The Little Black Book for Girlz: A Book on Healthy Sexuality

Relationship Abuse

Chauntae Walls

What are the different types of relationship abuse?

There are many different kinds of abuse. Some people find some harder to identify than others do. There is the obvious one:

Physical abuse

is when someone physically hurts you, by punching, pushing, slapping, kicking, physically trapping, or hitting with objects. Often the victim is made to feel as though she deserved it. No one deserves to be physically abused.

Emotional and mental abuse

is when someone is controlling you emotionally and mentally, when they manipulate how you feel and use it to their advantage. An example would be if your partner tries to scare you by doing risky things that make you upset, like driving a car too fast, or if your partner is mad at you and tells you they are going to kill themselves because of you, or trying to control how you look and how you feel about yourself.

Mental abuse can be not letting you make decisions for yourself, or controlling how you do things, or what you do with your time. Emotional and mental abuse can be very subtle and often hard to identify. It can leave a person feeling out of control and horrible about themselves and unable to make decisions. Therefore they find it very difficult to change the situation.

Verbal abuse

is when your partner verbally attacks you or constantly puts you down. Verbal abuse can be things like name-calling, put-downs, and screaming. Verbal abuse can make someone lose self- esteem and confidence. It can leave a person feeling worthless and unable to speak up for themself. They start to believe what their partner is saying.

Abuse in same-sex relationships

There is a myth out there that people in same sex-relationships are never abusive. It does exist. All types of abuse—from physical to emotional and mental abuse to verbal abuse—can exist in same-sex relationships.