Spot the Sign
Spotting The Signs
Common Warning Signs of Domestic Abuse
Your partner or ex-partner:
- Complains that you spend too much time with friends and family and make you feel guilty if you don’t spend all your free time with them
- Sends you constant texts and get mad if you don’t respond right away
- Tells you how to dress, criticise your clothes and undermine how you think or feel
- They have a bad temper and you feel afraid to disagree with them
- Accuses you of cheating on them all the time
- Asks for all your passwords so they can check your messages
- Pressures or coerces you to do things sexually that you don’t want to do
- Are physically violent to you
- Controls your access to basic essentials such as the car, the family finances, food, the telephone and internet
- Threatens to hurt you, themselves or others if you end the relationship
Types of Abuse
➢ Physical abuse
➢ Emotional or psychological abuse
➢ Sexual abuse
➢ Financial abuse
➢ Digital/Technology Abuse
➢ Coercive control
Physical Abuse:
Physical abuse is the most overt and identifiable form of maltreatment, characterized by a wide spectrum of harmful actions that can range in severity from minor to life-threatening. This type of abuse may include, but is not limited to, the following behaviours:
- Hair Pulling: Grabbing or tugging at someone's hair as a means of exerting control or inflicting pain.
- Use of Household Items as Weapons: Employing everyday objects, phone, or any other item, to cause harm or intimidation.
- Pinching: Applying painful pressure to the skin with fingers, often as a method of instilling fear or asserting dominance.
- Nudging, Pushing, or Shoving: Using physical force to push someone, which can lead to loss of balance or injury.
- Biting: Inflicting pain by using teeth, which can cause physical harm and emotional distress.
- Kicking: Striking someone with the foot, which can result in serious injury.
- Burning: Causing harm through exposure to fire, hot surfaces, or chemicals, leading to painful injuries.
- Hitting or Slapping: Delivering blows with the hand or fist to inflict pain or exert power.
- Destruction of Property: Intentionally damaging belongings, including vehicles, furniture, clothing, and household items, as a means of control or punishment.
- Breaking Bones: Inflicting injury through high levels of physical force that result in fractures.
- Stabbing: Using sharp weapons, such as knives or other objects, to penetrate the skin and cause serious injury or death.
- Strangling or Choking: Applying pressure to the neck to obstruct breathing and create feelings of helplessness.
- Rape: Engaging in non-consensual sexual acts through force or coercion.
- Murder or Attempted Murder: The intentional act of causing death or attempting to kill someone, representing the extreme end of physical abuse.
Emotional or Psychological Abuse:
Emotional abuse can have profound and lasting effects on individuals, often resulting in deep emotional scars that can take time to heal. Recognizing the signs and understanding the patterns of emotional abuse is an essential first step toward reclaiming one's autonomy and mental well-being. Here’s a closer look at some important points to consider:
- Signs and Patterns of Emotional Abuse
- Isolation from Support Systems: Abusers may isolate you from friends and family, creating dependency. This can lead to feelings of loneliness, as they subtly or overtly discourage or forbid you from connecting with loved ones.
- Verbal Abuse and Name-Calling: Insults and derogatory remarks can damage self-esteem and foster feelings of worthlessness. Over time, constant humiliation can paralyze you emotionally.
- Stalking and Surveillance: An abuser may monitor your activities, often under the guise of care or concern. This invasion of privacy can lead to heightened anxiety and fear.
- Threats of Violence: Intimidation through threats, even if they are never acted upon, can create a pervasive atmosphere of fear, making you feel trapped.
- Sleep Deprivation: By disturbing your sleep, an abuser can manipulate your state of mind, making you more vulnerable and emotionally unstable.
- Property Damage and Theft: Destroying personal possessions can serve to control and intimidate, further diminishing your sense of safety and stability.
- Restrictions on Social Media: Limiting your access to social media can further isolate you and restrict your ability to build and maintain relationships outside the abusive dynamic.
- Control Over Movement: By restricting your physical movement, an abuser can instill feelings of entrapment and control, effectively dis-empowering you.
- Manipulation of Your Relationship with Children: Abusers may manipulate children to undermine your authority and create divisions, impacting family dynamics and emotional bonds.
- Gaslighting: This manipulative tactic makes you doubt your reality. When the abuser insists that your perceptions are wrong, it can lead to confusion and a fractured sense of self.
- Threats to Your Immigration Status: If applicable, this type of threat can hold individuals in abusive situations, as the fear of deportation or legal issues is leveraged for control.
- Prevention of Access to Healthcare: By restricting access to medical care, abusers can exacerbate feelings of helplessness and further limit autonomy over personal health and family planning.
- Impact on Mental Health and Well-Being: The experiences of emotional abuse can lead to various mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and low self- esteem. These conditions can manifest as:
- Distorted self-image: Constant belittlement often leads individuals to internalize negative beliefs about themselves.
- Difficulty in forming relationships: Trust issues and fear of intimacy may arise, making it hard to build healthy connections with others.
- Chronic stress:The ongoing stress from living in an abusive environment can lead to physical health issues, such as fatigue, headaches, and weakened immune function.
Sexual Abuse:
Sexual abuse occurs when your partner or former partner:
- Coerces you into engaging in sexual acts or performing sexual activities.
- Makes you feel guilty or obligated to provide sex through intimidation or violence.
- Inflicts harm on you with objects during sexual encounters.
- Involves others in sexual activities with you without your permission.
- Disregards your refusal to engage in sexual activities.
- Forces you to view, recreate, or take part in the production of pornography.
- Shares or threatens to share intimate images of you without your consent.
Financial Abuse:
Financial abuse occurs when your partner or former partner:
- Maintains your financial dependency on them
- Restricts your access to family finances needed for essentials like food, bills, and medication
- Prevents you from accessing joint bank accounts and financial details
- Coerces you into lending them large amounts of money or causes you to accumulate debt
- Prohibits you from working, dictates your work schedule, and insists that you surrender your earnings
- Withholds child maintenance payments
Digital Abuse:
Digital abuse occurs when your partner or former partner:
- Sends you harmful messages through text, email, phone calls, or social media
- Shares explicit or violent images and videos with you
- Observes your internet activity
- Demands access to your email or social media passwords
- Engages in image-based sexual abuse by:
- Recording you without your knowledge
- Distributing or threatening to distribute intimate images of you without your permission
- Coercing you into providing intimate images
- Uses technology to monitor your whereabouts and actions
Coercive Control:
What is Coercive Control?
Coercive control is recognized as a criminal offense in Ireland. It encompasses a persistent pattern of controlling, coercive, and threatening behaviours, which may include various forms of domestic abuse—emotional, physical, financial, or sexual, including threats—by a partner or former partner. This behaviour ensnares victims in a relationship, making it exceedingly difficult or dangerous to escape.
What are the Signs of Coercive Control?
If you answer "yes" to any of the following questions, it may indicate signs of coercive control:
- Do you feel isolated from your friends and family?
- Does your partner deny you access to basic necessities like food, electricity, or heating?
- Do you suspect that your partner is monitoring your online activities or has installed spyware on your devices?
- Is your partner dictating aspects of your daily life, such as where you go, whom you see, what you wear ,and your daily schedule?
- Does your partner prevent you from seeking support services, such as medical care or specialist assistance?
- Does your partner frequently belittle you, making you feel worthless?
- Does your partner impose rules and engage in activities that humiliate or degrade you?
- Is your partner forcing you to participate in illegal activities, such as shoplifting?
- Does your partner control the finances and restrict your ability to work or have your own money?
- Does your partner threaten to disclose private information about you, such as personal photos or videos,online
What are the Signs of Coercive Control?
If you consider seeking protection from the Gardaí, it's important to document your experiences. This documentation can serve as evidence and help establish a pattern of abuse. Useful forms of evidence include:
- Copies of emails, phone records, or text messages
- Documentation of online abuse, including evidence from social media and digital technology
- Records of your interactions with support services or medical professionals
- Testimonies from family and friends who can attest to the impact of the isolation
- Bank statements or financial records that demonstrate control over finances
- Notes detailing previous threats made towards children or other family members
- A personal diary recording dates, incidents, and any statements made to the Gardaí
Stalking:
Stalking is when someone causes significant distress or fear in another person, impacting their daily life and sense of safety. It often involves obsessive, unwanted, and persistent behaviours, which can create a fear of potential violence towards the victim or their loved ones.
Stalking can include:
- Unwanted behaviours
- Loitering around your home.
- Spying or tracking your movements (online, using technology or in person).
- Taking pictures/recordings of you without your consent.
- Following you.
- Sending unwanted gifts.
- Making unwanted approaches to you (at home, work, in public).
- Making unwanted approaches to friends, family or colleagues.
- Interfering with or damaging your property, breaking into your home.
- Threats or abuse
- Threats to harm you or those close to you.
- Threats to harm themselves around you.
- Physical attacks or attempted physical attacks.
- Sexual violence or attempted sexual violence.
- Malicious communication
- Engaging in inappropriate or malicious social media contacts (e.g. X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat).
- Initiating false legal action against you.
- Making false complaints to agencies.
- Sharing private images of you that are of a very personal nature (e.g. nude images, sexual images).
- Stalking is a crime. All these signs are serious. You do not need to experience several, or all of them, to indicate stalking.
We provide non-judgmental support, discuss the options and provide information to women so that they can decide what is best for them.