11 minutes read time.

Hello, this time – physical abuse.

I understand that physical abuse is quite self-explanatory, however, there are some subtle ways of physical abuse that some people might not think of.

Women’s Aid information about physical abuse:

• pushing, grabbing or physically restraining someone.
• damaging property or belongings to frighten or intimidate someone
• blocking someone from leaving a room or the home
• driving dangerously to frighten or control someone
• hitting, punching, slapping or kicking someone
• choking or strangulation (even if there are no visible marks)
• throwing objects to scare or threaten someone
• preventing someone from moving freely or forcing them somewhere
• preventing someone from accessing medication, healthcare or essential support
• using physical size, presence or intimidation to make someone feel afraid

What is physical abuse in general?

I’ve seen one video where psychologist says that psychological/emotional abuse is same as physical. Now I agree with that statement. Why? Because any type of abuse will have physical effect on victim’s body. It’s not only mental. It is physical. I myself experienced a lot of physical consequences after 27 years of surviving abuse. Based on research I read, immune diseases come from experiencing abuse as well. As the book – ”The body keeps the score” by Bessel van der Kolk talks about abuse influence on the body.

One of the examples, when you are in abusive environment – you walk on eggshells. This means, you physically restrain yourself just to keep the peace. But your body – it knows. When you can’t express yourself, or be yourself, it affects your body. You’re constantly stressed; your cortisol goes up. Cortisol is physically visible on the body. I had it too.

Let’s say when I was living with my abusive mom, at some point I was getting illnesses with throat. I would have tonsilitis very often. I would get antibiotics sometimes and in general, my throat was hurting so much, I wouldn’t be able to speak. Now, how abuse correlates with this? I wasn’t allowed to speak about abuse, I wasn’t allowed to speak my mind, I was shut down. However, that changed, once I started slowly speaking my mind, slowly not pretending, slowly starting to talk about abuse (all happened just recently though). It was an interesting revelation when I was watching tv-show avatar – last airbender (original one) it showed about blocked chakras. Throat chakra is blocked by lies we tell ourselves. I was telling lies to myself, because I was excusing abusers. I had somehow to survive, so I had to deny everything.

My experiences

I have mainly experienced physical abuse during childhood, however, as I’ve mentioned before, I will talk about childhood abuse as separate theme. Now I will just provide examples, from my relationship with ex-partner.

Physically holding me and not letting me to move. When I would ask to let me go, he would say that he isn’t letting me go until I calm down (as I would be crying). He would excuse this behaviour by stating – he is caring for me. If you think that’s very cute and sweet. It isn’t. I would be crying because of how he behaved with me and I needed space from him. If you don’t ask person to comfort you, they shouldn’t be forcing you.

Blocking the doorway or entry/exit from the room. Breaking the doors to get into the room when you ask to leave you alone. Although, I’m sure we all done this at some point – blocking an entry/exit to a doorway, even if we didn’t have a bad intention behind it. However, that is control and showing off power. I also would often try to lock myself in the bathroom, bedroom or hold kitchen doors to prevent my ex from following me. But he would always try to break them, open them and etc. If I would ask to stop, he would put blame on me, saying that he is breaking them, because I locked them or closed them and he will stop, once I let him in.

I actually once told him, that I will call police on him, because I locked myself in the bedroom to calm down, but he was breaking the door to get in. I asked to stop, he wouldn’t. When I told him, he needs to stop or I will call the police. He said – call them, I will tell them you were threating to kill yourself, will see who they will believe. (I wasn’t threating any of that, but I got scared they wouldn’t believe, being in a foreign country doesn’t help either, I also got scared of consequences. I thought, okay I will call, they will believe me but then what my ex will do to me? so I didn’t call and I let him in).

Leaving you in the middle of parking lot, shop and walking away and not speaking with you. Leaving you without an ability to get home as you came with a car and you can’t drive. Anything that is restricting you from freely and safely getting home or anywhere else. My ex liked doing this quite often.

Once we were going to the IKEA to meet his aunt and 2 cousins (who were both just children). We were fighting about something while in the car, I guess about his driving. He was shouting at me and at some point, I started crying. We were already late, but when we parked, he continued being mean to me and I just couldn’t stop crying. I was trying to calm down myself the best, but my whole make up was ruined and I didn’t have anything to fix it. I told him, that I need time to calm down before meeting his aunt and cousins, because I couldn’t go there for them to see me crying. He didn’t care. He said it doesn’t matter. So, he locked the car and left me in the parking lot. The problem is that we just moved to the new city, I had no clue how to get home by myself. I also didn’t have much money on my personal account, and I didn’t have access to our money together at that time. So, I was messaging him asking how long it will take and so on. He told me to come once I’m ready. But I got a panic attack. People who know me, they know I get them and he knew about them too. So, I ended up waiting for him in the parking lot for 2-3 hours. At the end, I decided to risk it and try getting home by bus. Then he called me to say he is now going to the car and I should come.

If this would have been done to me now, when I’m more healed, I would have went home immediately, somehow figured it out and broke up with him. However, at that time he held all the power. I also financially was at literally 10 pounds. Had nothing.

Physically harming you once and blaming you or pretending it was a ”play”. My ex slapped my cheek once in the beginning of our relationship. To which he blamed me for, by saying that I moved my face and it ”accidentally” became a slap. We were in the middle of argument, I was sitting on the bed, and he was standing in front of me. That time I told him, if he does this again, I’m going to break up. He never slapped my face again, but he did other physical things.

He once was physically holding me onto a bed, squeezing my wrists, so much, that I got bruises on my both wrists. Again, he said, it was just playing, he didn’t mean anything. He didn’t exactly do the same in the future, but there were times, where he squeezed my wrists so much, that they would get red or bruised little bit.

I’ve learned from this and if someone does this and says it is a joke or they were just playing – big red flag. That’s just a preview of what they can do in a future and on top of that, that’s the way, the check your boundaries. I clearly didn’t have any. So, he knew, if I am accepting this, he can abuse me.

I saw a video, don’t remember who said it, but – believe them the first time. The first time they do something physically abusive, sexually or psychologically. A healthy person wouldn’t think of doing those things in first place.

Scaring you. My ex liked scaring me while I would be in the bathroom on toilet and in the shower. See, he counted them as pranks. Though it was physical abuse in my opinion, because opening the door while I’m on toilet or knocking on them or barging in – is intimidation. Same when I was in shower, he would silently come in and sometimes grab me or just shout something and that would scare me. Till this day I get scared randomly being in the shower, even if I know I am home alone. It’s just behind my head that he will jump in at some point.

Physically pushing your body. Another thing he did was pushing me to the kitchen sink, while I was washing dishes, or while cooking or cutting something. This is actually so dangerous because the number of times I almost cut myself, because he came behind me and pushed my whole body forward – it’s bad. Same it would be when I was standing in front of cooker, mixing stuff in the pot, he would come and do the same, I almost burned my hands and my body. It was funny for him. Doesn’t matter how many times I would tell to stop. He just liked doing that (he would tell me that he wants sex or his turned on as well). He didn’t care for a bit that this might hurt me and I know why. Because he wouldn’t be held responsible and blame me if something would have happened.

Tracking you. See, this one is hard to prove. I had a feeling that he is tracking me, but I never bothered to check my phone. He was installing some apps and stuff in my phone, well, I trusted him. But happened multiple times, even when we lived in England, that if I would leave, he always would find me, where I went for a walk. First few times, I thought, aww, he knows me so well. But when we moved to Scotland and this was happening, I was starting to think that’s not care. It started scaring me. Because I could have went anywhere, but he would always meet me exactly on my pathway. And interestingly. I always had my phone with me. He would also say things like – well where else would you go? as if stating how much he knows about me. To be fair. that’s creepy as well.

Dangerous driving. My ex-partner liked speeding above the limit. He was not careful being on the road. Sometimes he would cross red light. Many times, he didn’t notice things on the road that almost got us into a car accident. And yes, those were his fault, not another driver. Also, he would shout at me, tell me to shut up, while driving and I think that just shows how unsafe he is. Being so emotional, while you are in charge of 2 lives and everyone’s who is around you, I would say, is very dangerous. And you guessed right, for his dangerous driving, he also blamed me. According to him, I was making him nervous and anxious, because I would point out things at the road. But me being attentive was the reason why we avoided all possible car accidents. Anyway, not the point. His emotions are his responsibility. I remember I told him, if driving makes him so anxious that he can’t control himself, that maybe he shouldn’t drive. Don’t get me wrong, to some locations, we could have used trains. But he was the one insisting on driving.

I think that’s all that I remember.

I hope these examples might help someone, they are more subtle and some people may not recognise them immediately. I certainly didn’t. However, knowledge is the power.