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Recognize Abuse, Reclaim Your Life
Resources for Understanding Abuse & Coercive Control
If you have found your way to this page because something in your relationship doesn’t feel right, you don’t have to know what to call it yet.
For a long time, I believed domestic abuse meant physical violence. Learning about emotional abuse, verbal abuse, coercive control, isolation, intimidation, financial abuse, and other patterns of controlling behavior helped me begin to understand my own experiences.
The resources below are a few places I found helpful—or believe may be helpful—for someone trying to understand what is happening in their relationship.
Start Here: Understanding Emotional Abuse
One Love — Emotional Abuse
This was one of the resources shared with me when I first began considering whether what I was experiencing might actually be abuse. One Love provides straightforward information about emotional abuse and the difference between healthy, unhealthy, and abusive relationship behaviors.
Learn about emotional abuse at One Love
Understanding Domestic Abuse Beyond Physical Violence
National Domestic Violence Hotline
The Hotline provides extensive educational information about emotional abuse, warning signs, power and control, safety planning, supporting someone experiencing abuse, and preparing to leave an abusive relationship.
You don’t have to be in immediate physical danger to use its educational resources.
National Domestic Violence Hotline
Understanding Coercive Control
Safe & Together Institute
Coercive control can be difficult to recognize because it is often a pattern rather than a single dramatic event. Safe & Together provides educational resources about coercive control, patterns of abusive behavior, the impact of domestic abuse on children, and ways family members and others can support someone experiencing abuse.
Legal Information and Safety Planning
WomensLaw
WomensLaw provides plain-language information about domestic violence, restraining and protective orders, custody, stalking, safety planning, and state-specific laws.
This can be particularly helpful when questions about abuse begin turning into practical questions about separation, children, safety, or the legal system.
Technology, Tracking and Digital Safety
NNEDV Safety Net Project
Technology can become another means of control through location sharing, passwords, shared accounts, phones, vehicles, social media, smart-home devices, or other forms of monitoring.
The National Network to End Domestic Violence’s Safety Net Project provides information specifically designed to help survivors understand technology-facilitated abuse and think about digital safety.
One important caution: suddenly changing passwords, disabling accounts, or removing tracking can sometimes alert an abusive partner. Consider technology changes as part of an overall safety plan.
One Thing I Learned
You don’t have to begin by answering the enormous question:
“Am I in an abusive relationship?”
You can begin with smaller ones.
Does this behavior seem healthy?
Am I afraid of my partner’s reaction to ordinary decisions?
Have I changed my behavior to prevent anger, punishment, ridicule, or retaliation?
Am I constantly questioning my own memory or judgment?
Have I become isolated from people who once mattered to me?
Do I feel free to disagree, say no, spend money, see people, make decisions, or simply be myself?
For me, learning came before leaving.
Education gave me language for things I had experienced but hadn’t known how to name. Once I had that language, I could begin looking at my life differently.
You don’t have to decide everything today.
You can start by learning.
These resources are provided for educational purposes and are not a substitute for individualized legal, medical, mental-health, or safety advice. If you believe accessing information about abuse could put you at risk, consider using a safer device or speaking with a domestic-violence professional about technology safety.
Stories
“Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
— Thomas Jefferson
Shine Sweet Freedom 