Emotional abuse entails devastating impacts on the health of a person. In female adolescents, emotional abuse comes in different forms such as domestic abuse, bullying, and child abuse. Research indicates clearly that emotional abuse on female adolescents has adverse effects which include personality disorders, low-esteem issues, and even suicide. Emotional abuse can take different dimensions: intimidation, sexual harassment, explicit threats, and criticizing openly (Colon, 2016) . There is a need to look at emotional abuse with a more critical eye because the little information gained is what helps get information and give a clear definition of what emotional abuse entails. This paper seeks to explain the effects of emotional abuse among female adolescents.
Emotional abuse causes common mental problems such as depression, low self-esteem, anxiety, and eating disorders. These problems, in turn, are associated with physical health problems such as high risks of heart attack, poor physical health, and self-injurious behaviors (Rizvi & Najam, 2014) . These kind of practices are highly destructive to the life of young adolescent girls and has associated with many forms of child outcomes including depression, aggression, underachievement, conduct problems, poor self-esteem, maladjustment, and inability to trust people (Rizvi & Najam, 2014) . It has severe problems with their psychological and mental development. Consequently, these outcomes wear these girls out more easily thus reducing their lifespans. Emotional abuse is detrimental to the health of young girls as it opens the door to many health complications which bring about an early death.
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Young adolescent girls who have experienced emotional abuse have developmentally damaging dimensions. They associate with some adverse outcomes such as impaired emotional, social, and cognitive development, which includes emotional unresponsiveness, aggression, neurotic, and helplessness (Auslander, Sterzing, Threlfall, & Edmond, 2017) . It is evident that the healthy development of a female adolescent is hugely affected by emotional abuse. They not only expose them to the risk of poor school performance and psychological distress but they also expose them to long-term effects such as delinquency, anxiety, low self-esteem, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance and drug abuse, aggression, and depression (Auslander, Sterzing, Threlfall, & Edmond, 2017) . Furthermore, emotional abuse relates to many psychological disorders such as depression and dysthymia. These young adults, in the long run, can find themselves associated with suicide, depressive illness, and eating disorders in their adulthood.
Besides, emotional abuse on young adolescent girls exposes them to the risk of youth violence. It increases the risk of intimate partner violence in ladies. For instance, a study conducted by Auslander, et al. (2017) found out that emotional abuse done to young females entails physical partner violence for females. Moreover, other forms of abuse such as sexual abuse and physical abuse may cause psychological torment to young girls (Wildeman, Emanuel, Leventhal, Putnam-Hornstein, Waldfogel, & Lee, 2014) . It may end up giving birth to future adolescent aggression and violence. Emotional abuse prepares females for a lifetime of bitterness thus making them hostile and overly aggressive and violent.
Emotional abuse causes eating disorders. Adolescents always pay close attention to what people around them say to them. This kind of attention can trigger them from developing some eating disorders. There is a direct relationship between dieting and pressure from parents, media, and boyfriends (Wildeman, Emanuel, Leventhal, Putnam-Hornstein, Waldfogel, & Lee, 2014) . When a person comments about a girls' increased weight, for instance, such a comment triggers her to put restrictions on her diet.
Furthermore, some parents exert more pressure on their adolescent daughters to be perfect because parents have some level of expectations they deem right for their daughters to meet regardless of their consequences. Most parents would want their girls to perform well in school, and when they are unable, they tend to shay off from sharing their feelings. As a result, they adopt stringent measures which include changing their eating habits.
Furthermore, emotional abuse results in low self-esteem. When parents expect much from their adolescent girls, and they are not able to provide what their parents require of them, they begin feeling bad about themselves (Rizvi & Najam, 2014) . It reduces their self-esteem. For instance, criticizing young adolescent girls because they have added some more weight does much harm to their psychological and emotional faculty. As a result, they get more dissatisfied with their body to the point that they begin picking flaws in their bodies. I so doing, they will start restricting themselves to specific diets to reduce their weight and cut down the fat content in their bodies by eating healthy foods. If this trend continues and they see no results, they restrict themselves from taking sugary foods and ultimately limit themselves only to eating vegetables. Emotional stress has severe implications for the eating habits of young adolescent girls because of the high pressure exerted on them by friends and family members.
Suicide is a common problem associated with emotional abuse in young adolescent girls. While some people think that committing suicide is an easy decision, it is not. Sexually abusing girls, for example, they lose their self-worth and self-esteem. As a result, they feel that everything is not just right with them. They think the world is not fit for them to live and thus they look for alternative means to terminate their life. Studies indicate that most teen deaths as a result of suicide are as a result of sexual abuse which causes a lot of emotional imbalance (Auslander, Sterzing, Threlfall, & Edmond, 2017) . Besides, suicide can also result from other factors such as harsh treatment, bullying, open confrontation, and segregation. As a result, young girls may feel unloved. Young teens want to be loved, cared for and given affection. When this does not happen, it forces them into acting otherwise by committing suicide.
Emotional abuse entails withdrawal symptoms or social alienation in young adolescent girls. ItThis is a common phenomenon in victims of psychological violence, especially young adolescent girls. When they portray signs of separation, they reject their loved ones or other people in society (Legg, 2016) . Furthermore, they show feelings of distance and estrangement, including their emotions. In as much as alienation is a common problem, it can cause serious health hazards and other sociological problems to the victims if not addressed. For instance, it may cause feelings of helplessness, refusal to obey rules, feeling unsafe when interacting with others, feeling different from other people, being left out of events and conversations, feeling that the world is meaningless and empty, and difficulty in speaking and approaching other people including parents. Because of this, young adolescent girls suffer from mental health disorders, chronic pain, self-stigma, and post-traumatic stress disorder (Legg, 2016) . Withdrawal is dangerous to young females; therefore, the appropriate measure should be adopted to try curbing such situations.
It is clear that emotional abuse is detrimental to the health of adolescent girls. While it not only affects their mental and social life, it has long term effects which pose severe implications to their future social relationships. Furthermore, emotional abuse risks the lives of many young girls through suicide. Moreover, it results in unhealthy dietary practices to cope up with the high pressure. In the wake of all these, stringent measures should be adopted to protect the lives of young girls from stressful conditions and situations that expose them to emotional abuse. Parents and friends should take care of how they interact with adolescent girls to avoid subjecting them to emotional abuse.
Bibliography
Auslander, W., Sterzing, P., Threlfall, J., & Edmond, D. G. (2017). Childhood Abuse and Aggression in Adolescent Girls Involved in Child Welfare: The Role of Depression and Posttraumatic Stress. J Child Adolesc Trauma. 2016; 9: 1–10.
Colon, R. (2016, October 15). Recognizing Emotional Abuse in Young People . Retrieved February 26, 2019, from Adolescent Health Center: https://teenhealthcare.org/blog/recognizing-emotional-abuse-in-young-people/
Legg, T. J. (2016, October 11). Alienation . Retrieved 28 February, 2019, from Healthline: https://www.healthline.com/health/alienation
Rizvi, S. F., & Najam, N. (2014). Parental Psychological Abuse toward children and Mental Health Problems in adolescence. Pak J Med Sci. 2014 Mar-Apr; 30(2) , 256–260.
Wildeman, H. C., Emanuel, N., Leventhal, J., Putnam-Hornstein, E., Waldfogel, J., & Lee, H. (2014). The prevalence of confirmed maltreatment among US children, 2004 to 2011. JAMA Pediatr. 2014 Aug;168(8) , 706-13.
