Portrait of Abuse

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day; she was formerly in an abusive relationship. She is out of it now, attending college, and happily pursuing a career in the entertainment business.

Talking to her made me think about abusive relationships in general and so I started looking into the subject on the web. I thought perhaps I could do a story on it. Obviously it is a huge and complex area to even begin to digest in one or two days, but let's just say that the subject resonated with me very deeply and even just a little research on it literally stunned me.    

That was the first really in-depth discussion she and I had ever had on that topic. Always before she would tell me one or two little things that, by themselves, seemed to be simply annoying habits or personality traits of her boyfriend. This time, though, she went into more detail and pieces of what I knew started to fit together better in my mind. The picture of her life that emerged during that discussion was entirely different than the one I had previously held.     

I started my research by looking at some basic facts about abusers and how they operate and why they are so seemingly successful at what they do for so long and so often are never prosecuted for ruining the lives of the person that they supposedly "love" the most.

First off, I found a general profile of an abuser and read over it. The description it gave was one I was familiar with from listening to my friend tell of incidents in her life. She said her boyfriend always tried to control everything she did, that he was jealous, and that he manipulated her entire life.  

The abuse in her case wasn't often physical in the sense of beatings, but she did mention a few specific incidents in which he was violent — one where he found her dancing with someone in a bar one night and he walked onto the dance floor, grabbed her and dragged her out of the place by her hair.    

Another time was when she was pregnant with his child and he was demanding that she abort the baby as a condition of him staying with her. That time her brother was advising her to keep her baby and the boyfriend went to her brother's house and threatened to ram his truck through their home if he (the brother) didn't keep his nose out of "their" business. Another time he was angry and choked her till she nearly passed out while his best friend took their small son outside so he wouldn't see what daddy was doing to mommy.

Article Author: Mike Johnston

Covering mainstream music, the New York City indie rock scene and off-Broadway theater productions. Also articles on science, the ongoing effects of climate change, and alternative energy.

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