Are You Afraid?
If you answer Yes to one or more of the following questions, you are experiencing abusive behavior:
- Do you often feel like you're walking on eggshells to avoid upsetting your partner
- Do you feel like a prisoner in your own home, unable to come and go as you please
- Does your partner follow you, or show up at your work, school or friends' homes
- Does your partner put you down or call you names
- Does your partner threaten or intimidate you, physically or verbally
- Does your partner ever force you to have sex when you don't want to
- Does your partner refuse to practice safe sex, putting you at risk of contracting STDs
- Does your partner get jealous when you spend time with family or friends
- Does your partner often accuse you of sleeping around
- Does your partner monitor your actions and force you to account for your time
- Is your partner violent with your children or your pets
- Does your partner threaten to take your kids or call DHS on you
- Does your partner act like two different people (i.e., Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde)
- Does your partner insult your racial, ethnic, cultural, religious, or class background
- Does your partner humiliate you through actions or words privately or in front of others
- Does your partner threaten to reveal your sexual identity to your family, work, or faith community
- Does your partner ever slap, shove, grab, hit, kick, punch or restrain you against your will
- Does your partner ever say, "I can't live without you" or "I'd kill myself if you ever left me"
- Does your partner minimize or deny things that s/he has done to you
If you are being abused, you are not alone. The violence and abuse is not your fault. Abuse occurs in all communities, to people of all ethnic/racial, faith, political, socio-economic identities, to people of all levels of ability, all ages and sexual orientations and occupations.