, "What are we doing to each other." We went to a couple of counseling sessions together. We no longer use verbal abuse at any time. A good book on the subject is "The Verbally Abusive Relationship" by Patricia Evans. You can Google and get to her web site on the topic, too.