Abuse

You can be a victim of abuse without this being physical. There are many different ways you can be abused. Victim of abuse can often feel shame that that have caused the abuse, they do not have an understanding of the violence cycle and can also feel the need to protect the person who is abusing them.

Emotional Abuse

Emotional Abuse includes all kinds of hurtful behaviours, words, and actions designed to scare, manipulate, intimidate, threaten, isolate and destabilize the one with less power in the relationship. Emotional abuse is very hurtful; many women who have been abused say that the emotional abuse is even more damaging and harder to heal from than physical abuse.

​Emotional abuse includes:

• Threats of suicide or violence
• Forcing you to do degrading things
• Constantly attacking your self-esteem
• Destroying your property
• Punching walls next to you head
• Threats to take or hurt children
• Limiting your contact with friends and family​​
• Controlling all your activities
• Frightening you
• Throwing things at or near you​​
• Hurting pets
• Not letting you get a license or drive
• Not letting you have food, medication and sleep
• Not allowing you to have devices such as wheelchairs, hearing aids, cane or TDD machine
• Threats to tell friends/family lies or personal things about you

Financial Abuse
Financial Abuse includes behaviours such as:

• Not letting you work
• Taking your paycheck
• Stealing your bank cards or credit cards
• Taking your SSI, SSD, savings or retirement
• Controlling all the money
• Getting you evicted
• Ruining your credit
• Making you buy things you can’t afford
• Having his/her name on all your property such as houses, cars, mobile homes or apartments

Sexual Abuse

Sexual Abuse can mean:

• Forcing you to have sex after being hurt either physically or emotionally
• Forcing you to have sexual relations with other people
• Forcing you to participate in any sexual act in which you are not comfortable
• Forcing you to act or pose for pornography
• Attacking your breasts, genital or anal area
• Forcing you into prostitution
• Rape
• Forcing you to look at pornography
• Refusing to use condoms
• Forcing you to/ not letting you use birth control

Physical Abuse
Physical Abuse includes all kinds of physical action done by the partner with more power with the intent of hurting or scaring the partner with less power. Even behaviors like pinching, tickling or hair pulling can be abuse if they are done with the intent to control the other partner. Physical abuse often starts during pregnancy. Some abusers “target” their physical abuse to their partner’s stomach, buttocks, breasts or genital areas so that the injuries are harder for other people to see.

• Choking or strangling
• Holding you down
• Kicking
• Stabbing
• Burning
• Pushing
• Trapping you with his/her body
• Murder

Related Tag: Melbourne Psychologist