What is Domestic Abuse?
Domestic abuse happens when the abuser controls and asserts power over their partner in an intimate relationship. It includes physical abuse, emotional abuse, financial abuse and sexual abuse.
What is physical abuse?
Physical abuse is the use of physical force against someone in a way that injures or threatens the safety of that person. Physical assault is a crime, whether it occurs inside or outside of the family.
What is emotional abuse?
Emotional abuse includes verbal abuse such as shouting, name-calling, blaming, and shaming. Isolation, intimidation, and controlling behavior also fall under emotional abuse. Additionally, abusers who use emotional or psychological abuse often threaten physical violence or other repercussions if you don’t do what they want.
The aim of emotional abuse is to chip away at your feelings of self-worth and independence. If you’re experiencing emotional abuse, you may feel that there is no way out of the relationship or that without your abuser you have nothing. You may think that physical abuse is far worse than emotional abuse, but, the scars of emotional abuse are very real, and they run deep.
What is financial abuse?
Financial abuse includes controlling your finances, withholding money or credit cards, making you account for every penny you spend, preventing you from working or choosing your own career, sabotaging your job, stealing from you or restricting you to an allowance.
What is sexual abuse?
Any situation in which you are made to participate in unwanted, unsafe or degrading sexual activity is sexual abuse.
