If you choose to read the following essays, please keep in mind that I am not using a standard defintion for "abuse". Horror stories in the media focus on terrible acts performed on helpless children. I'm glad to see our society bringing this beast out of the closet to some degree.
However, I think we tend to misread the real source of the damage when we look only at the extremes. Short of physical crippling or murder, the lasting damage to a child or to an adult stems largely from being treated as a thing rather than as a human being with feelings and needs. You can mess up a person real bad without ever laying a hand on them.
I further think that when we look only at the extremes, we let ourselves out from looking at the smaller but possibly cumulative ways in which we may be mistreating other people or allow them mistreat us.
The following essays are attempts to understand why these things happen and how we might learn to both treat others better and to require better treatment of ourselves.
Essays on Abuse