Domestic Violence Awareness Month: Knowing the Signs

In 1989, October was first declared Domestic Violence Awareness month. For over three decades now, this month has offered a time of acknowledgment, care, and continued effort for victims and survivors of domestic violence.

Though strides have been made to provide safety, rescue, and protection for those experiencing domestic violence since 1989, many sufferers still live in fear and silence every day. On average, 37.6% of women and 33.3% of men have experienced domestic violence in New Mexico alone.

Additional international factors, such as the pandemic and recession, have increased strain and pressure on individual relationships, and subsequently, cases of reported domestic violence have risen across the globe in the last two years.

While our team of experienced, competent attorneys has and will continue to provide compassionate care for victims of domestic violence during divorce and custody proceedings, the first step toward liberation is recognizing warning signs of abusive behavior before it’s too late to contact legal representation.

What is Domestic Violence?

Domestic violence is often used synonymously with intimate partner violence, and refers to abuse rendered by someone with which the victim has a close, intimate relationship.

Intimate partner violence, or IPV, is used to specifically reference abuse between romantic partners — married or unmarried, living together or separately. Domestic violence is a more generalized term, and can be used to discuss abuse suffered between parents and children, siblings, roommates, or romantic partners.

Domestic violence is the most widely recognized term of the two, with domestic being the key differentiating word. Domestic violence happens in the home, in the family, and in the place where you should feel most safe, respected, and valued.

Though the word violence often denotes physical harm, there are many forms of domestic violence that do not involve bodily safety being threatened. Domestic violence can appear in a relationship in a number of emotional, psychological, and verbal ways, and the abusive behavior is not always easy to recognize or understand, especially when it is executed by a loved one.

Physical, Emotional, Psychological Abuse

Physical abuse in the form of hitting, kicking, slapping, punching, scratching is always a sign of domestic violence, and often one that is hard to ignore. Many victims of physical abuse are, however, habituated to the treatment due to additional emotional, psychological abuse, or are forced to habituate due to a lack of financial independence.

Less obvious forms of physical abuse and domestic violence include, but are not limited to the following:

  • Biting
  • Spitting
  • Strangling
  • Throwing objects
  • Subjecting you to reckless driving
  • Threatening you with weapons
  • Wielding household items as weapons
  • Non-consensual rough play

Emotional and psychological abusive behaviors can also appear in a variety of ways, and can likewise be difficult to identify and consciously acknowledge. Understanding the patterned nature of abusive treatment can help victims recognize more subtle forms of emotional violence, and remove self-blame and shame from the situation.

A few key patterns of emotional and psychological abuse include, but are not limited to the following:

  • Isolating you from friends, family, coworkers
  • Controlling household finances without discussion
  • Insulting or demeaning your character or actions, especially in front of additional witnesses
  • Showing extreme jealousy of friends, hobbies, or time spent away from the abuser
  • Pressuring you into drug or alcohol use
  • Controlling your decisions directly, or with intimidating looks and/or verbal threats
  • Destroying your belongings or treasured items as a form of punishment
  • Forcing you to enact humiliating behaviors for their entertainment
  • Continuous name-calling, criticism, and shouting
  • Withholding of car keys, cell phones, or internet access
  • Destroying household items, walls, furniture
  • Not allowing access to basic needs (medications, food, toiletries)

Psychological and emotional abuse goes much further and deeper than simple threats and controlling tendencies, as the above list illustrates. Encapsulated within that category of abuse is also pressure to perform sexual acts the victim is not comfortable with, also known as sexual abuse.

Victimization Spreads

Domestic violence occurs in all communities, all tax brackets, and all over the world. All types of abuse can be enacted by a family member, and can be directed at one specific family member or the family as a whole — including children and pets. A few chilling statistics from the National Domestic Violence Hotline and Urban Resource Institute illustrate the permeating nature of domestic violence.

  • 48% feared that the abusive partner would harm or kill the pets;
  • 37% reported the abusive partner had already threatened to harm or kill pets
  • 29% reported that pets had already been harmed or killed.

Are You a Victim?

Feeling frequently unsafe, harmed, disrespected, or unvalued in your home is often a sign that domestic violence is occurring. If any of the physical or emotional abuse behaviors listed above regularly appear in your household, it’s time to consider divorce or relationship dissolution, and get help from a team of attorneys experienced in discrete service and protective orders.

Though the consistency and repetition of abusive behaviors is often highlighted in order to understand the long term patterns of abuse, it is not necessary to experience harmful treatment by a loved one for an extended period of time.

Removing yourself, your children, and your pets from a dangerous, abusive situation as soon as possible is typically the best course of action. This is significantly easier said than done, though, as abusers are typically unwilling to voluntarily get help or let their victims live safe, separate lives.

Getting Help Safely

Working directly with a legal or security team specializing in divorce and family law is highly recommended. For the former, the first step is working with your attorney on a protective order so your divorce may proceed safely and legally.

Before this can come to fruition, though, many victims must research, gather resources, and attempt to rebuild support networks while under the watchful eye of their abuser.

If it is safe for you to do so, keeping a log of domestic violence incidents in your household can support your legal team as they work to restore balance and wellness to your life. Apps like VictimsVoice can help document instances of abuse, without usage being tracked or able to be monitored by the abuser.

Further, the RUSafe App offers additional information and assessments to help users understand and identify abuse, and Rev Voice Recorder can discreetly log the sounds of intimidation, control, or direct abuse.

Collecting evidence, while understandably terrifying, is vital to building credibility for your legal case, and an important step toward your freedom from domestic violence.

Fighting False Allegations

Unfortunately for sufferers of domestic violence, rare occurrences of false accusations make legal repercussions and court interventions for accurate reports of abuse harder to come by.

Though false reports of abuse are very low — ranging from 2% to 10% — it is important to be aware that they do occur, and are often used as unethical bargaining tactics in divorce proceedings.

If you are falsely accused of domestic violence, spousal abuse, or harmful treatment of loved ones as a strategic maneuver by another party, contact your legal team immediately. Though untrue, the seriousness of the allegation will not be lost on the court system, and collecting character witnesses and evidence of the contrary needs to begin as soon as possible.