Throwing Words: The truth about verbal and emotional dating abuse in college
If she wore a skirt, he called her a slut. Every time he punched the walls, she would cringe, envisioning herself as the next tangible target of his frustration. He wouldn’t let her talk to male friends but felt free to cheat on her. As he loved to remind her: he was the venerated athlete, and she was nothing without him. When she finally got up enough courage to leave him, he showered her with affection, talked of marriage and children and begged for forgiveness. When she was offered a summer internship out of state, he threatened suicide to dissuade her. She stopped eating. She lost her nerve. Today, she believes her decision to take that internship is what saved her life.
Years later, the pain is still etched in Megan’s face. While she is open to sharing her experience, the stories of emotional abuse from her undergraduate days conjure feelings of regret. Despite this, second year graduate student Megan, who asked that her last name be withheld, shares her struggle in hopes that someone who has yet to realize the unhealthy patterns in his or her relationship does, and seeks help.
At Ohio University, 55 percent of women indicated they had been a victim of moderate emotional abuse in a college dating situation, and 16 percent reported severe abuse in a survey conducted by the Laboratory for the Study and Prevention of Sexual Assault. Dr. Christine Gidycz of the Department of Psychology defines moderate psychological abuse as “being insulted or sworn at, having partners stomp out of the room or house, and making spiteful comments.” More severe psychological abuse includes threats of violence or public displays of aggression, such as destroying property. Moderate physical abuse, according to Dr. Gidycz, includes pushing or throwing things at your partner, while severe physical abuse ranges from, “being kicked, bit or hit with a fist ” to “being threatened with a knife or gun or actually having a partner use a knife or gun against the victim.”
In a separate study, 48 percent of males reported that they had engaged in severe verbal aggression. The surveys used behaviorally specific criteria to determine victimization instead of using the term “abuse,” because often individuals’ actions can meet the legal definition of abuse, but they may not identify their experiences as such. Though males are known to underreport victimization, statistics still show that abuse victims are predominately female.
Many assume that if their partner does not physically assault them they are not being abused. Physical abuse often leaves bruises, cuts or lacerations — tangible scars. For this reason, society often sees emotional abuse as less violent or less painful. Victims rationalize their partners’ behavior by saying “at least I wasn’t hit.” This is one of the reasons emotionally abusive relationships can be more chronic than those that are sexually or physically abusive, according to Dr. Gydicz. With no corporeal indicators, the difficulty in proving psychological abuse keeps individuals from reaching out for help. The newfound freedom students find at college can lead to abusive relationships of all kinds. Many relationships that are physically or sexually abusive are also emotionally abusive, and many emotionally abusive relationships escalate into physical violence. Megan’s ex-boyfriend ended up hitting his next girlfriend. Later he proposed to her.
College is a time of identity building and often the first time students have been away from the care of their parents. Megan believes being alone in a foreign environment contributed to her feelings of isolation.
“You’re extremely vulnerable, being away from home … not everyone comes to college with the strongest of backbones,” she said. “I didn’t date in high school at all. I focused on sports and my friends so when I came to college, I was very naive about relationships.”
Megan and her ex-boyfriend met playing a mutual sport during her undergraduate studies. After a few months, he had already said “I love you.” Megan admits feeling it rushed the relationship, but she had never been with someone before and liked the attention and affection. Soon after, he began controlling her social life — who she saw, what she wore. One night, they were supposed to have a movie night and he came over hours late, clearly intoxicated. As he lay slumped over on the couch, Megan tried to push him up. That’s when he swung and just missed her face. The day after, he denied it. Often times, he would throw things or punch walls to scare her. When confronted about cheating, he would make up elaborate lies about “this girl who keeps stalking me” who turned out to be his girlfriend on the side. After a year and a half, Megan finally mustered up the strength to leave, battling feelings of depression and worthlessness.
In addition to overcoming feelings of powerlessness and isolation, those trying to get away from abuse often find themselves pigeonholed by technology. Amanda Childress, the assistant director of the Department of Health Promotion, has found that stalking incidents have increased considerably due to social networking and text messaging.
“Facebook, Myspace and other social networking sites make it very easy to find out personal information about other people such as who they’re dating now, what they’re doing,” she said. “It can be very difficult to get away from a person who is abusive when they have a wide variety of means to get to you.”
Childress notes that, according to statistics, it takes an average of seven times of actually leaving an abusive relationship before a victim will leave for good. After reading a checklist on dating abuse and realizing she identified with every single one, Megan knew it was time to get out. Over time, she changed her phone number, blocked her ex-boyfriend and removed his friends from her social networking profiles. However, it was not until she graduated and moved out of state to attend OU that she really felt she had escaped.
“For over a year this ruined my life. If I can do something good with it, I want to,” she said. “I hope people read this story and realize they’re being abused. I hope they can say ‘Even though no one is hitting me, I am being verbally abused and I don’t know who I am anymore.’”
Direct link: http://backdropmag.com/sex-and-health/throwing-words-the-truth-about-verbal-and-emotional-dating-abuse-in-college/