Mental Health: The Effects of Different Forms of Abuse
- Siana Kotha
- Oct 4
- 11 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
Abuse in childhood doesn’t just hurt in the moment, it changes how a person grows, feels, and sees the world. The brain and body adapt to survive, and those changes can last long after the abuse ends. Different kinds of abuse affect people in different ways, but all of them disrupt a child’s sense of safety and shape how they think, learn, and connect with others.
This section looks at what each type of abuse does to mental health, how it affects the brain, emotions, behavior, relationships, and even physical health over time.
Effects of Emotional Abuse:
Emotional abuse in childhood can change how the brain develops and set up patterns that carry into adulthood, affecting emotions, behavior, relationships, and even personality and health.
Brain and stress system changes
MRI studies link childhood maltreatment to differences in nine brain regions, especially areas that balance emotions/impulses and self-awareness.
Specific findings include:
Smaller hippocampus (learning/memory)
Less prefrontal cortex volume (behavior, emotional balance, perception)
Overactive amygdala (threat/emotion processing)
Smaller corpus callosum (coordination between brain hemispheres)
Reduced cerebellum volume (motor/coordination)
HPA-axis dysfunction (the body’s stress response)
Earlier and longer-lasting abuse tends to produce worse outcomes.
Emotional and mental-health effects
Fear and anxiety become a constant backdrop when safety and predictability are stripped away.
People often develop emotional dysregulation, low self-esteem, hopelessness, negative automatic thoughts, and problems coping with stressors.
There’s a higher likelihood of anxiety disorders, depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD, psychosis, and substance misuse.
Compared to those reporting physical or sexual abuse, people reporting emotional abuse scored higher on depression, anxiety, stress, and neuroticism in a large student sample; statistical tests showed a significant main effect for emotional abuse.
Personality and identity
Emotional abuse is linked to the personality trait of neuroticism (more prone to worry, distress, and negative thinking).
It can erode identity and self-worth, replacing them with “false truths” and negative self-images.
Behavior, learning, and development
Kids may be hyper-alert, struggle to relax, and feel fearful most of the time.
Possible learning deficits and delays in developmental milestones.
Weakened response to positive feedback, which can blunt motivation and growth.
Relationships and attachment
Emotional abuse and neglect disrupt secure attachment with caregivers. That can lead to trouble forming or maintaining relationships later, or avoiding them altogether.
Health and life-course risks
Emotional abuse is associated with anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, PTSD, suicidality, and substance abuse; when it co-occurs with physical or sexual abuse, effects can be more severe.
Some studies have linked childhood emotional abuse to a higher risk of cancer in adulthood.
Day-to-day inner experiences
The loss of emotional security leads to constant tension and fear.
Guilt and shame (often “false guilt” imposed by the abuser).
Anger that may be turned inward.
Depression, as the emotional system gets worn down.
Isolation, as people withdraw to protect themselves.
How much and when it happens matters
Impact varies by how often and how long the abuse lasted, the child’s age, who the abuser was, whether there was a dependable, loving adult, and whether there were interventions.
Effects of Verbal Abuse:
Immediate emotional impact
Kids who are shouted at, threatened, belittled, or mocked often feel unloved, abandoned, humiliated, and afraid. These feelings can show up right away and set the tone for how they see themselves and others.
Mental health over time
Higher risks of depression, anxiety, anger, suicidality, substance use, conduct problems, and aggression show up across many studies and can last into adulthood.
Brain development changes
Chronic verbal abuse can change the developing brain’s stress and emotion systems. The “threat” system becomes hyperactive, so neutral cues feel dangerous, while the reward system can become less responsive, making it harder to feel good or trust others.
Research links ongoing verbal aggression with changes in brain regions involved in decision-making, memory, impulse control, and emotion regulation, especially the prefrontal cortex and limbic system.
Thinking, learning, and self-control
Kids exposed to verbal abuse are more likely to struggle with attention, executive function, working memory, and emotion regulation, which can affect school performance and day-to-day decision making. (Website 5)
Some studies associate childhood verbal abuse with later physical health problems, including obesity and even chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Relationships and trust
Verbal abuse can make it harder to form and keep healthy relationships. Many people carry forward deep fears of rejection or abandonment, have difficulty trusting, and may misread neutral comments as threats.
These patterns can disrupt romantic relationships in adulthood and increase the risk of volatile, on-again/off-again dynamics.
Behavior and risk taking
Verbal abuse is tied to delinquent behavior and conduct disorders, as well as greater odds of substance use.
Self-image and internalized criticism
Children often identify with their caregivers. When a parent uses demeaning language, kids may turn those words inward and continue to put themselves down later in life.
Self-harm and suicidality
Exposure to verbal abuse (from caregivers or peers, or as a witness at home) is associated with higher rates of self-harm and suicidal thoughts among youth.
Lifespan and intergenerational effects
The harm is not just “in the moment.” Multiple reviews argue the impact can be as serious and long-lasting as physical or sexual abuse, and that verbal abuse should be recognized as its own category to better prevent it. Patterns can repeat across generations if not addressed.
Effects of Physical Abuse:
Physical abuse leaves more than bruises or scars. It can change how a child thinks, feels, and grows. The impact often lasts well beyond the visible injuries and can shape a child’s emotional health, behavior, and physical development for years.
Emotional and psychological effects
When a caregiver, the person a child depends on for safety, becomes a source of harm, it breaks trust.
Many children who experience physical abuse struggle with low self-esteem and may blame themselves.
Some become withdrawn, anxious, or fearful, especially when the violence is unpredictable.
Others react by becoming aggressive or defiant as a way to feel in control.
Repeated exposure to violence or threats can lead to post-traumatic stress symptoms: nightmares, intrusive memories, hypervigilance, and trouble concentrating. Over time, these experiences raise the risk of depression, anxiety disorders, and borderline personality disorder. Attachment can also be disrupted, which makes forming healthy relationships harder later on.
Behavioral consequences
Abuse can change how children relate to peers and adults. Some have trouble trusting others and maintaining friendships. Others act out in school, skip classes, or get into delinquent behavior.
Childhood physical abuse is linked to higher risk of substance use, rule-breaking, and future violence, including domestic abuse or criminal behavior in adulthood.
Because their environment teaches fear rather than understanding, some children learn to use aggression to solve problems. Boys who were abused are more likely to commit acts of violence later in life. Girls face increased risk of becoming victims or perpetrators of intimate partner violence.
Cognitive and academic impact
Abuse during key developmental periods can interfere with brain growth and regulation. Chronic exposure to violence can alter areas of the brain involved in memory, learning, and emotion. In practice, this can look like academic struggles, speech or language delays, difficulty focusing, and in some cases a loss of interest in friends, goals, or the future.
Physical health consequences
Even after injuries heal, the body can carry lasting effects.
Physical abuse can weaken the nervous and immune systems and raise the risk of chronic conditions in adulthood, including heart disease, diabetes, asthma, obesity, and high blood pressure. Infants and toddlers are especially vulnerable. Head trauma and shaken baby syndrome can cause permanent brain damage or developmental disabilities.
Large studies, including meta-analyses, show strong links between childhood physical abuse and poorer long-term health. Survivors face higher odds of depression, suicide attempts, substance use, and risky sexual behavior. Physical maltreatment affects both physical and behavioral health across the lifespan.
Trauma-related disorders
Children exposed to physical abuse often meet criteria for trauma and stressor-related disorders, including:
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): persistent fear, intrusive memories, nightmares, avoidance
Acute stress disorder (ASD): similar symptoms that occur within the first month after trauma
Reactive attachment disorder (RAD): emotional detachment or difficulty seeking comfort
Disinhibited social engagement disorder (DSED): overly familiar behavior with strangers
Without support, these conditions can disrupt development, school performance, and relationships into adulthood.
The lifelong ripple effect
The trauma of physical abuse does not end in childhood. Adults who were abused as children face higher risk of mental illness, substance misuse, chronic disease, and even premature death. Toxic stress can disrupt stress hormones and immune function, which increases vulnerability to illness and emotional instability.
Some survivors also struggle with parenting later on, and cycles of violence can repeat. Healing is possible, though. Early intervention, steady support from caring adults, and trauma-informed therapy help children rebuild trust, regain confidence, and develop resilience.
Effects of Coercive Control:
Coercive control traps children in an environment where fear, manipulation, and restriction are part of daily life. Even when no physical violence occurs, the constant pressure to obey and the absence of emotional safety can deeply affect how a child thinks, feels, and develops.
As a result many children live in a state of quiet hyper-alertness, never sure what might trigger anger or punishment. Over time, this can shape every part of their emotional, social, and physical well-being.
Emotional and Mental Health
Children exposed to coercive control often experience chronic stress and anxiety. They may feel worthless, ashamed, or responsible for the conflict at home. Living in fear of making mistakes can lead to low self-esteem and long-lasting trauma responses such as nightmares, panic attacks, or self-harm. Many develop symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder, even when they were never physically assaulted.
Thinking and Self-Trust
When a controlling parent twists reality or dismisses a child’s feelings, it teaches the child to doubt their own thoughts. This kind of psychological manipulation, often called gaslighting, leaves children confused about what is true and what is not. They may believe the abuse is their fault or that it isn’t real, which damages their ability to trust themselves and others.
Behavior and Coping
Some children internalize the fear, becoming quiet and withdrawn. Others externalize it through anger, aggression, or defiance. Many swing between both extremes, acting out at school, then becoming silent at home. Some children take on adult responsibilities, trying to manage the emotions of the abusive parent or protect siblings from harm.
Relationships at Home
Coercive control often isolates children from the non-abusive parent. The abuser may undermine that parent’s authority, monitor conversations, or use the child to send messages. Over time, the child can become emotionally caught between both parents, unsure who to trust. After separation, this dynamic may continue through controlling contact, guilt, or fear-based loyalty to the abuser.
Social Life and Isolation
Children in controlling households are often prevented from seeing friends, joining clubs, or visiting family. This isolation cuts them off from healthy relationships that teach trust and empathy. Without outside contact, many children feel invisible and powerless, which increases the risk of depression and social withdrawal.
School and Development
The stress of living with constant fear affects concentration and memory, making schoolwork harder. Some children avoid extracurriculars or miss days due to anxiety or exhaustion. Over time, this can lead to academic struggles, difficulty with authority figures, and fewer chances to develop independence or confidence.
Physical and Long-Term Health
Chronic fear keeps the body in survival mode. Children may experience headaches, stomach pain, or sleep problems linked to stress. Studies show that children raised under coercive control are more likely to develop mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety, and substance use issues later in life. The damage from prolonged stress can also affect the immune system and physical health well into adulthood.
Beliefs and Future Patterns
When control and intimidation are normalized, children can grow up believing these dynamics are part of love or family life. Some may repeat the cycle in their own relationships, either by using control or by accepting it. Without intervention, these learned patterns can last for generations.
Effects of Neglect:
Neglect is not “less serious” just because it can be quiet or hard to see. It reshapes a child’s brain and stress systems, affects learning and behavior, and changes how kids connect with friends. These effects can carry into adulthood and can also ripple through schools, healthcare, and communities.
What neglect looks like
Physical neglect: Not meeting basic needs like food, housing, clothing, medical care, or hygiene.
Emotional neglect: Not noticing, naming, or responding to a child’s feelings. This often happens in families that love their children but are out of tune with emotions or set unrealistically high expectations.
How neglect changes the brain and stress response
Toxic stress: When high stress continues without steady, responsive caregiving, the brain’s “survival” systems overdevelop while areas for emotion regulation, decision-making, and learning lag behind. Kids can become on edge, impulsive, and less ready to learn.
Stress hormones: Chronic deprivation can throw off cortisol and other stress responses, which makes it harder to cope with challenges later on.
Learning and thinking
Cognitive delays and attention problems: Severe neglect is linked to lower IQ, weaker attention regulation, and executive function difficulties. This shows up as trouble planning, focusing, and keeping up at school.
School outcomes: Neglected children are more likely to need special education and to struggle with reading and graduation if support comes late.
Timing matters: Moving a child to a nurturing setting helps, but removal alone is not enough. Earlier, structured, evidence-based support leads to better gains in cognition, attention, memory, and executive skills.
Emotions and mental health
Attachment and regulation: Chronic neglect undermines secure attachment and emotion skills. Young children may be more withdrawn, less enthusiastic, and have trouble with impulse control and reading emotions.
Later risks: Over time, risks include low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and personality difficulties.
Adult patterns after emotional neglect: Many adults report feeling empty or “numb,” highly sensitive to rejection, perfectionistic, unsure of their needs, and unclear on expectations. Learning to notice feelings, build emotional vocabulary, and identify needs can help.
Friends, peers, and social life
A recent study found that any maltreatment can harm peer connections, but physical neglect stood out. It predicted all three problems at once:
1. fewer friends named by the child,
2. fewer peers choosing the child as a friend,
3. friend groups that are less tight-knit and more scattered.
This can make school harder and may echo into later friendships and relationships.
Physical health across the lifespan
Early growth and immunity: Severe neglect is tied to delayed growth, poorer health, and higher infection risk in early years.
Adult health: People with neglect in childhood face higher risks for conditions like heart, lung, and liver disease, diabetes, and obesity. These long-term health issues are connected to early brain and stress-system changes.
Behavior and risk
Not every child shows behavior problems, but neglect raises the odds of:
Risky sexual behavior, substance use, truancy or delinquency in adolescence
Later difficulties with employment and stability
These are stress adaptations that helped in unsafe settings but become costly later.
Key takeaways
Neglect reshapes brain development and stress responses, which affects learning and behavior.
Emotional neglect is real and common. It often goes unnoticed because there are no physical signs.
Physical neglect has especially strong links to peer withdrawal, being less chosen by peers, and fragmented friend networks.
Early, evidence-based interventions that strengthen caregiver responsiveness work.
Prevention and trauma-informed care help children, families, schools, and communities.
Effects of Exposure to Domestic Violence:
Common immediate reactions
General anxiety and feeling constantly on guard
Sleep problems and nightmares
Headaches, stomachaches, and other stress-related complaints
Trouble concentrating and completing tasks
High activity levels or agitation
Increased aggression or acting out
Worry about a parent’s safety or their own safety
Clinging and separation anxiety
Ages 0 to 5
Sleep or eating disruptions
Inconsolable crying
Intense separation anxiety
Withdrawal or lack of responsiveness
Regression in skills already learned
Ages 6 to 11
Nightmares and sleep problems
New fears and persistent worries
Aggression and conflict with peers
Trouble concentrating and finishing schoolwork
Withdrawal or emotional numbing
School avoidance or truancy
Ages 12 to 18
Depression and anxiety
Withdrawal from friends and activities
Risky or impulsive behavior such as substance use, running away, or unsafe sex
School failure or chronic truancy
Antisocial behavior
Involvement in violent or abusive dating relationships
Effects in regards to Emotional and mental health
Anxiety, depression, and symptoms of post-traumatic stress
Low self-esteem and guilt, especially in school-aged children who may blame themselves
Emotional numbing or strong, overwhelming emotions
Effects in regards to Behavior and relationships
Aggression, bullying, and fighting
Breaking rules and getting into legal trouble, especially among teens
Difficulty making or keeping friends
Learning harmful lessons about power and intimacy, such as believing violence is a way to control stress or show affection
Effects in regards to Physical health
Headaches, stomachaches, general aches and pains
Increased health problems over time
Effects in regards to Learning and development
Difficulty concentrating and lower school performance
Lower scores on measures of verbal, motor, and social skills
In some studies, lower IQ or declines in intellectual functioning
Long-term consequences
Ongoing depression, anxiety, and PTSD into adulthood
Higher risk of health conditions such as diabetes, obesity, and heart disease
Continuing behavior problems such as delinquency or substance use
Risk of repeating abusive patterns in adult relationships, either as victim or as perpetrator
Lower social functioning and reduced life satisfaction
Note: Not all children are affected in the same way. The child’s age, closeness to the violence, severity and frequency of incidents, and the reactions of caregivers all shape outcomes
