All types of abuse — sexual, physical, and emotional (including verbal abuse and witnessing domestic violence) raise the risk of depression, anxiety and epilepsy-like symptoms.

Research featured in Harvard Mental Health Letter and published in The American Journal of Psychiatry looked at the damage that hostile words, and/or yelling can have on a child.

They found“words are weapons that can cause lasting wounds, especially when wielded by parents against children.

The damage is sometimes more serious and lasting than injuries that result from beatings”, say Harvard researchers reporting on a survey of young adults.

Basically, abuse releases a cascade of stress hormones which produces a lasting effect on brain signals.

Experiments at McLean Hospital, for example, show thatpatients with a history of abuse are twice as likely to show abnormal electrical activity as non-abused people.

And this abnormal electrical brain activity, in turn, resembles a seizure state…