Do you know what domestic violence is and what it looks like?
In the last few years, domestic violence has skyrocketed. A pandemic has put incredible pressure on people and sadly, it comes out in the worst way sometimes. Domestic violence has always been with us, but it’s worse now that people are out of work and cooped up at home. Partner and family abuse come from anger and the need to control. You may think that the pain you feel in a relationship is not domestic violence because no one hits you, but there’s more to abuse that just the physical.
What is domestic violence
Domestic violence is not limited to either physical abuse or bullying. Abuse is all about gaining and keeping power. The cycle of violence can continue to repeat itself and the abuse often worsens over time. There is a kind of destructive conditioning that accompanies domestic violence. People get used to it, try a variety of ways to lessen it, and often give up or feel helpless and hopeless.
Domestic abuse comes from a variety of sources
All too often domestic violence accompanies substance or alcohol use. It can also develop in relationships when one partner has a narcissistic personality disorder. It can arise from a loved one’s childhood traumatic experiences that are acted out against others in adulthood.
Abusers focus on power and control regarding their victims. The Power and Control Wheel offers an excellent explanation of male violence upon women (and can be adapted for other relationships).
Abuse in relationships isn’t just one thing. Here are 6 ways abusers gain and maintain control over their victims.
Verbal domestic violence
- Yelling and screaming
- Name calling and making fun of the partner
- Outbursts of anger
- Threatening the partner
- Threatening children and pets
- Blaming
- Using sarcasm
Emotional buse
- Withholding love
- Intimidating
- Finding fault
- Humiliating
- Withholding support
- Threatening loved people people or things
- Conning and manipulating
- Playing mind games (gaslighting)
- Intrusive surveillance
- Hyper vigilance
- Isolating partner and family from supports
- Triangulating against partner with loved ones and friends
- Forbidding partner and children from getting counseling or therapy
- Being Jealous of everything
- preventing partner from attending school
  Financial control
- Withholding money
- Threatening to withhold money
- Preventing partner to work
- Controlling money and using an allowance
- Sabotaging partner’s workplace such as visiting, calling, and checking
- Refusing to pay for children especially if not the abuser’s children
- Refusing to work and relying on partner to pay bills
- Participating in illegal money-making activities
 Physical abuse
- Hurting through punching, kicking, biting, etc.
- Breaking items/throwing items
- Holding the partner down with no escape
- Harming the children or pets and making them watch the abuse
- Keeping the partner trapped in the home
Sexual abuse is also a form of domestic violence
- Punishing partner if partner doesn’t want sex
- Unwanted roping and touching
- Rigid sex roles/sex object
- Using derogatory sexual terms
- Forced sex/rape
- Making inappropriate sexual comments especially when around others
- Demeaning partner for partner’s looks and body
- Having sex with other people and bringing home STDs or HIV
- Engaging in inappropriate sexual behaviors around children such as displays of adult behavior with partner,
- Sexualizing the children, gazing at the children sexually and commenting on their bodies, groping, and leering
- Stalking
Spiritual abuse is an emotional form of torture
- Making fun of partner’s religious/spiritual beliefs
- Not allowing partner to attend services such as church or synagogue
- Utilizing God or another deity as the cause for punishment (“you disobeyed me which means you disobeyed God”)
- Not allowing the children to attend services
- Utilizing religious texts to validate abuse and punishment
- Not allowing partner to participate in any type of spiritually (hikes in nature, meditation, prayer) bullying about these practices
How To Cope with abuse: If this sounds like your relationship, seek help to understand the dynamics. Your first priority is your personal safety. Seek help from family and friends, from professionals such as social workers and counselors, move out, go to a domestic violence shelter, use a call-in help line, read information in books and online websites and blogs, seek protection from the police, and utilize all other help you can find. And remember, you no longer have to be harmed for you can get yourself and your children the help that is available.
Growing Up with a Narcissist And Healing From The Pain
