Strictly Moderated: October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month ...

I am saddened to say that October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. I have a few, scattered thoughts.

Abuse happens to teenagers and to eighty-year-olds, to people of color and us pasty white folk, to millionaires and to those who don?t know where their next meal comes from, to able-bodied people and non-able-bodied people, to Christians and Muslims and Jews and pagans and Hindus and Buddhists and atheists and agnostics and those of all the religions I have not mentioned.?It happens in?same-sex relationships and in?different-sex relationships. It happens to people who are married, living together or dating. It happens to poly and mono people, to kinky and vanilla people, to queer people and straight people, to butches and femmes, to geeks and normies. No matter what your community is, it is affected by abuse.

And, yes, abuse happens to men and to women.??

The Power and Control Wheel is a famous list of common abusive patterns in a relationship. I am not linking, because it is not gender-neutral. However, I will summarize the abusive behavior described therein.?

Coercion and/or Threats. Threatening or carrying out threats to hurt you. Threatening to leave, commit suicide or report you to welfare/the police/immigration/whatever. Making?you drop charges or do illegal things. Stalking. Threatening someone you care about. Driving recklessly to frighten you.
Intimidation. Making you afraid through looks, actions, gestures, etc. Smashing things or destroying property. Abusing pets. Displaying weapons in a threatening way.
Emotional Abuse. Putting you down. Making you feel bad about yourself. Calling you names. Making you think you?re crazy. Playing mind games. Humiliating you. Making you feel guilty. ?Giving conflicting messages by both helping and hurting. Abusing more as?you become more independent. Disrespecting boundaries. Talking down to you.?Not letting you get needed sleep. ?
Isolation. Controlling what you do or read, where you go and whom you?re going with. Limiting your outside involvement. Using jealousy to justify actions. Violating your privacy by reading your private email, text messages, etc. or keeping tabs on whom you call. Making you account for your whereabouts. Not letting you go anywhere alone.
Minimizing, Denying or Blaming. Making light of abuse or claiming it didn?t happen. Shifting responsibility for abusive behavior. Saying you caused the abuse or deserve it. Accusing you of mutual abuse. Saying it?s just fighting, not abuse. Saying men can?t abuse men, women can?t abuse men or women can?t abuse women.
Using Children. Making you feel guilty about the children. Using the children to relay messages. Using visitation to harass you. Threatening to take the children away. Making you stay for the sake of the kids.
Economic Abuse. Preventing you from getting or keeping a job. Making you ask for money. Giving you an allowance. Not letting you know about or have access to family income. Not working and requiring you to provide assets. Interfering with your work or education. Using your credit cards without permission. Keeping your name off joint assets.
Taking Advantage of the Kyriarchy. Treating you like a servant, making all the big decisions, acting as the ?man? of the house, being the one to define men?s and women?s roles.
OR Saying she can?t be an abuser because she?s a woman, shaming you for being unmanly because you feel abused by her.
OR Threatening to out you, reinforcing internalized biphobia/homophobia/transphobia, questioning?your gender or sexuality, saying no one will believe you because you?re queer, threatening to tell the authorities so they?ll take away the children, using ability to pass or other privilege to use the system against you.
OR?This chart. All of it.
OR This chart. Again, all of it.*
OR This one.
OR? but, for Christ?s sake, we?ll be here all night. Suffice it to say that the kyriarchy makes a lot of great ways for people to be abused.

If you recognize the pattern of your current relationship, I?d like to ask you to please seek help. Safe4All offers an extensive?list of resources for underserved populations. The National Domestic Violence Online Hotline is here?and is, afaict, inclusive of all survivors of abuse (although their website is problematic).

Please don?t stop yourself from seeking help because the abuse is not that bad. It is not somehow ?not bad? if your partner controls you, but he doesn?t yell? yells, but doesn?t hit? hits, but not that hard.?There is no arbitrary threshold abuse has to pass before it matters. It causing you pain means it matters.

Also: abuse?is not ever your fault. It is not your fault if you provoked it, because abusers have control over their own actions and their choices are their fault; it is not your fault for not seeing the red flags, because abusers are good at hiding their abusive natures; it is not your fault for not leaving, because abusers often have a way of trapping you. The only person whose fault abuse is is the abuser.

I would also like to speak for a moment to those who might recognize these patterns another way: as something they do. If you are abusive, it does not mean you are necessarily evil. Many abusers were abused themselves and have no other way of relating; others suffer from mental health issues. Please seek help so you can end this destructive cycle. Safe4All has resources for abusive men and women.

Commenters are welcome to share their experiences with abuse and domestic violence.

*Warning: this chart and the next paint abuse survivors as female. As both Muslim women and female sex workers have unique issues, I have fewer problems with this; however, I do not encndorse their view that abuse survivors are necessarily female.

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Source: http://noseriouslywhatabouttehmenz.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/strictly-moderated-october-is-domestic-violence-awareness-month/

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