What is Abuse?

Identify Types of Abuse

Abuse involves patterns of behaviors used to gain and maintain power and control over another person; it comes in many forms. Not all abuse is obvious or easily recognizable as the kind depicted in media or popular culture.

Emotional Abuse:

Using manipulation, gaslighting, and/or minimizing and blaming to gain control over your partner.
Threatening the individual with violence, exposing private information, or destroying their reputation or relationships.
Threatening suicide if the person makes decisions in their best interest, such as ending the relationship.

Verbal Abuse:

Using insults, name calling, and ridicule to put your partner down and hurt their self-esteem.
Using threats to evoke fear or anxiety.

Financial Abuse:

Preventing your partner from maintaining or gaining financial independence: discouraging or not allowing them to work, directly or indirectly sabotaging the person’s employment.
Not allowing access to shared financial information such as bank or other financial accounts (ex. PayPal, Venmo) accounts.
Controlling your partner through issuing an allowance
Accruing a devastating amount of debt in your partner’s name or in both of your names.

Physical Abuse:

Using physical contact or force to cause injury or pain including, but not limited to: pushing, hitting, kicking, choking or pinning someone down.
Destroying physical property such as punching holes in walls, breaking or damaging material items such as a cell phone or other personal property.
Physical and emotional abuse extends to the treatment of pets. Behaviors may include: Abusing or neglecting your pets; using physical contact or force to cause injury or pain to your pets or threatening the same; and deliberately neglecting or refusing to care for pets.

Sexual Abuse:

Sexual violence is any act or behavior (verbal or physical) that is sexual in nature and conducted through force, threats, coercion, manipulation, or abuse of power.
Learn more about sexual assault. Click Here

Online Abuse:

Using technology to monitor and stalk your partner.
Using technology to engage in verbal and emotional abuse.
Spreading rumors, sharing private information, or defaming someone online.

Abuse Demographics

Ethnicity	Number	% of total
Native American	6	1%
Asian	10	1%
African American/Black	11	14%
Multi-racial	66	8%
Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander	1	0%
Middle Eastern	0
Caucasian/White	573	70%
Other	27	3%
Unknown	21	3%
Total: 819