The Shocking Truth about Abuse and Domestic Violence
Did you know that 1 in 3 women globally endure intimate partner abuse?
Yes, men are abused, too. However, 85% of domestic violence victims are female, according to BreaktheCycle.org.
Worse yet is that 75% of domestic violence fatalities are female. That’s right. 1 woman dies every 10 minutes at the hands of a current or former intimate partner.
That means children are growing up without their mothers. Mothers are grieving daughters. Fathers, husbands, partners, and siblings are losing someone they love, too, because someone’s ego couldn’t withstand the thought of the victim living their life on their terms.
Domestic Violence is the final and most extreme tactic abusers use to maintain control over their victims. Yet, it isn’t always reported; and when it is, victims rarely get the justice they deserve.
You see, most abusers rely on their carefully crafted public reputations to ensure that they will not face consequences for whatever extremes they enact to keep their victims within the bounds they have created for them.
Not only do they blind others with their well-liked and well-respected public personas, the duality of their public versus very different private personas confuses the victims. This is why we witness the shock of family and friends who insist he was a “good guy,” forgetting that “Chucky” was, too. Until he wasn’t.
So, how do we decipher duplicitous behavior for our own and our loved ones’ good? By understanding the insidious tactics abusers enact to control and manipulate others to their advantage.
ABUSERS DON’T WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT . . .
1) 💔Victims often don’t realize they are being abused.
You read that right. Domestic violence often starts with lower-level abuses. According to a series of reports from the 2016/2017 data years of the National Intimate Partner Violence Survey (NISVS), more than 40 million women reported being slapped, pushed, and shoved; and almost half of ALL women reported psychological aggression. Unfortunately, because our judicial system doesn’t criminalize abusers unless you’re shot or shanked and can prove the intention to kill, we, as a society, don’t recognize these other transgressions as abusive. So, women will often rationalize the instances of abuse as being circumstantial, since the abusive partner can also be loving and funny and all the things they were to lure the victim into the relationship in the first place.
2) 💔Victims often deny or excuse the abuse.
Victims don’t want to call any more attention to the embarrassing and shameful acts that they fall victim to for whatever reason. Nor do they want to invite any questions or concern, as exposing the abuser would likely have adverse consequences. So, they excuse, enable, and tolerate, choosing to focus on the intermittent reassurances of love and loving behaviors the abuser enacts to confuse the victims into believing the love is real.
3) 💔Victims don’t think that they deserve better.
Abuse and domestic violence victims often endure constant demeaning and diminishment, which works to strip them of their sense of themselves and their self-worth. They come to believe that they are deficient in some way, often claiming to be “broken” or “damaged,” which they justify by the way they seem to be caught in an endless cycle of suffering. What they don’t realize is that the abuser intends for them to lose themselves in the relationship, so that the abuser maintains full control and influence over who they are and what they believe.
4) 💔Victims often believe they are to blame for their abusers’ behavior.
Abusers always scapegoat the victim for causing abusive and violent behavior. They blame the victim for disobeying some “rule” they should have known not to, or they claim that they wouldn’t have committed the abuse if the victim hadn’t said this or done that. Over time, victims learn that the abuse is a consequence; and that the consequence could have been prevented if they would have just followed whatever “rule.”
5) 💔They are actively discrediting their victim behind their back.
Abusers can never risk the revelation that they are not who they appear to be in public. So, they will consciously create a narrative to discredit the victim to their own, as well as the victims' friends and family. They'll insinuate that the victim is mentally unstable. They'll claim concern about the victim's behavior or say that the victim lies. They'll even go so far as to claim they they are being abused by the victim, to create confusion and doubt if and when the victim reveals the truth to someone they think they can trust. In some cases, abusers will go to the extreme of convincing victims to medicate for psychological issues or even institutionalize them for mental instability, offering irrefutable evidence to the world that the victim is not credible, thereby protecting the truth about who they really are.
TAKEAWAYS:
➡️ALWAYS believe a victim when they trust you with their truth. It takes a lot for them to come to you in the first place. If negated, they are less likely to summon the courage a second time; and that life might be lost as a result.
➡️NEVER presume that the abuser is the “good guy” you know him to be. Every dynamic is different. So, the person you know him to be may greatly contrast the person others know him to be.
**Please know that abuse and domestic violence occur regardless of gender. However, the incidence of abuse and domestic violence against women is significantly higher. This by no means minimizes or dismisses the abuse that too many men endure. We are all human and mistreatment is wrong regardless.
💜If you or someone you know is in an abusive situation, please text HOME to 741741 for 24/7 Crisis Support in the U.S.
For more about my personal experiences with abuse and domestic violence, my memoir trilogy can be found in print, e-book, and audiobook, anywhere books are sold online, or click the links below to access them through Amazon:
GASPING FOR AIR: THE STRANGLEHOLD OF NARCISSISTIC ABUSE https://a.co/d/ebNRvKa
CHOKING ON SHAME: THE SCAPEGOAT CHILD IN A NARCISSISTIC FAMILY https://a.co/d/biFTgcY
RISING FROM THE ASHES: BREAKING THE CYCLE OF NARCISSISTIC ABUSE https://a.co/d/0TX3fbR
