Warning Signs of Abusive Relationships

[Girl_On_Fire]

The term I think some are looking for is "Gaslighting". "Gaslight" is a film that came out in 1944 starring Ingrid Bergman and it features a husband who does little things to his wife over a period of time to try to make her think she is insane. Eventually, after all the stress compounds, she begins to have small public breakdowns throughout the movie, further reinforcing the belief her husband has tried to perpetuate; that his wife is insane. (His entire reasoning for doing this is to get her locked up and inherit her fortune).

Some people just do this for fun. Some because they honestly don't know any better and it's simply a pattern from their childhood. Since that movie, a psychological term came about called 'gaslighting' in which one partner slowly and methodically picks apart at the sanity of another by implanting false information and misdirecting to make the other person questions themselves so much, they doubt their own sanity. This makes one of the partner even more vulnerable and easy to control. When they finally blow up or have a breakdown, the abuser can say, "See, I told you she was nuts." It's the most isolating, horrible, mentally-torturing feeling on earth. I've been through it.

**

I also want to address the "abuser versus victim" topic. I've only once considered myself a victim. I don't anymore. I'm somebody who unfortunately gets into a pattern of abusive relationships. I'm no innocent angel either. However, I can say with complete honesty that I have never in my life gone out of my way to harm somebody in a premeditated fashion. Have I reacted out of anger, fear, frustration or confusion in the moment? Yes. Absolutely. Has my inability read and understand social cues hurt people indirectly without my being aware of it? Yes. Absolutely. And once I figured out what I had been doing, it hit me like a ton of bricks and I spent several months tracking people down to apologize to them. (Which, unfortunately, got me back together with my ex).

I think there is something to be said about intent. (Yes, it's my favorite word.) An abuser, in my opinion, is someone who clearly knows they are physically or psychologically harming another. Once they find out from their partner that they are being hurtful, they purposefully use that information to continue to hurt their partner. That, in my opinion, is the definition of an abuser.

Someone who has a mental/developmental disorder and has a temper that they have difficulty controlling or difficulty understanding social expectations may display abusive behavior but may not, in fact, be an abuser. Someone who comes from an abusive background and knows no other way to behave may exhibit abusive behavior but may not be an abuser if they had therapy and/or education about more appropriate behavior.

I agree that two people just may be a bad fit for each other. They bring out the worse in each other but when they are with other people, their behavior and conduct would be considered within the norm. Every case is different. There are always grey areas.

[Redsunflower]

This thread has been very sad and difficult for me to read but a very worthwhile conversation to have. I've appreciated everyone's honesty so much, and had a few memories of my own stirred up.

It's also got me thinking about why abuse can be so difficult to identify. There's been a lot written about power and control and certainly, abusers try to take these things from their partners. Hugs to everyone who has experienced this.

I believe that part of the difficulty is that all relationships have an element of power and control in them. We are all entitled to be in charge of our own lives, then when we get close to someone, there needs to be some compromise. You have someone else to consider. Your partner may want you to do things you don't particularly want to, like visiting their relatives at Christmas, for example. You will also have some expectations of them. Where one of you doesn't fulfil expectations, then there will be conflict. And conflict can be scary for anyone.

When an abuser gets going this conflict can arise at any time, about anything, out of something or nothing, and in some ways that's easier to identify. But in the daily stuff of life, it can be more tricky. How does your partner cope with a little disappointment? Do they talk to you about feeling let down? Are you allowed to make amends for that? Do you know you're still cared for? Do they huff for a couple of hours and get over it? Do they stop speaking to you for a couple of days? Do they withhold love, affection, sex? Do they shout at you, try to intimidate you? Hit you? Throw you out of your home? In the midst of conflict it can be hard to keep a level head about what's acceptable or not. And oh so easy to explain away.

I believe we need to trust our instincts and our gut to try and keep ourselves safe. Too much thinking can be detrimental. You may want to ask your partner questions and to try and understand, but how important is that really when you're feeling worthless, bruised, homeless? Does it truly matter why your partner is doing these things when the impact on you is exactly the same? Even if we can't acknowledge abuse, we need to leave if our relationship feels like shit.

I would like to think I know how to keep myself safe but that's not entirely true. I believe we are all at risk of abuse, and that the need to feel loved and cared for is so great that we can often overlook the abuse to get the good bits. This makes me so sad.

I hope we can all manage to make more loving and caring relationships than this.

Rxx

[Gemme]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Snow, I agree that most females have experienced abuse by the traditional definition of the concept at the hands of other people at some point in their lives.

What I was referring to was this:


About 17-45% of lesbians report having been the victim of a least one act of physical violence perpetrated by a lesbian partner (1,5,6,13). Types of physical abuse named by more than 10% of participants in one study included:

Disrupting other’s eating or sleeping habits

Pushing or shoving, driving recklessly to punish, and slapping, kicking, hitting, or biting (11).

Sexual abuse by a woman partner has been reported by up to 50% of lesbians (12).

Psychological abuse has been reported as occurring at least one time by 24% to 90% of lesbians (1,5,6,11,14).


These are stats for lesbian-lesbian relationships. Not for women in general. At least one incident of psychological abuse in a relationship by 24-90% of lesbians? Sexual abuse 50% of the time?

This is when I feel like I am living in a parallel universe.

It doesn't read like sexual abuse occurs up to 50% of the time to me. It reads that sexual abuse occurred in UP TO 50% of the cases that sexual abuse from a woman partner was documented. We all know that of the cases that are documented, there are far more that are not. Of the documented cases, there could easily be documented incidents up to half of the reported cases. That doesn't mean that it happened 50% of the time. It would only have to happen at least once in up to 50% of the cases documented.

I haven't gone back so forgive me if I didn't see this but was there a clear and definitive definition of sexual abuse for these stats? Was it including only times when a physical assault actually occurred or does it include times that threats of assault were made but perhaps no definitive, physical assault occurred? Did it include sexual harrassment as sexual abuse? Does it include the fucked up mind games that people often play with one another?

I had a friend in high school who was physically assaulted in a very specific and graphic way. After that happened once, just the threat of that happening again created the same reaction as did the initial assault, so even though.....say the tenth time it happened (the threat), she was not physically touched but the threat of it happening again was very much a possibility.....does that still count as sexual abuse? Is it strictly psychological abuse at that point? For me, I see the various forms of abuse like links on a chain. They are connected and it's difficult to suffer one without another.

As for the psychological abuse stat, I fully believe it. Again, it's all about the definition for me. What you may consider fine or just rude behavior, I might consider abusive behavior. We all view from our individual perspectives and unless there's a straightforward definition of what is being measured, then we're going to have that gray area.

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by Gemme

It doesn't read like sexual abuse occurs up to 50% of the time to me. It reads that sexual abuse occurred in UP TO 50% of the cases that sexual abuse from a woman partner was documented. We all know that of the cases that are documented, there are far more that are not. Of the documented cases, there could easily be documented incidents up to half of the reported cases. That doesn't mean that it happened 50% of the time. It would only have to happen at least once in up to 50% of the cases documented.

I haven't gone back so forgive me if I didn't see this but was there a clear and definitive definition of sexual abuse for these stats? Was it including only times when a physical assault actually occurred or does it include times that threats of assault were made but perhaps no definitive, physical assault occurred? Did it include sexual harrassment as sexual abuse? Does it include the fucked up mind games that people often play with one another?

Gemme, you ask some very pertinent questions and show some excellent critical thinking skills.

Perhaps if you actually read it, some of those would have been answered and even more generated.

Same goes for the math. Read it. Then venture an opinion based on fact, not arbitrary conjecture.

Would love to discuss it further, once we are working with the same data.

Have a nice day

[Gemme]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Gemme, you ask some very pertinent questions and show some excellent critical thinking skills.

Perhaps if you actually read it, some of those would have been answered and even more generated.

Same goes for the math. Read it. Then venture an opinion based on fact, not arbitrary conjecture.

Would love to discuss it further, once we are working with the same data.

Have a nice day

Kobi, your response feels dismissive and condescending. The pat on the head for my 'critical thinking skills' especially.

I will read Snowy's post that she contributed to the thread to see if there are, in fact, definitive descriptions for what the study considers to be sexual abuse and perhaps I will find the answers to my questions.

Having said that, you completely missed the point I was making in regard to your response to Snowy. I don't feel you're reading the statistics properly. They are absolutely within reason. I'm fine with leaving it as an agree to disagree thing, however.

Have a nice day.

[*Anya*]

Impact on Children

A study published in the November 2003 issue of Child Abuse & Neglect found that children exposed to abuse on their mothers -- but not mistreated themselves -- also display increased behavior problems. The research was compiled by the University of Washington-Seattle and the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center. The study surveyed 167 Seattle women, all of whom had children between 2- and 17 years old.

Each woman had police-reported or court-reported intimate-partner violence such as physical, psychological or sexual abuse. Each woman also filled out child behavior checklists by phone or mail. Researchers considered the surveyed child to be abused if any report triggered an investigation -- regardless of the findings of that investigation. This definition allows a "more sensitive measure" of mistreatment, and takes the difficulties of prosecuting abuse cases into account, according to the report. Investigators then compared the survey results from a Seattle sample of children with a nationally representative sample of children used to develop the checklist. The Child Behavior Checklist included questions on internalizing behaviors (depressive, withdrawn or anxious behavior) and externalizing behaviors (aggressive or delinquent behaviors).

The results were stronger among the children who had been abused -- but those only exposed to their mothers' abuse were also affected -- they were 60 percent more likely to show externalizing behaviors. They were 40 percent more likely to test in the borderline to clinical range for total behavioral problems.

(Source: University of Washington-Seattle)
Children who suffer family violence are at risk of perpetrating domestic abuse themselves once they reach adulthood, finds to a study that followed over five hundred families for 20 years.

Researchers at Columbia University say three factors are the strongest predictors: "serious behavior problems in adolescence, exposure to domestic violence, and power punishments by the parents—harsh discipline.” Being subjected to physical abuse as a child was most likely to connect to violent romantic relationships later in life. The study found no gender difference among the violent. Both men and women are equally likely to commit acts of physical aggression. More than 20 percent of both genders reported being violent with their partner; 5 percent of this violence brought injury to the partner.

Researchers at Columbia first contacted 543 randomly selected children back in 1975. They, along with their parents, were interviewed in 1983, 1985 and 1991. The final survey, done in 1999, asked about aggressive behavior, romantic history and recent life changes.

(SOURCE: August 2003 issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology)
Children under the age of 12 resided in 43 percent of the households in which domestic violence was reported between 1993 and 1998.

(Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). May 2000. Intimate Partner Violence. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.)
Slightly more than half of female victims of intimate violence live in households with children under the age of 12.

(US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics Factbook: Violence by Intimates, March 1998)
Boys who have witnessed partner violence are much more likely to become batterers in their adult relationships than boys who have not had exposure to partner violence in their families. The data is mixed for girls.

(Hotaling and Sugarman, 1996)
A child's exposure to the father abusing the mother is the strongest risk factor for transmitting violent behavior from one generation to the next.

(Report of the American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Violence and the Family, APA, 1996)
Children exposed to partner violence exhibit symptoms similar to children who are physically and sexually abused, including the perpetuation of violence.

(Davidson, 1995)
In a national study of more than 6,000 American families, 50% of the men who frequently assaulted their wives also frequently abused their children.

(Murray A Strauss, Richard J. Gelles, and Christine Smith. Physical Violence in American Families; Risk Factors and Adaptations to Violence in 8,145 Families (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1990), 407-409)
Men who as children witnessed their parents' domestic violence were twice as likely to abuse their own wives than sons of nonviolent parents.

(Murray A. Straus et al., Physical Violence in American Families: Risk Factors and Adaptations to Violence in 8,145 Families. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1990)

75% of boys who witnessed domestic violence have been found to have demonstrable behavior problems.

(Jaffe, et al., 1987)
Children exposed to partner violence condoned it to resolve relationship conflicts more readily than did control groups.

(Jaffe, Wilson, and Wolfe, 1986)
Between 3.3 and 10 million children witness domestic violence in their home each year.

(Carlson, 1984)
Studies show that children are being physically abused in approximately half the families where the mother is a known victim of domestic assault. Similarly, studies show that mothers are being battered in approximately half the families where her child is a known victim of physical abuse.

(Jeffrey L. Edleson, PhD, The Overlap Between Child Maltreatment and Woman Abuse)

http://www.caepv.org/getinfo/facts_stats.php?factsec=10

[Rockinonahigh]

When I was a kid I had this friend that was so terrified of her father it was unreal,he was the most abusive mean s.o.b.I ever knew.She had three brothers and a sister that felt the same way,the older brother was so much like the old man that he didn't catch fall out but the rest of them did.Once her younger brothers skipped school one day,they were 12 & 14 at the time,when the old man found out about it he beat both of them bad enough to put them both in the hospitial for a while one of the boys was hurt so bad he never was the same again.Mentaly his mind ended up at about age 8,he was choked so bad it damaged his vocal cords to the point he could barely speak,the other brother had to have his face reconstructed bit by bit over a few years but he left home as soon as he turned 18.The two girls either married or just left home.Where was the mother during all this?Well she just told anyone who ask her about the issue hat he was the father and had the right to make sure the kids behaved by whatever means he wanted,everyone knew she was scared of him cause she got her share of the hits as well.Back then we didn't have laws like we do now cause the police did a investagation on the matter but nothing came of it.When the old man died there wasn't a hand full at the funeral.I will never figure out how or why people didn't do something but it was the way of the times,if he had killed one of them he would have been in jail but only for that.

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by Gemme

Kobi, your response feels dismissive and condescending. The pat on the head for my 'critical thinking skills' especially.

I will read Snowy's post that she contributed to the thread to see if there are, in fact, definitive descriptions for what the study considers to be sexual abuse and perhaps I will find the answers to my questions.

Having said that, you completely missed the point I was making in regard to your response to Snowy. I don't feel you're reading the statistics properly. They are absolutely within reason. I'm fine with leaving it as an agree to disagree thing, however.

Have a nice day.

Gemme, I wasnt intending to be dismissive, condescending, or patting anything. You were asking the same questions I was asking myself after reading it.

I see conclusions and I am trying to figure out how they got there.

It is a compilation of studies. Did each study use the same definition or were there different definitions? Did each study touch on all the potential areas of abuse or only specific ones? Were the definitions of abuse the same or reasonably compatible? What was the sample size? Was the sample size statistically significant? Were the statistics based on occurrences of events or the number of people who experienced the event?

I was looking thru the studies used, most of which are from the 1990's. I cant find anything current or updated. I find lots of books but no studies.

As for the statistics, we can agree to disagree but I'm thinking once you have read it, we would be better able to discuss it. It appears, they are talking about the number of people who have experienced something abusive not the number of times. To say up to 50% could mean one person would mean your sample size was 2 people. Yes?

Because it is a compilation, I expect to see variations i.e. 24-90% of the lesbians surveyed, depending on which study, reported at least one undefined act of psychological abuse. That's a huge variation. Is it statistically significant? or it that indicative of something else?

Critical thinking is a good thing.

Feel free to pm me if you want to discuss it further. I am interested in what you think about it and why.

[Dude]

Public humiliation is a big sign ( for me)

[Teddybear]

Originally Posted by Girl_On_Fire

Some people just do this for fun. Some because they honestly don't know any better and it's simply a pattern from their childhood. Since that movie, a psychological term came about called 'gaslighting' in which one partner slowly and methodically picks apart at the sanity of another by implanting false information and misdirecting to make the other person questions themselves so much, they doubt their own sanity. This makes one of the partner even more vulnerable and easy to control. When they finally blow up or have a breakdown, the abuser can say, "See, I told you she was nuts." It's the most isolating, horrible, mentally-torturing feeling on earth. I've been through it.

I want to address the issues you brought up but I want to do it separately.

Gaslighting is something that is a slow and methodically way to abuse someone. It takes someone who is really dark to put another on this path. I have followed some down that rabbit hole. It HELL to crawl back out and if and when your able to your NOT the person you were before. Its easy to follow the person you love down this path. It isnt like so outrageous that you can spot it a mile away.

It starts off very slowly and deliberate. They test the waters. It could be something as little as moving your keys from where you usually put them at the end of the day to asking where something is that was never there to start with. By time your so deep into it you dont know if your living in reality or in a dream world.

I used to set up little test for myself and didnt tell anyone but I wrote them down so I could check to make sure or I would take pictures with my camera. It was a way for me to know where to find what I was looking for in the am. I found out in short order that I wasnt "losing" my thing they were being moved on purpose. Im surprised that it took me months to finally say enough is enough.

By time I had left these relationships I knew that I had been played but couldnt figure out WHY? Im still asking myself that and I think I may for a long time to come.

I know that some ppl love to do this to others I just cant figure out why and where they really get the "balls" to do it.

Im sure there are others that will comment on this also and I look forward to reading them

[Nic]

Damn. Used to love that movie. Can't really look at it the same way now. What a shitty thing to do to someone.

[Teddybear]

Originally Posted by Girl_On_Fire

I also want to address the "abuser versus victim" topic. I've only once considered myself a victim. I don't anymore. I'm somebody who unfortunately gets into a pattern of abusive relationships. I'm no innocent angel either.

I was a VICTIM to my father and to the others I was PREY.

The abusers HUNT us. They set their sights on us and trap us. I like others i think use the word victim cause it is acceptable and it is how people outside looking in see us.

I have or I am working on taking that target OFF of me. It isnt an easy road by no means but its one Im traveling.

[Teddybear]

Originally Posted by Girl_On_Fire

I'm no innocent angel either. However, I can say with complete honesty that I have never in my life gone out of my way to harm somebody in a premeditated fashion. Have I reacted out of anger, fear, frustration or confusion in the moment? Yes. Absolutely. Has my inability read and understand social cues hurt people indirectly without my being aware of it? Yes. Absolutely. And once I figured out what I had been doing, it hit me like a ton of bricks and I spent several months tracking people down to apologize to them. (Which, unfortunately, got me back together with my ex).

I think there is something to be said about intent. (Yes, it's my favorite word.) An abuser, in my opinion, is someone who clearly knows they are physically or psychologically harming another. Once they find out from their partner that they are being hurtful, they purposefully use that information to continue to hurt their partner. That, in my opinion, is the definition of an abuser.

Someone who has a mental/developmental disorder and has a temper that they have difficulty controlling or difficulty understanding social expectations may display abusive behavior but may not, in fact, be an abuser. Someone who comes from an abusive background and knows no other way to behave may exhibit abusive behavior but may not be an abuser if they had therapy and/or education about more appropriate behavior.

I agree that two people just may be a bad fit for each other. They bring out the worse in each other but when they are with other people, their behavior and conduct would be considered within the norm. Every case is different. There are always grey areas.

I too have NEVER set out to hurt anyone intently that doesnt mean that I havent or wont in the future. However I have to say that being human we all hurt each other in some way or another. But that doesnt meet the definition of abuse. We hurt others feelings when we may or may not be who or what they want us to be.

Being with someone with mental health issues is a horse of a different color. I for one understand that no matter what they try sometimes they just cant control it.

I was with someone who refused to get help for her mental illness. She is now and Im thankful for that. We have just recently reconnected and the change in her is amazing. I know we wont ever be a couple again cause she will stop getting the help she needs.

INTENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AN abuser is FULL of intent. Now to hear them tell it they arent doing anything wrong nor have they.

Im not going to go down that road. To me they get their kicks by DESTROYING their prey