Should I be worried?

You may see or hear a survivor experiencing physical violence and abuse, but it is more likely that you will see the resulting injuries.

You may notice that the survivor has bruises, cuts, burns, bite marks, or other injuries. These injuries happen more often than you would expect (for example, they may have bruises all the time) and may take a long time to completely heal. Sometimes an abuser will hurt someone in the same way, or in the same place on their body, again and again, to stop an injury from healing, or will prevent them from getting medication or treatment for an injury.

If someone is wearing clothes to hide any injury marks, you may notice that their clothes are not right for the occasion or temperature – for example, they may wear long sleeves on a very hot day.

Sometimes when a survivor explains how they have hurt themselves, their description does not match the injury marks that they have, and they may not want to seek help from medical professionals.

If you see the abuser and the survivor together, you may notice their interactions. In this situation, the type of abuse you are most likely to see and hear is verbal abuse, which is a type of psychological and emotional abuse. You may notice, for example, that the abuser says things which are mean, cruel or hurtful, to belittle the survivor. Abusers often criticise survivors, make fun of their opinions, beliefs, or appearance, say disrespectful things about them, or call them nasty names.

This is very different from ‘banter’, which is usually friendly and playful. The purpose of verbal abuse is to control the survivor, and to make them look and feel small, often in front of other people. You may notice that the conversation is one-sided, instead of both people talking, or that the person who is being abusive says more and more unkind things – becoming louder, nastier, and more aggressive. You may also notice that the survivor looks more and more uncomfortable, embarrassed, upset, or anxious.

There are many things that friends, family members, neighbours, and colleagues notice about the impacts of abuse on a survivor, and how her usual behaviour changes. Some of the common things that people tell us they notice, include the following:

• An abuser may try to stop the survivor spending time with other people, including you. Abusers often try to sabotage survivors’ relationships, and they use lots of different ways to do this, including directly targeting friends, family members (including children), neighbours, and colleagues. An abuser targets a survivor’s relationships to try to isolate them and to make them more reliant on the abuser. They may falsely accuse you (directly, or by persuading the survivor) of being a nasty person, of not supporting the survivor or their relationship with the abuser or accuse you of ‘causing trouble‘. This behaviour is designed to cause tension between you and the survivor.
• The survivor being quieter than usual. If the abuser is with her, the survivor may seem nervous, anxious, or scared, and may struggle to make eye contact. 
• If you see the survivor without the abuser, she may receive lots of messages from the abuser. These messages will ask her where she is, what she is doing, who she is with, and when she will be finished. They may seem embarrassed or irritated by these messages, but may continue to answer the calls or texts, and may leave earlier than planned. Sometimes, because of the abuser’s behaviour, a survivor may decide it is easier and safer to stop seeing other people.
• Experiencing domestic abuse can negatively impact people’s physical health, and their emotional and mental health. You may notice that a survivor starts to show signs of poor health or emotional distress. For example, she may feel tired, gain or lose weight, struggle with sleep, or visit the doctor more often. Or, you may notice that she feels depressed, anxious, or scared. 
• The survivor may start to behave differently than usual. For example, wearing different clothes, or different amounts of make-up, parenting their children in a different way, or having different standards for cleanliness and household chores. You may also notice changes in the way that a survivor is able to use or access money (including different forms of economic abuse). These changes may be signs that an abuser is making lots of rules for the survivor to follow, particularly if the changes in behaviour are quite big. 
• The survivor’s ability to do their job, or to study, may be affected. A survivor may seem distracted, not concentrate as well, miss deadlines, or make more mistakes than usual. They may arrive late to work, have to leave very punctually at the end of the day, or take more time off than usual. For some survivors, work or study can be an ‘escape‘ or a ‘safe space‘, and they may find reasons to stay at work, school, college, or university as late as possible.
• A survivor may ask you to keep things secret from the abuser, for example who they see, the plans they make, or things they buy. They may seem scared or anxious about what would happen if the abuser found out about these things. A survivor may not want to tell you the reason for keeping things secret, and may use another reason, for example, ‘I have bought it for them, and I want it to be a surprise‘. 

Every abuser uses different behaviours, but there are some which are more common. Some of the behaviours you notice will be towards the survivor and her children. Other behaviours may be directed towards you.

The abuser may try to explain, excuse, or defend their behaviour, usually by blaming other people or circumstances, or by saying that their behaviour is because of their love and concern for the survivor. Every situation is different, but some of the common behaviours that friends, family members, neighbours, and colleagues tell us they notice, include the following:

• Seeing or hearing someone using abusive behaviours. For example, you may see an abuser slap or hit a survivor, you may receive an email which humiliates the survivor, or you may see lots of messages to harass them. The survivor may tell you about the abusive behaviours. You may also hear the abuser brag about their behaviour, or someone else may tell you what they have seen and heard.
• Abusers will often try to shift blame for their abuse, but also for anything bad or negative that happens. They refuse to take any responsibility. For example, if they lose their job, they blame their boss; if they fall out with their family, they blame their parents; if they find it difficult to get accommodation, they blame the government. And, of course, they blame the survivor herself (and sometimes other people) for their own abusive behaviour.
• Abusers will often shift the blame for their abuse. It shifts the responsibility for harmful acts from the perpetrator to the survivor. It holds the survivor entirely or partially responsible for the harm they have experienced.
  – ‘You shouldn’t have been drinking’
  – ‘Look at what you’re wearing’
  – ‘You provoked me’
  – ‘I’ve had a stressful day at work’
• Abusers sometimes have very high expectations or standards for survivors, which they themselves do not meet. They may expect a survivor to behave a particular way, to dress or look a particular way, to earn a particular amount of money, to parent any children a particular way, and to do housework a particular way. For example, an abuser may expect a survivor to look tidy, smart, or sexy, but the abuser wears anything they want. 
•  An abuser may force or coerce a survivor to submit to them in lots of ways. For example, a survivor may have to ask permission to leave the room or the house, to use the car, or to have access to money. 
•  Children can also experience abusive behaviour and are survivors in their own right. You may notice that an abuser expects a child to be much more mature, responsible, or able than their age, ability, or intelligence allows. For example, they may get angry with a young child for wetting the bed or not being able to tie their shoelaces. Or they may get angry with an older child for not doing well at school, or at sport. 
•  An abuser may tease or shout at a child until they are very upset or crying, and may ‘punish‘ children for accidents, mistakes, or ‘naughty‘ behaviour that a child does not know is wrong. Some ‘punishments‘ will be harsh, unusual, cruel, or last for a long time
• An abuser may use children as pawns against their mother, for example, questioning the child for information to be used against her (e.g. who she’s seen, where she’s been), using their tablets or other devices to check locations, encouraging them to hide the abuse or lie about it, or directly involving the child in the abuse.  
• You may notice that an abuser is unkind towards pets, including: harsh punishments, no medication or treatment for illness, physical symptoms, or pain, and neglect (for example, not providing enough food, water, shelter, exercise, or comfort). It is common for abusers to withhold the pet from a survivor or threaten to harm the pet or give it away as a tool of control. 
• An abuser may be very jealous – not just jealous of the people that the survivor sees, speaks to, or works with, but also any activities or hobbies that she spends time on. An abuser may accuse a partner of (imagined) affairs, and this can be an indicator of risk (a sign that the domestic abuse is getting worse, and becoming more dangerous). This can also occur during pregnancy or after childbirth, as some abusers may become jealous of the child and the attention they are receiving. Often people who are behaving with a lot of jealousy say that their behaviour is a sign of love – it is not. 

As well as noticing how an abuser behaves towards a survivor, and towards other people, you may also notice how they behave towards you. Sometimes, this can be obvious, but it can also be quite subtle. Often, the thing that friends, family members, neighbours, and colleagues notice most is how they feel when they spend time with an abuser. Feeling uncomfortable with an abuser makes it hard to know how to act around them. 

Abusers can be aggressive and abusive towards people other than the survivor as well. But many abusers are not like this, and some abusers can seem pleasant, reasonable, kind, honest, genuine, or trustworthy to other people.  

Sometimes, an abuser becomes nasty towards other people when they have had a drink, when someone challenges or disagrees with them, or when someone does something that they do not like. Every situation is different, but some of the common behaviours that friends, family members, neighbours, and colleagues tell us they notice, include the following: 

• Direct abuse from the abuser. This can include any of the types of abuse that the abuser uses against the survivor – psychological and emotional abuse, physical abuse, and harassment are most common. An abuser may threaten to harm you, your property, your pets, or the people you care about, or they may be physically violent towards you. They may also try to intimidate, belittle, criticise, harass, or manipulate you. 
• An abuser may behave differently towards you, depending on gender dynamics. They may switch between trying to ‘win your respect‘, trying to ‘compete‘ with you, and being aggressive or abusive towards you. Alternatively, they may be ‘flirty‘, ‘creepy‘, ‘smarmy‘, or ‘inappropriate‘ towards you. The abuser may make you feel uncomfortable by talking or acting in a very sexualised way. 
• Abusers can be hypersensitive (easy to offend or ‘prickly‘), taking everyday setbacks as personal insults. Abusers may react to any comments, and feedback from you as a personal attack, and if you express views and opinions which are different from theirs, they may take this as direct criticism. 
• Another behaviour you may notice is an abuser trying to get you to collude or support their abusive behaviours. This can be subtle, and sometimes people do not realise until later that this is what has happened. A common example is when an abuser asks friends, family members, neighbours, or colleagues to persuade the survivor to do something which the abuser wants her to. The abuser frames it as for the survivor’s benefit or wellbeing, so that people think they are helping.