ABUSE IS ABUSE, NO MATTER WHAT FORM.
It is common to question whether or not what you have experienced qualifies as abuse. People who have been abused will sometimes minimize or express denial over their experience as a way to cope.
This is the Power and Control Wheel. It is commonly used to describe the different types of abuse. Different types of abuse can coexist and intersect with each other. You do not have to experience the majority of these to have experienced abuse. Experiencing one or two of these examples is very concerning.
PLEASE NOTE: The behaviors listed are not the only forms of abuse. Anything someone does to manipulate or gain power and control over another person is abuse.
Additionally, the Cycle of Abuse is often used to explain patterns of behavior in an abusive relationship.
Abuse can happen in a circle or spiral. The person may not be performing abusive behaviors 100% of the time. The stages are: Tension Building, the Incident, Reconciliation, and Calm (honeymoon stage). It is sometimes referred to as a spiral because the abusive actions tend to escalate over time.
Even though there is variety within the types of violence, each has the ability to trigger a fight, flight, freeze, or fawn trauma response. Prolonged exposure to abuse can result in several short and long term health impacts, including: PTSD, anxiety, depression, chronic conditions, and more.
We categorize abuse in three ways:
USING MIND GAMES
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When someone manipulates the other person’s emotions, it’s called emotional abuse. They will do or say malicious things in order to get a specific reaction. This can be very confusing, because it doesn’t feel like what most consider “abuse” (as many assume abuse is only physical, which is not an accurate portrayal of abuse.)
Ignoring or neglecting the feelings of others
Criticizing or embarrassing others in public
Constant criticism, blaming someone for everything, or encouraging self-blame
Using threats to force compliance, for example threats to commit suicide or leave the relationship
Manipulating and/or lying
Breaking, taking or giving away someone’s valued things
Giving the “silent treatment”, withholding affection, waking you up
Teasing (maliciously), invalidating feelings
Using guilt, being jealous, stalking
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When someone insults the other person’s intelligence, it’s called intellectual abuse. The ultimate goal is to belittle the person and make them think they are stupid or going “insane.” Over time, their self-esteem diminishes and they can feel confusion and/or depression. It can be difficult for them to see these actions as abuse, as it makes them feel like it’s their fault.
Having to prove things to them
Mind games, manipulation of information
Demanding perfection
Criticizing someone’s weight
Degrading someone’s self-esteem
Making someone feel stupid
Attacking someone’s ideas and opinions
Gaslighting (making you question your own version of events)
Telling someone they are crazy or making someone feel that they are crazy
Not following through on promises
Victimizing themselves while continuing abuse
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When the reality of the situation is twisted, or fear is instilled without physical harm happening, it’s called psychological abuse. Similarly to the forms of abuse above, psychological abuse can make the victim feel like they are at fault, stupid, or going insane, however it can display more threatening actions.
Gaslighting (making you question your own version of events)
Making light of the abuse, saying “it wasn’t that bad,” or saying, “I never said that”
Intimidating gestures or actions, displaying weapons, causing someone to fear for their safety or well being
Threatening suicide or threatening to kill someone
Isolation from outside resources or voices, insisting that family/friends are not on someone’s side
Controlling someone’s choices, discrediting someone’s judgment or capability
Highlighting someone’s insecurities or using someone’s insecurities against them
Projecting the abuser role onto the victim, calling the victim “abusive”
“I remember the first time so vividly. The first time he put the blame on me, the first time he made me think I was the crazy one, the first time I begged for his forgiveness.”
MANIPULATING
EXTERNAL NEEDS
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When someone uses any form of money as a means to control another person, it’s called financial abuse. This can mean controlling all the money, forcing someone to be jobless, or being a financial burden purposefully in order to maintain control over the relationship. Financial abuse is one of the main reasons why people stay or are unable to leave abusive relationships.
Limiting access to money, restricting an adult to an allowance, controlling all the money, making someone account for every penny
Closing bank accounts, wasting money or resources, spending someone else’s money without their knowledge or consent
Threatening to cut someone off financially for disagreeing with them
Not paying child support, or taking care of their own needs only
Pressuring someone to quit their job or sabotaging someone’s work opportunities, limiting someone’s ability to attend job training, pursue higher education, or otherwise advance their career
Creating debt/maxing out credit cards in someone else’s name
Living in someone’s home without working, helping or supporting
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When someone controls the social life or who their partner can talk to, it’s called social abuse. This can look like monitoring or sabotaging their friendships and family relationships. The goal is to isolate someone from their support systems, therefore making it harder to leave the relationship and increasing dependency.
Isolating someone from their friends/ family, saying “your family hates you,” or “your family is the cause for all our problems.”
Criticizing someone’s friends/ family
Monitoring phone calls, texting, web use, car use, or mileage
Dictating who someone can see
Forcing someone to be antisocial
Preventing someone from working
Isolating someone from work friendships
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When someone attacks another person’s faith or uses religion to benefit them, it’s called spiritual abuse. Unfortunately, some religious circles are not educated about domestic violence, and this can be weaponized to further isolate and shame the victim into staying in the relationship.
Putting down someone’s faith
Cutting someone off from their church
Using church and faith to their advantage
Soul destroying behavior
Using scripture against someone
Manipulating church relationships to their advantage
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When someone attacks another person’s culture or forces their own culture onto others, it’s called cultural abuse. This can look like being called naive or criticized for not agreeing / partaking in the abusive partner’s cultural practices.
Using their culture as an excuse for abuse
Putting down someone’s culture
Forcing someone to adopt their cultural practices
Doesn’t allow someone to participate in mainstream culture
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When someone manipulates, threatens, or uses their children for their own benefit in any way, it is abuse. Wanting to keep children safe is another major reason why people stay in abusive relationships. Fear of losing children or being court mandated to share custody can keep people from leaving the relationship.
Abusing children (in any form)
Threatening to harm or take children away
Refusing to make support payments
Belittling someone in front of their children
Using visitation as leverage
Turning a child against someone
“I got yelled at, mocked, belittled, and verbally emasculated. I think I searched the term ‘verbal abuse’ because I was finally beginning to wonder if that is what was happening to me.”
USING THEIR BODY
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When someone uses the intensity of their voice or words to attack another person, it’s called verbal abuse. We have included verbal abuse within the “Using Their Body” category, as yelling, name-calling, criticizing and/or threatening is often intensified by using their body.
Yelling, name-calling, swearing, degrading, insulting someone
Threats, blaming, accusing, being jealous
Gaslighting (making you question your own version of events)
Criticizing someone’s apology
Being condescending or harsh, frequent criticism
Constant sarcasm
Shutting down someone’s opinion
Circular arguments that never resolve
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When someone threatens or damages pets or property of any kind, it’s called pet and property abuse. Property abuse is usually a precursor to physical abuse. Unfortunately, many victims don’t realize this as they aren’t being physically hurt.
Killing, threatening, or over-punishing pets
Punching/kicking/slamming walls and doors
Throwing objects
Damaging a vehicle
Smashing and breaking things
Throwing clothes outside, or making messes
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When someone uses any part of their body to harm or instill fear into another person, it is called physical abuse. It is important to know that oftentimes, physical abuse can look more like driving recklessly, blocking exits, or pushing victims, vs. hitting, slapping, or kicking, although those types of physical violence exist. This can be confusing to register as abuse because the person being abused isn’t necessarily getting physically hurt. The vast majority of physical abuse doesn’t leave marks or bruises. It is important to believe someone's story despite any lack of physical evidence.
Please Note: Strangulation is very dangerous. If someone strangles their partner, they are 750% times more likely to murder them. If you have been strangled by your partner, please call the Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or text “Talk” to 741-741.
Blocking exits, restraining someone, or locking someone out of the house
Reckless driving / Driving too fast
Abandoning someone in a dangerous place
Intimidating someone
Pushing, shoving, or shaking someone
Spitting, biting, or scratching someone
Slapping, hitting, or kicking someone
Choking or pulling someone’s hair
Urinating or defecating on a person or their property
Threatening with a weapon or threatening to harm or kill
Intent of harm (even if they didn’t end up hurting or touching you)
*Sometimes victims of abuse use protection strategies such as shoving in self-defense. It is important to recognize this as self-defense, and not abuse.
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When someone uses sex or intimacy to their own benefit or as a means of controlling the relationship, it’s called sexual abuse. Sexual abuse includes rape, however it also includes any sort of insult, comparison or withholding of intimacy. These forms of sexual abuse can be confusing as they may not seem manipulative in the moment, or the fault may be blamed on the victim.
Threatening to or having an affair
Forcing or manipulating sex, doing anything intimate without permission or consent, molestation
Sexual put-downs, telling insulting gender-related jokes, criticizing how you dress, comparing someone to others
Withholding sex or intimacy
Using pornography or coercing someone to view pornography, revenge porn, etc
Demanding sex as payment, treating someone as a sex object
Coercing someone into performing any sexual act, such as intercourse or oral sex, with statements like, “If you loved me you would do this”
Using physical force to gain sexual intimacy, rape/sexual assault, touching someone inappropriately
Inappropriate/unwanted communication (phone calls, letters, emails, texting or sexting without permission)
Forcing an unwanted pregnancy, denying access to contraception or sabotaging proper use of contraception
If you are experiencing any of the above repeatedly, you are likely in an abusive or unhealthy relationship.
Everyone deserves to have healthy, mutual relationships in all areas of life (romantically, in friendships, in family and in the workplace.) Although there is conflict and hardship in all relationships, NO ONE should have to endure abuse. There are many resources available. Learn more about early red flags, your relationship or safety planning by choosing a link below.