Symptoms of abuse can be caught very early, leaving no/less room for further psychological damage.
I'm not talking about people who've been abused for over thirty years or so, because then my theory no longer has value, but the early cases can be stopped on time.
they can, in theory, and of course most people like to think that they'd bolt at the first hint of violence, but again i just don't think it's that simple. if you're in love with someone and/or they have emotional control over you (which is very possible because the psychological abuse usually starts before the violence and people are often pretty worn down once the violence itself starts), you just can't leave. even without the control element it's hard to leave someone you have emotional ties to, even if they do something you know is wrong. and i would place money on there being many many women (and indeed men) who say they would never stand for it and would leave if violence was ever in the equation but who, when it comes down to it, are so tied to the other person emotionally (either by being in love with them otherwise or by being psychologically controlled) would in fact try to come up with all kinds of excuses for the person's behaviour and would then think "it won't happen again, they promised they won't do it again, it's a one off etc etc" - it's all very well to think rationally about these things if you're not involved but much much harder if you're in the middle of it.
it's not as simple as that. domestic violence usually doesn't just involve physical violence (in fact often there's no physicality at all) - it's just as much a psychological thing, and violent partners are very good at wearing down the confidence of the person they're abusing. often they will be excessively possessive, stop the partner going out with or even speaking to their friends/family, and essentially cut off any lines of communication or help outside the relationship. combined with constantly telling the person they're worthless or useless, this leaves the abused partner stuck - they have no one left to turn to, they feel like no one would care anyway because they feel so devalued, and they probably feel like it's their fault and people would judge - none of this is likely to be true in reality but because of the way their mind's been messed with that's how they feel.
From personal experience, I have to say that I agree with pretty everything in the above quote.
(btw that
was saying thanks for agreeing with what i wrote, not yay for your personal experience, i would never say that!)
Although when it happened to me, I was still a teen, so cutting me off entirely from my family was pretty impossible, but he did try to cut me off from friends. And the abuse was less physical than other things. Only physicality to it was once a slap and some pushing and shoving (as far as I can recall). The rest of it was emotional, verbal, psychological, etc.
luckily it's never happened to me, not really - the only time it came close was a guy who was incredibly possessive and jealous and clingy/needy etc, it drove me insane! the only time he came close to violence was when i ended it - he trashed my flat and tried to break the door down with a fire extinguisher and then made a somewhat pathetic attempt at stalking me for a few weeks. i sometimes think if i'd stayed with him it could've got worse. he only trashed my flat that night but i was kind of scared, because it wouldn't have taken much for him to start on me.
Basically, the verbal and all of that was probably more damaging than the rest because physical scars often heal a lot faster than emotional ones.
absolutely - i think in most traumatic situations that's probably true really but particularly in this. bruises and stuff can heal, but the inability to trust anyone, the fear that everyone's gonna try to control you, the feeling worthless etc, that doesn't just go away. i think the clearest evidence for that is that so many abused women end up in relationships with other violent men (and of course this can be reversed because women do abuse men too) - so so many women leave a violent partner only to end up with another one just because their self esteem has been so thoroughly demolished that they don't have the confidence to find someone who'll appreciate them for themself, the psychological abuse becomes the norm for them. it's also true that many many people who were physically abused as kids end up in violent relationships - i think that's very indicative that the psychological effects are really really long term.
There's a lot of help out there and they choose to stay and let it happen, that's what I don't agree with. If it happened to me I'd get help ... rather than sit and let it constantly happen.
It's easy to say "If it were me, I'd get help" if you've never been in an abusive situation.
While I'm sure you mean well, I can tell that you really don't have a grasp on what abuse really
is and how it completely destroys the victim. An abusive relationship is rarely
just physical abuse. It involves verbal, emotional, and often sexual abuse. An abuser often completely erodes any sense of self-esteem the victim once had. Therefore, the victim is incapable of thinking they can get out: their thoughts are more often like "I'll never find anyone better than my partner" and "I deserve this treatment".
When leaving an abusive partner, there is always the fear that abandoning them will enrage them and lead to more violence. This fear is legitimate: every day in the U.S. more than 3 people are murdered by an intimate partner.
exactly, i agree with all of this. i think the statistics over here in the uk are just as scary. when someone gets to that level of violence it's incredibly hard to leave, their reaction is just too unpredictable, it's so hard to know if you'd be safe; your confidence has been totally wiped out, so you may feel you have no where to go or that you don't deserve better etc, and even if you did, you'd find it hard to trust even those people who tried to help, or indeed your own ability to get out effectively.
it always saddens me that so much is made of stranger assault and rape (which, don't get me wrong, are awful) when in fact that majority of assaults and rapes are by someone the victim knows, often a partner - it's all well telling people to be suspicious of strangers but being suspicious of those close to you is equally important.
makes it extremely difficult for a women to just make a decision to leave. Especially so if the 'guy' (assuming) is providing stability, roof over their head etc... it's not black and white.
true - i just read a statistic (for the uk) that 30% of dv begins or intensifies during pregnancy - which is another factor, if you're in a position where to leave is really difficult, being pregnant is just another issue there - partly from a physical point of view, if you're heavily pregnant then leaving must be more difficult, but also emotionally it must be much harder to strike out on your own during pregnancy, and i assume there would also be some kind of deeper emotional attachment if the abusive guy was also the father. it's just never as simple as getting up and walking away - although i think we'd all like to think it was
An entirely different example, but might help bring perspective: I am 20, incredibly independent yet smothered by my over-protected family... last year I moved out as I had the money too and I needed to develop my independence - so I am not only moving back in with my parents for the summer, but the chances of me moving out in Sept are slim... I know that after a few weeks of being back there... I will be patronised, and I will be in a position where I always have to tell my parents exactly where I'm going, who I'm with and when I'll be back...
[slightly off topic, sorry]
oh god i know *exactly* what you mean! i moved out of home at 17 and to a flat by myself in london at 18, and had proper independence - job, wage, flat, etc. anyway, i had a major flare up in my bipolar when i was in my mid 20s and after 3 years in and out of psych units they deemed me unsafe to live alone, so i had to go back to my parents place at 27. god, it was HELL. i had one tiny room, my parents don't know how to knock, we don't exactly have the best relationship anyway, they're intrusive, patronising, and demand to know what's going on all the time. in the end the 5-6 months i lived there after hospital made me more ill than i'd been before, i literally did not sleep (at all) for 6 whole months, the hospital were on the verge of sectioning me (again!) as it got so bad - the only reason they didn't was that i escaped that meeting and jumped a train to wales. actually my mum in particular is very controlling like that and my therapist thinks she has a lot to answer for in the psychological effect she has on me - but i'm pathetic when it comes to her; i don't love my mum (or my dad) but i find it impossible to stand up to them, i can't say no, nothing like that, so they just walk all over me, and as much as i'm aware it's wrong and want to change it i just can't. it's quite sad, i'm 33 for chrissakes! but it means i can kind of understand the whole psychological control thing - it's not the same, of course, but i'm generally a fairly confident person, but around my mum, i'm totally pathetic. anyway, i got out of my parents house eventually, went to live with a mate and things improved - hurrah
i hope your spell with yours isn't quite as disastrous!! [/ot]
