Part 1: Recognizing signs of abuse
By Maleah Funderburk
Wingate Triangle Editor
If you throw a toad into a pot of boiling water, it’ll immediately jump out. However, if you place the toad in water that is cool, and slowly turn up the temperature, it won’t escape until the heat is unbearable.
Verbal, emotional, and mental abuse is a real, recognized, type of intimate partner violence. Often meant to control, isolate, and scare you, this behavior is unique. It’s underlying, never making itself too apparent. It’s meant to trap you, blame you, manipulate you, and it’s suffocating. Here are a few of those tactics:
Jealousy:
A little jealousy is normal in a relationship, even the most healthy and thriving couple may experience envy from time to time. A controlling partner is overcome with jealousy, however. At first, it may seem a little endearing, but it quickly becomes overwhelming. Whether it’s constant accusations of cheating or worrying about whom you spend your time with, extreme jealousy is typically the basis that leads to controlling behaviors.
Monitoring and Isolation:
To quench their immense fear of losing their partner, an oppressor will do what they can to make sure you will not leave them.
They may routinely ask to look through your phone, demand to accompany you when you visit a friend, or attempt to occupy a majority of your time so you simply cannot see people other than them. These methods of isolation give the abuser unregulated power which is when mistreatment grows more intense. It’s a carefully calculated tactic that cannot be challenged.
Minimizing, Denying, Blaming:
Even healthy relationships have moments where one party feels hurt. The constructive action is to bring this incident up, explain how you feel, discuss, forgive, and move on. However, abusive partners do not take criticism lightly.
To shift the condemnation off of themselves, toxic partners will minimize the abuse, deny their wrongdoings, and blame the other. There will be little to no accountability for abusive behaviors.
Threats and Intimidation:
This is the most frightening aspect of manipulative behavior. Once the carefully orchestrated plan of isolation and blame has confined the partner to the role of captive, direct threats and intimidation are free game. These are the most obvious and apparent forms of emotional abuse; but when you’re under the veil that was forcibly placed over your head, this seems normal.
“When you look at someone through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags” was, and still is, my understanding of why one may stay in these relationships (though I leave out the part that this is a quote from Bojack Horseman, a cartoon about a troubled humanoid horse, I digress).
One of the most common threats I hear, from people who are in any kind of toxic relationship, is the threat to commit suicide if you leave. I cannot emphasize this strongly enough: this constitutes abuse — and it happens far too often.
Other forms of intimidation include threats to harm you, your pets, or friends/family. Moreover, physical actions that do not involve direct contact but instill fear, such as throwing objects, punching walls, or brandishing weapons.
While some of these situations may appear abusive from an outside perspective, they don’t always seem that way when you’re actually in them. My goal is to spread this awareness to help others in similar situations. If this message reaches even one person, I will consider it a success.
If you or someone you know is experiencing abuse, help is available:
- Domestic Violence Hotline: (800)-799-7233
- Campus Safety: (704)-233-8999
- Turning Point: Union County’s only organization that provides emergency and lifesaving resources for survivors of domestic violence.
- Domestic Violence: (704)-282-7233
- Sexual Assault: (704)-283-7770
This series will continue to discuss domestic violence including resources available to you, the healing process, and other important conversations.
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