Helloo,

let’s start from a simple question – what is abuse? (before this, if you prefer listening, here are Spotify and YouTube accounts):

I genuinely didn’t really know about domestic abuse. The ones I have heard of is physical abuse (which is like hitting someone) and rape (but only extreme type of rape where person is physically held and raped). However, these two don’t define abuse in general.

It is much more wider. We as society have lived in abuse since the dawn. You can see how majority of governments are being ran with abusive behaviour.

When I say, I didn’t realise I was abused, what I meant is that I was taught to tolerate abuse and accept it as just a normal behaviour. I was pretty much set up from childhood how people can treat me and well, the part that I have ended up with an abusive partner is not surprising, because he was just a cherry on top of my whole cake.

To understand it better, I’ll give you a definition provided by Woman’s Aid:

”Domestic abuse is a pattern of controlling, coercive, threatening, degrading and/or violent behaviour, including sexual violence, by a partner or ex-partner. It doesn’t matter how old someone is, what race or ethnicity they are, what class they are, whether or not they are disabled, or whether they have children – anyone can be a victim of abuse.

Often when people think of domestic abuse they think of physical violence, but domestic abuse is very often so much more than that. For many women who live with domestic abuse there will be no scars, bruises or broken bones, but for some it can take their life.”

Definition by Crown Prosecution Service:

”Domestic abuse is a pattern of abusive behaviour in any relationship that is used by one partner or family member to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner or family member and is defined within the Domestic Abuse Act of 2021.

Domestic abuse does not always involve physical violence. Sometimes victims may not recognise that they are experiencing abuse. We understand that emotional and financial abuse can be just as harmful as physical violence.”

”Domestic abuse can take many different forms:

• Psychological abuse involves making someone question their own thinking or understanding of situations or impacting their mental health.
• Physical abuse involves hurting or harming someone else through actions such as hitting, slapping, or restricting their freedom of movement.
• Sexual abuse occurs when someone is forced or pressured into any sexual activity without their consent, including unwanted touching.
• Financial abuse happens when someone controls another person’s spending, access to money, assets or finances.
• Emotional abuse includes non-physical behaviour that harms mental wellbeing, such as verbal abuse, intimidation, humiliation and excessive control.”.

Because we are so used to see very extreme types of abuse, we don’t know that there is way more subtle ways to abuse someone. Not so visible.

A lot of times, when someone does something that we may consider abusive, we excuse them or try to understand them and move on. Many times, instead of blaming person who was abusive, we take that blame. In general, it is a big issue in society, because victims are being blamed why they stayed instead of abusers being asked – why are they abusing?

I was the same. The example that comes to my head is when me and my ex-partner were arguing and I was sitting on the bed, he was standing in front of me and then he slapped my face. I was confused and when I asked why he did it, he said he didn’t mean it, that I moved my face and it ended up being a slap, that he wanted just to touch my cheek. I’ve told him if he ever does it again, I am going to break up with him. Did he ever slap my face again? No. Was there other type of physical abuse? Yes. So even though this particular event happened once, it was just a preview of what was waiting for me later.

At that moment I believed him. I thought – it was an accident. Now I look at it and I know – it was no accident and that was absolutely intended.

Probably many people might want to ask – how did you not know you were abused? How come you didn’t realise it?

First of all, nobody teaches us about abuse. There is no training, no course. How can anyone know what abuse actually is, if no one talks about it?

Second, there is a thing called trauma bonding. As I have mentioned, because I was abused in childhood, I was taught that abuse is normal. I didn’t understand it and followed the paths of it.

And third reason – we tend to believe that people are good as we are and people just make mistakes. It is difficult to even think that person you love can hurt you on purpose.

Like my personal example – for me to understand that I was abused I had to seek for help from psychotherapist, only she helped to understand that what I am experiencing is abuse. I did start questioning my abusive ex partner before I looked for professional advice, however, it was still difficult to understand. For example, I would see videos on Instagram or TikTok (I used to have it) where people would talk about manipulation or other psychological abuse and I would be like – oh wait, that is what my partner does. So, I did start recognising it, but I didn’t really understand. When I would confront my ex-partner and show him videos, he would tell me that I am watching those on purpose to make an argument or drama. That those videos affect me in a negative way. Truth is I was looking for answers because I was so lost and confused with what was happening. Nothing made sense to me. However, he managed to shut it down too and I stopped looking at those videos and explanations. I really wanted to understand why this relationship isn’t working out and is going downhill.

I think it is very important to understand that abuse affects everyone and everything and that’s why we need to spread the word and share about it.

Especially, we need to cover abuse that happens to children. We need to understand, that abuse is always targeted to those who cannot protect themselves. Therefore, children, old people and women are mainly categories in society that suffer from that.

Abuse brings more abuse. So, if you grew up in an abusive environment it is more likely that you will be abusive, or you will be abused. In my case, I grew up to be abused and it’s not great, because people who were abused don’t live their life fully until they start working on themselves.

Also, I think that many people (including myself) didn’t know how psychological abuse can actually affect you and what damage it can do to one’s life. You don’t need to beat someone in order to destroy them. Torture can be invisible to everyone, but it will impact your mental health.

Mental health is important as physical health. People often forget that.

A lot of abuse happens within families and people like to say – oh but they are your family. Doesn’t matter if they are your family, that doesn’t give them privilege to abuse you or mistreat you.

Abusive people exploit that because they study you. They are great at seeing through people and analysing them. So, if you were abused as a child, there is higher chance you are going to end up in an abusive relationship.

Abuse can be so subtle, that you may not even notice it. Let’s say, one good example, my psychotherapist said, if parents fight and are aggressive to each other next to a child, that is already abuse. Why? Because children pick up everything. That’s how we learn how life works. People need to feel safe. When we don’t feel safe – threat systems such as fight, freeze or flight kicks in and our survival mode is turned on.

I know there are some thoughts – oh well, then everything is abuse. No. There are mistakes. However, it all depends, if person takes accountability. The only way to know, if someone is abusive is look at their accountability. Most abusers never take any accountability they shift the blame (like in my example, when he slapped me, he said it was me who turned my face). If they do admit to their faults, they just don’t change. Some abusers take accountability so you would back down, but sooner or later they go back to their abusive behaviour. You cannot expect them to change. Ever.

Hope that clarifies a little bit what abuse is. Now I will be digging to more specific things, however, I have started writing about manipulation and it is so difficult to make one post or even write everything about. It is a lot. Abuse is a heavy and lengthy theme.