WATCH: New Twitter Hashtag Exposes The Abuse We Don’t Talk Enough About


When most people hear the term “domestic violence,” we picture a battered woman with a black eye because abuse is only abuse, as far as most of us is concerned, when it involves physical injury and violence.

There are, however, many forms of abuse. For example, financial abuse happens when an abuser restricts his or her victim’s access to money, takes the victim’s money, or refuses to use household funds to provide a victim with necessities like medication or food. The types of abuse that aren’t sensationalized in the media with big, splashy pictures of physical injuries often fail to grab our attention.

When we begin to truly see intimate partner abuse as resulting from a need for power and control, we open the door to discussions of many other forms of abuse. A new Twitter hashtag is serving to highlight one of those forms, which is abuse by “coercive control.”

Please don’t let your next question by, “Why does she stay?” There are many reasons why victims stay with their abusers. Leaving is not always the safest option. as the DVIP website explains, “Women are 70 times more likely to be killed in the two weeks after leaving than at any other time during the relationship.”

When hearing a story of abuse, the victim’s actions should never be the ones we criticize or feel outrage over. That should be reserved for the actions of the abuser.

If you or someone you love is experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or visit their website here.

For more on emotional abuse, also known as coercive control, see the video below:

Featured image via Twitter