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Identifying Abuse

Including They and Them When Talking Domestic Violence

Non-binary survivors feel excluded from the domestic violence conversation | While anyone can experience harm as a result of intimate partner violence, domestic violen... read more
Do You Feel Trapped Because of Your HIV Status?

Survivors who are HIV positive face unique barriers to leaving an abuser | Enduring abuse is difficult for anyone. But add in living with HIV and a survivor faces a mu... read more
Abuse Almost Always Escalates

Bad news: If you’re trapped in a cycle of abuse, it’s most likely going to only get worse | When you ask survivors what their last straw was during domestic violence, ... read more
When Your Partner Asks for an Open Relationship

Here’s how to differentiate innocuous requests from red flags for abuse | For many individuals, monogamy is the norm—one partner, one relationship at a time. But some ... read more
Resisting Control When It's Disguised as Love

Seeing through an abuser's performances of "love" gives victims renewed power | Abusive and controlling partners often use "loving" acts to manipulate th... read more
What Is Toxic Triangulation?

Abusers can turn a survivor’s friends, family and children against them through harmful fabrications | Some abusers use a tactic called toxic triangulation as one more... read more
How to Help a Child Who's Being Abused

Intimate partner violence and child abuse often go hand in hand. Here’s how you can intervene | Where there’s intimate partner violence, there’s often also child abuse... read more
When Domestic Abuse Happens in a Polygamous Relationship

Finding nonjudgemental support is a challenge for those in plural relationships | People in polygamous or polyamorous relationships—aka, having more than one partner o... read more
Putting Trauma Down in Words

The ways journaling can help survivors | For myself, journaling started with one of those palm-sized hardcover diaries adorned with a photograph of fluffy white kitten... read more
What Is Sexual Coercion?

Just because it’s not rape, doesn’t mean it’s not abuse | Maybe your partner guilted you into it, or just kept asking until you relented. Or maybe he or she purposely ... read more
It's Not Love, It's Love Bombing

Abusers rely on long-term tactics to build up a sense of dependency in their victim | You might not have heard of the term love bombing before, but you may have been t... read more
10 Must-Hear Podcasts on Domestic Violence

Plus, thinking about getting behind the mic? Tips for starting your own | If you haven’t been pulled into a podcast yet, what are you waiting for? Since its launch on ... read more
How Limiting Abortion Rights Keeps Survivors in Danger

As the fate of a woman’s right to choose is under attack, survivors know even a rape exception may not help them | COVID-19 Update: Anti-abortion groups are exploiting... read more
A Narcissistic Abuser Will Never Change

Why no amount of love, counseling or batterer intervention will keep you safe | If you are in a relationship with a narcissistic abuser, hoping for things to change, d... read more
When Masculinity Is Toxic

Traits men learn as boys can be dangerous—to them, and to the women in their lives | We hear a lot about “toxic masculinity” these days—a term often loaded with assump... read more