What are the consequences of dating violence?
Often times, dating violence starts off with a partner with a little control over the other, and then quickly escalates from threats to verbal abuse and violence. Besides from the controlling behaviors, physical abuse and sexual abuse can follow up during an abusive relationship. Physical abuse is when one partner in a relationship uses physical force against their partner in way that injures that person.
Physical abuse may include:
1. Shoving
2. Pinching
3. Slapping
4. Punching
5. Kicking
6. Strangling
People whose partners abuse them physically
or sexually are at a higher risk of being
seriously injured or sometimes even killed.
Sexual abuse may include:
1. Unwanted touching
2. Unwanted kissing
3. Forcing you to have sex
4. Forcing you to perform other sexual things.
Besides from physical or sexual abuse, it is still abuse if one partner is emotionally or verbally assaulted. Just because a partner in an unhealthy relationship does not have any visible bruises, emotional abuse can still negatively impact a person in various ways. It can destroy your confidence, lead to depression, and make you feel helpless and alone.
Emotional abuse may include:
1. Getting ignored by your partner
2. Getting insulted by your partner
3. Name-calling
4. Getting isolated from your loved ones because of your partner
5. Your partner does not care about your feelings or beliefs and values
Unfortunately this can be equally frightening as physical abuse, sometimes even more so and is a bigger problem than people think. Often times, emotional abuse is minimized or overlooked- even by the person being abused.
While the immediate impact of dating violence might be humiliation or most obvious danger, people who experience physical, sexual, or emotional abuse deal with serious psychological consequences. Specifically for developing teens, unhealthy relationships have many severe consequences. Victims of teens in an abusive relationship have higher chances of doing poorly in school, increase in use of drugs and alcohol, suicide attempts, depression and an on going list of other unhealthy behaviors. If any of the abuse occurs once in romantic relationship, it is likely that it will occur or repeat again. Dating violence is a serious issue that can happen to anyone, anytime but it can be prevented for both teens and adults if you get help or take precautions. If you are a victim of dating violence, it is not your fault.
No one has the right to hurt you physically, sexually, or emotionally.