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You need to be safe · Head Shrink Inc.

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey Doc David here, let's talk about abusive relationships.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: You are listening to drinking.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Your answer to life relationships and daily living.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Hey friends, happy October.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully it's happy for you.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um man, October is hitting hard.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's rainy and cold.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And usually I like the cold, but it's uh it's a rain cold versus a crisp cold.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that makes sense.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in the Northwest, so it makes sense to me.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, uh, so I've been meeting with lots of people this week, and one of the things that kind of came to mind was a lot of times it appears as control in a relationship.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: But um, and people kind of I don't know, I think people avoid calling it abuse, but um they they definitely can call it controlling, and even um as I've talked with um people about their families of origin, that's the families that they came from, they often will couch things uh that their parents did to them as oh, my parents were controlling, and they would get upset, and then they would hit, and and it's interesting because I I think people tell themselves these stories uh to maybe protect themselves, protect the relationship they have with their parents who are possibly deceased, and in reality, what we're talking about is abuse.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um and when you tell a third party, such as myself, and uh you're honest about what you experience, hopefully that third party can just be honest back and say that sounds a lot like abuse.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to talk a little bit about abuse and the different kinds of abuse, and and maybe some things that you can do if you find yourself in a relationship or the signs to look for if you or someone else is possibly uh in that relationship.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: So um there's essentially there's four types of abuse that take place.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's physical, verbal, emotional, sexual, or economic.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so the one we often see pretty pervasively um it and it's the one that you see on like if you ever watch cops or live PD or something like that.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's physical abuse.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is when a person um touches you in an unwanted or violent way.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: It could include hitting, slapping, punching, kicking, uh, biting, choking.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, any any or using a weapon, um the weapon could be anything, right?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: A gun is the extreme, it could be a bat, it could be a um stick or a board or something like that.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's physical abuse.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, verbal emotional abuse is often when you hear someone talk about, oh, my partner's a narcissist, or my ex is a narcissist, or my parents were a narcissist, or my parents are um verbally controlling, or my partner was verbally controlling.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's when we start getting into this idea of verbal emotional abuse.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's when a person says or does something that causes you to feel afraid, feel bad about yourself.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: It could include bullying, name-calling, um, yelling, screaming, um, embarrassing you on purpose, critiquing you on over things that shouldn't be critiqued, um telling you what you can't or can't do, threatening to hurt you, um, blaming you for their problems, verbally pressuring you to do things that you normally wouldn't want to do, like drugs or alcohol or sexually.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um and this is a big one right here.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: The big one is keeping you from spending time with friends and family, um, and kind of isolating you.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's that is a huge red flag um for abuse that's happening in a relationship.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um posting negative comments, making negative comments about you online without your permission, um, etc.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: etc.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that so that's so physical abuse is pretty obvious.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's marks that get left from physical abuse.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Emotional abuse is uh and verbal abuse is is a little sneakier um because the there's no outside obvious signs that verbal emotional abuse is happening.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Usually it's behind closed doors, and um there's emotional scars related to it.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um a another type of abuse is sexual abuse.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is basically any sexual contact that you don't want.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you've may have said no, you may have been unable to say no because either you uh felt threatened, you were under the influence, you were at an age where you felt like you couldn't do anything else.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um and this could be forcing you to have sex, unwanted touching, kissing, you know, all things like that.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And this this is the uh kind of abuse that you don't often see outright again.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's more um hidden, it's something that often happen, I mean uh happens behind the scenes.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um and any with any of these types of abuses, there there could be other parties involved that work hard to hide it as well.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: But what I found with sexual abuse in particular is that there's there's a lot of um family member collusion that often happens with um sexual abuse.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: The fourth one um is is a one is one that's not widely well known.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess supposedly it could go under one of these other categories, but I do think it it fits in its own category, economic abuse.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and this in particular, I I was interacting with someone within the last week that I really thought, oh man, there's some economic abuse that's happening.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's basically uh when a person uses when a person is abusive or controlling with money, um, such and could be something like forcing you to quit your job, telling you how to spend your money, um, what to do with your money, um, taking your money and putting into a special account that only they have access to, um, hiding records from you, etc.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: etc.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that would be that's what I would consider economic abuse.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it's all in the attempt to control a person.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one of the things that's important is like if you are listening to this and you think, oh, I I know somebody that is possibly in this kind of abusive relationship, um, it's important to be able to talk, I mean, be brave and have a conversation with them outside of the um the room or the or outside of the orbit of that person that you think is being abusive.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because chances are if you're in the home of the abused and the abuser, they're not gonna the abuser, the abused is not gonna want to talk to you about it.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but if you are abused, I think here's some ideas and some tips that you could take away from uh this conversation we're having today.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um you can talk to an adult who you trust.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um if you're in a like a dating relationship with this abuser, you can tell the person that you don't want to see him or her anymore, put up boundaries.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's often a bit more difficult because um there's fear that if I break it off, they're going to hurt me.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so therefore they don't break it off and they just kind of put up with bad behavior.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Healthcare providers are great people to have conversations with.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um changing passwords on things is important because a lot of times abusers will get into your um your systems that require passwords and like investigate you and check up on you and make sure that you're not talking to your family or make sure you're not talking to your friends.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um avoiding contact with that person if you can is ideal.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, spending time with your other friends is ideal, and that's again challenging because if you're in a relationship that with someone that's trying to prevent you from interacting, um that's gonna be a challenge.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um the ultimate thing would I tell people is if you don't feel safe in a relationship, um, and again, based on those four four types of abuse that I shared earlier, um you have to feel safe.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: You have the right to feel safe in a relationship.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And someone, you know, every once in a while I get the question of like, well, I don't know if I should divorce or not.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I I can't tell you whether you should divorce or not.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: But if there's any kind of question in your mind of like, I'm not safe or my kids are not safe in this relationship, you need to be safe.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And whatever that means, if that means separating, if that means leaving the home, if that means ultimately divorcing, um you have to be safe.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, being safe is the important thing because I have talked with people over and over again that have been in abusive relationships, and they one wish they had gotten out sooner than they did, and two, if there's kids, they have remorse and over what not getting out of the relationship did to their to their children.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um the challenge I think you run into by being stuck in an abusive relationship is like you read it in the newspapers, you hear stories all the time of um a partner trying to leave a relationship and um then the the abusing partner tracked them down and killed them and and they died in a murder suicide.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean that is some scary stuff, that's real life stuff that a person in an abusive relationship has to deal with.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so if you're listening to this again, and if you know somebody that you if you suspect someone is in an abusive relationship, it is so important for you to be able to provide them with a place to go.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's easy just to go up to someone and say, I think you're in an abusive relationship, you should leave.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: I've done my duty, I've told you this information, and have a nice day.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Keep in touch.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you're not that's not super helpful because you're not giving that person a way to get out of this abusive relationship.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the way that they can get out of an abusive relationship is like, hey, I will be here to pick you up when you call, even if it's 2 a.m.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: and you need a place to stay, you are welcome to stay at my place.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, let's go right now.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Pack a bag and and let's leave now.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's what a person that's in an abusive relationship needs from you as a friend.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: They need a place of sanctuary, essentially.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, don't go into that easily.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um you need to prepare your sanctuary and prepare yourself for what may follow.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and if that if the abuser knows that the um abused is living with you, I mean, depending on the level of um mental illness, they may try to come over to your house.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's protection orders, but again, protection orders don't work.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's stories all the time about that.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the court, I think often the court is kind of a flawed system in regards to protecting um the abused from the abuser.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, sometimes it works great, but uh but often I think we hear stories about how people fell through the system and then got hurt because of falling through the system.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um definitely if if you're not an option and if there's no other like shelters that are options, 911 is a good option as well.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: 911 will call you.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you will call them and then they will send someone out to give you protection.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: The challenge there, see, there's challenges on every angle.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: The challenge there is that they won't be at your house for possibly 10 to 20 minutes.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so if the abuser knows that you called the police, um things could get could get bad and escalate really quickly.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why I always advocate that personal protection is important, whether it's a gun, whether it's uh some type of mace spray, that um you can defend yourself if you feel unsafe in your home.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um if you have any questions, this is a bit more of a serious topic than we usually talk about, but I felt really compelled to talk about it just because um I've had some conversations with people this week about safety, and I think safety is so important, and you need to feel safe in your relationships, and if you feel unsafe, you need to get out of those relationships.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: However, you do that, that's gonna be on you to determine.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but if you have more questions about it, please email me, headshrinkink at gmail.com.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And hey, have a happy fall.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: We're getting close to Halloween, and it's gonna be great because you're required to wear masks.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, adults, you can go trick-or-treating.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Teenagers, you can go trick-or-treating and get away with it because you have to wear a mask.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, have a great weekend.