How Can I Know if it's Abuse?

I Want to Help Someone Being Abused

WHAT ROLE CAN I PLAY?

What Does Abuse Look Like?

Identifying abuse can be difficult for any First Responder. Remember, abuse is always a choice. It may be a mistake, but it is never an accident, and it is never the victim’s fault. Between 2 and 10 percent of victims lie about abuse, whereas the majority of abusers lie about their actions.

We encourage you to familiarize yourself with the materials on this website in order to gain knowledge and insight into abusive patterns and the trauma it causes. Abuse comes in many forms but all abusive relationships include Covert Emotional Abuse. Our glossary of definitions will help you identify the hidden abusive patterns that play out in every abusive relationship. It’s important to note that when interfacing with victims and abusers, the most important goal is to “Do No Further Harm”. For more information on healing ways to respond, continue reading.

THE VICTIM

Abusive relationships are often complicated. You will find that victims frequently have a difficult time communicating their experiences accurately. They have been in prolonged states of stress and confusion and they have been conditioned and oppressed in numerous ways. Victims may have developed the serious emotional and physical effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It’s not uncommon to witness a myriad of emotions vacillating between fight, flight and freeze. These are involuntary reactions that may display as anger, terror, numbness or fragmented thinking and communication. It’s important to note that when no physical violence has occurred, victims especially struggle to understand their toxic circumstance or face that they are in an abusive relationship. Clarity regarding what constitutes emotional abuse and identifying what Covert Emotionally Abusive Behaviors the victim is enduring, is the first necessary step towards awareness and healing.

Be careful not to over-confront or under-inform the victim.

In some instances you may experience the victim as meek and fragile in a mindset of accommodating the abuser. Victims are conditioned to doubt or blame themselves for behaviors the abuser is engaging in. Or, you may witness the victim being fed up and wanting out of the relationship. Respect the victim’s choice. A controlled separation (see PDF below) is one way that can allow time and space for the victim to heal while discerning available options. A separation can also provide you and others opportunities to hold the abuser accountable while measuring whether the abuser is willing and able to do the lengthy and difficult work to change.

Listening means just that, you offer a listening ear. Do not retreat. Just listen without judgments, suggestions, or interpretations. This could be one of the first opportunities they have to freely verbalize their confusing reality. Listening first lays the foundation for a later intervention. Remember, the victim’s situation did not occur overnight. It may feel disturbingly normal to them. Or they may be so terrified that any thought of action is overwhelming. They are vulnerable and need empathy and compassion. Once that first step of listening opens a door with them, you can move to the next five steps.

Accepting means you believe what the victim/survivor says is true of their experience. This does not mean approval or blind acceptance of what they may or may not have done. It means that you accept that they are in a highly compromised position without knowing what to do, and they need you to accept their pain, fear, indecision, and confusion for what it is: the story of their suffering.

Empathizing is the act of putting yourself in the other’s shoes so you can feel what they feel. Empathizing in current time with the victim’s situation will help you to communicate a deeper understanding without negatively judging or evaluating them. It will also help you provide compassion and patience as they process to make a decision. Your empathy will provide them with emotional companionship along their journey to healing.

Validating consists of mirroring back to your loved ones what you are understanding about what they are saying, not in a parroting way, but so they hear you truly comprehend their what they have experienced beyond just the content of their words. You can help them in identifying. Identifying is the act of helping the abused name what they experienced. This interaction gives them a voice and words to finally explain what has previously been so confusing. It is a necessary step to their healing.

Identifying is the act of helping the abused person put to words what they have experienced. This process helps them clearly identify what has previously been so confusing. Identifying the abuse supports them in speaking their truth to those who can intervene and help them heal. Sometimes, it can also be illuminating for you to share with them your own parallel experiences as examples, remembering the primary focus remains on developing their own narrative and truth.

Encouraging is you communicating to the victim that you believe in them and will walk beside them. It is pouring words of affirmation and validation into them. It is reminding them that with the right support they will have the courage to work through this complicated and confusing situation.

Grieve with them for all they have lost. Don’t deny, avoid, or suppress the healing power of mourning. Grieving with someone is a shared experience of deep connection. Place yourself in the victim’s shoes. They are feeling immense pain as well as loss of connection from others. Victims have often been forced into isolation by their abuser, or they have pulled away on their own accord due to their unstable circumstances. Deeply connecting with a victim in your care by allowing them to grieve or even better, grieving with them, can have a profound and positive effect affirming that they are valued and loved.

It’s important to note that the victim is in a mindset of anticipatory fear as they share their story. They are monitoring your facial expressions and body language as they desperately seek to be accepted by a kind-hearted and supportive First Responder. They may be just coming to terms with the realization that they have been or are being emotionally, physically or sexually abused and their world is turning upside down. When you demonstrate a deep connection with those who are suffering it can have a powerful impact on their steps towards healing.

THE ABUSER

Unlike the victim, the abuser often appears calm and collected. Other times, abusers may present in an overtly complaining and controlling manner. When speaking with both parties, stories of prior conflicts may be riddled with contradictions. This is further complicated by how the abuser distorts reality to protect their image.

Abusers are operating under the Three Pillars of Abuse: Image Management, A Faulty Belief System and Entitlement. Image Management is to protect one’s own image to uphold social status and norms, or undermining at the expense of others. A Faulty Belief System is having moralistic judgments based on limited knowledge, family systems, or social and religious biases, causing oppression to others. Entitlement is expecting preferential treatment, double standards, or rewards, regardless of merit or the well-being and needs of others.

Below are some common tactics abusers use.

Abusers may offer partial confessions to deflect attention away from the severity of their actions. They may give a litany of harsh criticisms about the victim and their treatment of the abuser. These may have snippets of truth but are riddled with deception and distortion, none of which actually justify any form or level of abuse.
Abusers may state, even believe, they are the one being abused. As the victim gains strength and asserts their voice, the abuser may feel threatened, like they are losing the control they held in the victim’s life.
Abusers may fold you into the problem, even verbally abusing you via criticism, ridicule, denial, or placation. Continue affirming your willingness to listen to them, however, be willing to confront them as well.
Although abusers may be highly intelligent, they often have low emotional IQ’s. They are disconnected from accurate emotions when relating to their partner or describing their own feelings. They lack the ability to empathize and are therefore unable to describe accurately what their partner may be feeling.

Facing is a courageous act of encouragement that involves you and your family member. Facing begins as a calm, thoughtful, and even-handed conversation addressing the abusive behaviors the abuser needs to recognize. It will likely involve challenging them, but in a strong, steady way. This does not involve overt action like an intervention. You are simply shining a light on the harm they are doing, helping them to become more aware and to face the reality of it.

Owning is where the abuser takes responsibility for their harmful actions and identifies the necessary changes they must make within to bring about repair. This kind of ownership is not easy; not for the person helping the abuser take responsibility, nor for the abuser admitting their faults. Owning, along with the act of repentance, requires the abuser stop their harmful behaviors. Otherwise, it is not true ownership and change is unlikely.

Accountability may be a difficult consequence for abusers to accept, but ultimately, it is the only thing that will lead to true change and healing. Genuine remorse and repentance are significant signals that abusers truly grasp the harm they have caused and are willing to make reparation. This means they do whatever is necessary for the victim to feel safe, protected, and satisfied with the repairs. If property was damaged, fix it. If the victim’s reputation was damaged, efforts must be made to salvage it and ensure that is never repeated. If the abusers ignore or stall to avoid public humiliation because they work in a position of leadership either in their employment, community, church or volunteering, then repentance and repairs are not complete. These are not excuses to avoid reparation for the victim.

Resourcing means getting the abuser connected to help after they own their abusive behaviors. The help could be programs that work with abusers, individual therapy, a supportive church, an accountability partner, or family and friends to name a few. The purpose is to get the abuser the further support they need to maintain the needed work they must do for change.

Requirements must be made regarding the abuser. The amendments that must be made in their relationship are inseparable from their repair and success. As the abuser takes personal responsibility for the deep psychological, emotional, and cognitive reworking they must do to save their relationship, they also need to understand what is required of them to meet relational needs.

Determining is setting a new bar which includes goals for new standards of behavior, ways of communicating, sharing of information and responsibilities for child rearing, financial considerations, running a household, and supporting work efforts. The goals are bi-directional and include both partners in collaboration.

Confronting is again, the brave act of facing, but this time by either building on the successful outcomes, or by owning the initial failure to achieve the determined goals while committing to try again. Here, a structured program, individual therapy, accountability partner, or support group become a valuable resource of support in encouraging the abuser to again attempt change.

OTHER SIGNS

It’s important to also look for other clues. There may be multiple failed prior therapeutic experiences. Therapists are not trained in matters of abuse and trauma unless they have enlisted in comprehensive Continuing Education Units (CEUs). Couple Therapy, for example, is strictly prohibited in emotional and physical abuse cases, yet many therapists are unaware of their board protocols enforcing this procedural necessity.

There are emotional signs to look for as well. Victims express feeling a lack of emotional safety, connection and true intimacy. They complain that the abuser is controlling or lacks empathy and that they feel emotionally abandoned. Abusers may be avoiders, punishing victims by leaving frequently with little or no explanation as to where they are going or when they will return. Or abusers may be pursuers, requiring the victim to endure lengthy dissertations.

We provide more in depth information about assessing abuse in our curriculum and trainings.