i was scanning around PC (avoiding work) and started browsing the domestic violence area..i'm not even sure how to get back there but the thing that raised my curiosity was the quiz...

now, it's call the domestic VIOLENCE quiz... and a year ago i wouldn't have ever clicked on it because i was never once struck in any way.. no physical abuse at all.

i scored 18

the quiz says that a score over 11 indicates abuse is potentially happening.

during the bad times i did everything an abused spouse does: explained it away, made excuses, minimized it, blamed myself... all of it. But when you face verbal violence, emotional abuse, mental abuse.... you face another hurdle too - the lack of acceptance and understanding. When i say i was abused the first thing people ask is whether he hit me... and when i say no they are hugely relieved. i am relieved that he didn't hit me.. but it all helps feed that "it wasn't so bad" idea

i thot about writing DocJohn and asking him to change the header on the survey... but i decided against it... couldn't really bring myself to do it.. i just know that any shred of validation was like gold to me back then. i'd gather information like a squirrel... and basically i was swayed by what i found. "abuse is this but not this" etc...

so many resources geared towards the physical, and so little support for the people like me out there

smart people... with education, life experience, friends and family... being abused, knowing it's not ok but not having a name for it. i see myself searching online and feeling ashamed.

if i can score 18 without ever being struck... surely others fit this too

in retrospect, the header domestic violence fits if that is what it is... but i would never have paired my situation and that phrasing.

and i worry that it sounds like there is a quota or threshold for abusive behaviour... if you score 10 its not abuse but 11 is...??

i duno.. maybe im being stupid... i just wish more people in my situation could get that validation sooner... that validation was what gave me the push i needed to help myself

[Rhapsody]

I understand what you are saying...... as abuse other than sexual or physical abuse is still abuse and can greatly effect the person being harmed - the victim.

[Kiya]

that's a powerful post.... i want to go check out the quiz too - that was our lives, too... part of the abuse was hidden, secretive, and in a sub-set of the psyche... i didn't have the abilities to comprehend it. but the rest, the fighting, bullying, the verbal abuse, the put downs... it's all right there in the foreground. i was like you - trying to get help for my family- but no one ever saw. even the one time i was hit in the face - my mom covered it with make up and i sang in the choir - no one ever knew, never saw. we continued to be the "perfect family", trusted community members...
thanks for the post.
*****************
I just took that quiz (thinking in the past tense for my former family where i was the kid). the score was 26. I had no idea then. i was told i was so lucky, i was never abused, never starved, never.... but really, looking at the list it posted on the end...

he did all this to us...
"You are the victim of emotional abuse if your partner:

Repeatedly gives you destructive criticism, verbal threats and browbeating.
Always claims to be right.
Excludes you from making decisions and claims to be the head of the household.
Abuses your trust by lying, hiding important information and papers, cheating or being inappropriately jealous.
Minimizes or denies abusive behavior.
Constantly shows disrespect, puts you down or embarrasses you in front of others.
Harasses you by following you or checking up on you.
Prevents you from seeing your relatives or friends or insists on going everywhere with you.
Monitors your phone calls. -He monitored mine until I was 28.

You are a victim of physical abuse if your partner:
Intimidates you through angry or threatening gestures.
Destroys your belongings or household items.
Coerces you to have sex or perform sexual acts against your will. (to me as a kid)
(always in play) Kicks, stabs, pushes or chokes you.

We never felt fully safe with him and constantly watched him for signs that he was going to be violent. We had constant family fueds - constant physical fights even with me as a kid. I don't know how we ever managed the facade of "perfect family".

even after i got out of that, i walked right into a really abusive relationship with my bf. he hit me (never on the face) and did all sorts of things, told me the most horrific things. I am still single (12 years later) because of that. I don't want to EVER get into that again. If it could happen once, it could happen again.
kiya

[Perna]

I like the term "violence" because that's what it is, violence to one's self? That makes it much more clear to me than "abuse" which is such an overused term today; kids ask each other, "Why are you giving me abuse?" when they're playing around with each other, we use to call it getting "flak" (good WWII term for anti-aircraft fire. You can't play with violence, it refuses. Abuse is violence, plain and simple.

i agree perna.. it certainly IS violence... but in a situation in which no physical violence is occurring the victim may not understand or be able to connect the two. i never ever would have thought of my situation as involving violence... and of course, that is a misconception on my part.. but it kept me from finding help sooner.

im not suggesting we water down the terms, but be additive and inclusive... because the resources out there are set towards helping victims of physical violence validate their experience, which they need to, victims of other types of abuse struggle to grasp whether they are being abused at all...

"maybe it's not that bad" "maybe i'm blowing it out of proportion"

my point is about how people like myself often do not have the skill required to *know* what they suffer(ed) is abuse. Violence is what i suffered, but i would never have looked further into it because i had no idea... i was timidly exploring the *possibility* that it *may* have been abuse.

i say to my T all the time... i was not hit as an adult, not molested as a child, it doesn't seem you count if those aren't the case

i know it counts... but i didn't used to

yes, abuse is violence... i didn't dare use the word abuse even... that made bigger leaps than i could make. Do we leave out a large group of victims simply because they can't make that plain and simple connection?

it's been a year with this T, six mos with the previous and about a year and a half with a mental health worker who was just letting me talk so that i'd have someplace to turn... i am able to write out the word abuse. That is three years to just choose that word. well.. i suppose i started to use it a couple of months ago.. so subtract those.... i am only now starting to call a lot of it verbal violence.. because that is the only thing that describes the degree of screaming that happened...

"violence" as a term, label, category... are all appropriate, in retrospect for me... i never once followed those links before last year... to me they meant something bigger than what i faced, because afterall, like many victims.. it wasn't that bad right?

[Perna]

I think the violence is accented out there because it's life threatening. It's like the difference between a robbery and a rape to me; they're both traumatic and one often wants therapy to work with the aftereffects but the rape is a different "class". Violent spouses can kill! Adults can walk away from non-violent abusers; it's not easy and, because of some of our backgrounds, we don't, but it is "possible". Violent abusers stalk and threaten life and limb. That's a whole different sort of problem to deal with than another adult just putting one down constantly and "pounding" on one verbally or emotionally.

My stepmother was abusive but I literally could not get away because I was a child. When we grow up, we choose to enter into relationships and having to figure out we've made a bad choice and getting out of a relationship is an adult's task and not something someone else has to, or even can, do for them. However, violent abusive relationships require outside assistance; being an adult isn't enough, there's no way to get out of the relationship by one's self.

I don't mind that domestic violence type of abuse is accented; emotional and verbal abuse aren't limited to the domestic scene; one can have an abusive boss, etc. There's really no way to categorize verbal or emotional abuse, either; so much depends on the relationship itself and the two people involved, their histories and the relationship's. Domestic violence though is clear cut, obvious, and must be stopped, must have priority.

[Kiya]

i never thought my family was in a domestic violence situation. not until this decade. i knew there was fighting and putdowns and public humiliation, and i knew my dad was a monster... but to me DV was hitting and leaving broken bones. We never sought help. Besides, in the 80's, who would have helped? No one. Are there bruises? no. Are there broken bones? no. so, suck it up. that's what we did. Chairs went flying, mom got pushed out and locked out, kids hid under the table, cabinets shook and dishes fell out... and we just went on. family members cried out of humiliation, and kids got spanked with handprints that lasted hours... that was life. ya know?

[chaotic13]

Domestic violence in my mind has a physical element. I would not have related what I was experiencing to this term. (What I experienced in my childhood at the hands of my abusers--this I frequently connected with the term violence.) But not what my father did or what my husband was doing-- this to me was different because the physical element was missing. Verbal abuse is the term I first related to and realized, "hey that is what I am experiencing." For me it wasn't until I saw the effect of the abuse on my children did I recognize how damaging it was. Then after I started therapy to help them, did I realize that I was being abused too. The magnitude of its effects on me and my children, I did not fully comprehend this until Sunrise recommended the Patricia Evans book. When I read this , I finally started to understand the profound effect verbal abuse has had on my life and my perception of myself.

I think people don't make the connection between violence and abuse because it is something that they have always known. I though verbal abuse was a normal part of marriage. The same way that I thought all men tend to put down their wives in order to feel better about themselves. Also in relationships I think verbal abuse can enter it gradually and slowly escalates. If your fed trash long enough you forget that it is trash.

[Kiya]

yes... it builds sometimes slowly. the analogy i had heard was if you drop a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will hop out right quick. but if you put a frog in water and slowy bring it to a boil, the frog will just sit there and not realize the danger.
that was how a youth counselor described my life. it makes a lot more sense now looking back than it did then. i had no idea how far the roots went to what we have lived through.

[Pseudonym]

contricio via incrementum.

Just like what we were talking about last night, MzFluff. Your own perception of an event or an ordeal becomes your definition of "normal". Many people, myself included, when told even a little bit of your story, recognize it as not belonging to our own normal reality, and so are shocked. You, yourself, however, have built this into the sort of thing that occurs ordinarily, like mckell and Kiya have said (beautifully, I might add).

I find it helpful to ponder what an outside observer would think of my situation, or what I might think of someone else's, just to remind myself that we're not alone on this pale blue dot, and try to get some perspective. It's often not good news, what this outside imaginary individual is telling me, but it's not really the point. The point is if you're DOING the exercise in the first place, trying to attain that much-needed perspective, then you've already crossed that first nearly-impossible hurdle and can admit that you've got yourself a pickle.

Also like we talked about, we're all very cautious around here how we label ourselves, not just because we don't want to add more issues to our mental pantheon, but because of the stigma associated. As you say, you timidly explored the possibility that this is what the quiz suggested it might be the same way I tell people I'm depressed, with an alarming lack of confidence. But remember how sure *I* was nearly instantly upon hearing your story (or a little part of it)? We may hesitate to brand ourselves, but only total strangers can look at us with complete impartiality.

In other words, blah blah blah.

*hug*

[Kiya]

aye

ya.. i am wondering if the doc would change the name of some stuff so more peeps would conntect with it sooner... if i had taken such a quiz earlier.. well, who knows

[Kiya]

remember, too, that often when the woman goes back (or lets him back) often things escelate worse than they were. Most physically viloent injuries happen the 2nd, 3rd, 4th time ppl get back together.