Domestic violence or abuse isn’t an occasional fight or even just a nasty argument. It is a pattern of physical, verbal, or sexual threats or aggression used by one person in a relationship to control the other.
Abuse can range from emotional torment like name-calling and isolation, to harassment like stalking and intimidation, to violence and physical harm. It affects every community; women and men; people of any age, ability, faith, or ethnic background; people who are rich or poor, highly educated or not.
Abuse can rob people of their inner strength, damage self-respect, and slowly chip away at self-confidence. Abuse is traumatizing. Abuse is wrong.
Abuse is not your fault.
If you’re being abused—or wonder if you are—please call our confidential helpline at 1.800.863.9909 to talk or to get help.
You deserve more.Read One Woman’s Story
If you are being abusive, stop and get help.