Note: If this topic is triggering, please reach out to your supports or contact our admin office to seek counselling support.
When we hear the word abuse, we always think of a person beating up someone physically. However, abuse comes in different forms such as:
Emotional Abuse
Sexual Abuse
Stalking
Intimidation
Manipulation
Abusive relationships can follow a pattern called the “cycle of violence”, it happens, and it repeats itself. It makes you feel trapped because the pattern occurs over and over again, and the honeymoon and calm phase justify sometimes for the tension and violence phase.
Let’s explore what the cycle of violence looks like, have you heard of the four stages?
The Four Stages:
Tension Building: This is the phase where you feel anxiety building, you recognize that the abuser is escalating and becoming more aggressive, easy to get triggered, more irritable, has unexplained emotional outburst, and becomes impatient and short-tempered.
The Violence: This phase is when the violence starts coming, tension starts building up, you can see the abuser crave power and control, and violence takes place. Violence can be outburst, threats, breaking things, forcing you to isolate, physical violence, sexual violence, shaming, blaming, humiliation, emotional abandonment, financial abuse, manipulation, and so on.
Honeymoon Phase: When the abuser starts apologizing for the incident, starts showing remorse, might buy you gifts, acts with affection. Often, the abuser makes promises that it will never happen again and blames you for the violence and tells you they won’t do it again as long as you don’t agitate you.
Calm: This is the calm era, no abuse or agitation, re-establish the relationship, calmness, love, affection, relaxed …until it happens again.
The cycle repeats in different ways, sometimes more severe than others, it’s unpredictable. Sometimes the violence is only emotional, which makes you think it’s not violence or less severe, makes you believe that you escaped.
It does not have to happen to you again and again, you can break the cycle. It can be hard, but possible … learn the signs, plan for your safety, and consider the appropriate strategies to help you break free from the cycle.
Remember: You are not alone, and breaking the cycle is not easy! Do not feel shame or guilt if you were stuck or still feel love towards your abuser. You are worth it, you deserve healthy love, and you are not at fault.
Keep an eye out for the next blog, we will explore safety planning together.
Remember: Help is available, and you are not alone. Please reach out to your supports. We are also here to support!