Have You Been Abused?

• Does your partner block an exit to keep you from leaving during an argument? Open personal mail?  Keep you from seeing friends or family? Use name-calling?

• Does your partner denigrate you in the presence of others? Say no one else would want you?  Threaten suicide if you were to leave?

• Do you feel like you’re “walking on eggshells” around your partner?  Does she act like two different people? (e.g. Dr. Jeckyll/Mr. Hyde)

• Does your partner threaten that if you leave you will never see the children again? Destroy or threaten to destroy your property?

• Have you been shoved, slapped, punched, bitten, or kicked? Even once?

• Does your partner anger easily, especially when drinking or on drugs?

 If any number of these factors are true in your relationship, there is a problem. Victims of intimate partner violence come from all walks of life–all cultures, incomes, professions, ages, and religions. Intimate partner violence is not always defined by who’s the stronger and/or bigger person in the relationship. However, it is about one person having and maintaining power and control over another person through physical, psychological, and/or verbally abusive means.