Protect Yourself from Domestic Violence: Resources & More

When you consider abuse as a concept, you might automatically connotate it with physical violence–but there are many other forms of abuse that can be just as damaging to survivors. These types of abuse include emotional abuse, psychological or mental abuse, sexual violence, among others. Due to how rampant physical violence is, especially when you consider how it branches out into sub-categories (violence between people of the same gender or of different genders, race-based violence, or class-based violence), it’s easy to see how with the number of distinctions can result in some confusion.

Here are some signs to familiarize yourself with so you can be better-equipped for recognizing the signs or patterns that could indicate someone is involved in an unsafe dynamic. While some of these signs may be self-explanatory, like bruises, fractures, cuts, burns, or other evidence of physical abuse on a survivor’s person–there are also key behavioral patterns to be mindful of, especially if you feel like you might be close with a potential victim of abuse. One of these behavioral patterns that may indicate the presence of a controlling, oppressive figure in someone’s life–is being isolated from their peers. For example, you may remember quieter peers from your school life or in earlier positions in your career–and perhaps they rarely attended activities outside of what was required. 

No matter how an abuser chooses to torment their victims--the cycle doesn't end until the abused chooses to walk away from the dynamic. People never abuse out of love or genuine care--only a need for control and dominance.

How Domestic Violence Differs from Standard Assault

Domestic violence is one of the larger, most widely-reached sub-categories of abuse–and among the most nefarious as it usually comes from people that survivors once trusted, loved, and cared for–and oftentimes, still do. Domestic violence, abuse typically dealt by a loved one like a parent or romantic partner, is one of the most troubling overarching categories of abuse because it can be difficult to detect–and even more difficult to confront. Due to the nature of domestic violence including people who matter to the victims, there’s already a more complex emotional component to domestic violence than with random acts of violence from the hands of strangers–in other words, many victims often struggle with conflicting emotions, feelings of betrayal, uncertainty, or guilt.

Despite domestic violence being a more complex distinction of abuse because of the pre-existing dynamic between the people involved–the abuse also, generally-speaking, has more direct emotional strategies as well. Many domestic violence survivors experienced being not only physically-abused in some cases, but also experienced psychological and emotional harm at the hands of their abusers as well. It’s common for abusers–especially in domestic settings where they’re able to exhibit more control over their victims–to be consistently, verbally-abuse to the point of humiliation and dehumanization. They’ll make threats, encourage or threaten their victims to isolate themselves from others–and many times, they’ll manipulate their victim into always spending time with them–rarely giving them chances to establish or maintain relationships outside of their own.

Abusers take advantage of those among us who aren't in a position to fight back, or are more vulnerable than others. It's our civic and moral responsibility to look out for those who have more difficulty protecting themselves than the typical person.

Manipulative or coercive behavior can include more physical forms of abuse–assault, direct threats, intentional acts of harm or punishment–but one of the most haunting forms of abuse that’s specific to domestic violence is the prevention of allowing the victim to escape the harmful dynamic. Usually by regulating everyday behavior or heavily monitoring their victims, abusers tend to keep close tabs on the people they’re trying to control–oftentimes tricking them into sharing their location with them or secretly tracking their locations or social media usage.

Domestic abuse can often encompass other sides of abuse–much like psychological and mental tactics, some abusers many employ sexual abuse as a means to control their victim(s). Other times, an abuser may choose to engage in material abuse by neglecting them and severing their access to necessities such as food, clean water, hygiene methods, or money.

Sharing Personal Experiences

In my personal experience with abuse, I was consistently led to believe that things were my fault, or that I was the reason for the way I was being treated, even when I didn’t have proof to follow up that claim. In these intense, emotionally-charged dynamics, it’s easy for abusers to assign blame to their victims, but so manipulate them into thinking the abuse is a twisted form of love. With constant threats from my abuser, including to harm themselves if I were left, I felt trapped with my abuser. I faced physical abuse from this person as well, and after resisting the urge to react, they turned to  destroying my belongings. That’s when I realized that I had put up with enough.

By sharing stories of abuse with you, I hope to impress upon the survivors out there that there are people who understand what you’re living through, and there are ways to seek support without calling negative attention to your situation. Nobody deserves to live in an environment in which they don’t feel safe. Help is out there–take the first step today by familiarizing yourself with the crucial resources at the end of this article.

It takes an incredible amount of courage to stand up for yourself, but standing up for yourself--when it's safe to do so--can make the difference between freeing yourself, or letting the abuse continue.

No matter the specifics of your situation, you deserve assistance to navigate through it, and you deserve to feel empowered enough to leave it behind you. Together, we can all take the necessary steps to cutting manipulative and harmful people from our lives, and we can take the initiative to make real differences within our communities, and on a much greater level.

Resource List
A comprehensive list of the resources found in this blog post—in order of appearance.

• “Public Awareness & Prevention.” National Resource Center on Domestic Violence.

• “A Worldwide Public Health Crisis.” Nomore.org.

• “Housing and Supportive Services.” Alexandrahouse.org.

• “Listen: In Their Own Words.” Treatpeoplelikepeople.org.

• "Take Action.” Futureswithoutviolence.org.