@the_control_code: “He never hit her.” Her brain couldn’t tell the difference. We tell abused women “at least he never hit you” and teach her that until there’s a mark, it doesn’t count. So she waits for a bruise to call it abuse. It never comes. The injury was already there. A Harvard psychiatrist, Martin Teicher, scanned young adults who’d been verbally abused — only words, no violence — and found their brains physically changed, in the regions that hold memory, run fear, and process language itself. His take: verbal abuse may do more harm than other kinds, because language is how we build our sense of who we are. This is a different injury — the brain finding a second road to the same wound. Your brain doesn’t know the difference between the threat behind a fist and the one behind his voice. The bruise was never the sole injury. It was just the part we agreed to count. #thecontrolcode #coercivecontrol #narcissisticabuse #domesticviolenceawareness #emotionalabuse

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Sunday 14 June 2026 19:11:15 GMT