ended in May of 2021.
>> I was Miguel Marquez
reporting there now on to our
continuing coverage this week of domestic violence. Just part
of domestic violence. Just part
of a new initiative were called
Breaking free for the music.
The logos we’ve been getting
started for this. We’re talking
really about the emotional and
physical impacts of abuse.
Psychological is the word I was
looking for. We’ve got child
when here with us, Texas
forensic nurse examiners Cha.
Good to see you again, though.
This is a very important topic.
Let’s talk first about defining
this emotional psychological
abuse.
>> Well, first of all, let’s
make it very clear, emotional
and psychological and is
domestic violence. It’s those
invisible wounds that people
don’t see. It looks like
deception manipulation, verbal
threats, isolation. So there
are myriad of things that show up when we talk about emotional
up when we talk about emotional
and psychological abuse.
So I guess from up for a lot
of people when you hear
domestic violence and if you
think physical right away and
we can’t ignore how important. >> The psychological impacts.
>> The psychological impacts.
What are some of those effects?
Yeah, there’s when we look at
emotional and psychological
abuse, we look at a perpetrator
still exerting power and
control over his or her victim.
>> But we’re looking at verbal threats. We’re looking at put
threats. We’re looking at put
downs. We’re looking at things
that we call gaslighting.
Hey, you’re crazy. That didn’t
happen to you. We’re looking at
things that are words and
tactics to further Shane or make somebody feel like they’re
make somebody feel like they’re
less then and the effects can
be life changing for victims.
I mean, they could go 3 through
things for a lifetime like
anxiety, depression addiction. And we talk about something
And we talk about something
called the neurobiology of
trauma, which is when something
bad happens to you, it changes
your brain chemistry. You lose
agency over who you are, your
decision-making abilities, how
you feel about yourself.
These can have debilitating
lifelong effects. And it’s so
important because that those
are the survivors. I counsel
that we see in the domestic
violence front.
>> So the abuser in that sense,
the impact that they have on
the victim, literally that
changing who the person is by
nature of the abuse.
>> Yeah. I mean, victim can
show up and really I feel like they’re a shell of themselves
they’re a shell of themselves
and feel isolated and feel
anxious and feel less bad and
those are terrible.
Debilitating effects.
>> I imagine that might be
somewhat of a fine line between maybe maybe a couple. That’s
maybe maybe a couple. That’s
so it’ll joking. It’s a little
pushing it a little nagging and
then it crosses into the how
can someone tell the difference
because of their being gassed
lighted? They’re meant to feel
like this is normal. So how
are they to even determine
that? It’s not normal because
they’re going to doubt
themselves. And what you talk about is that slow trickling
about is that slow trickling
effects of abuse and over time,
how it wears and wears on a
victim.
>> Where ultimately they lose
agency and worth over
themselves so we can see those signs. We can see that in a
signs. We can see that in a
person when something doesn’t
feel right in a relationship,
it probably isn’t quite so.
We talk about healthy
relationships and not healthy
relationship. So when you meet
with your clients and folks
that you help a typically have
they gone through something
already? Are they in the
process and you’re really
helping them understand who
they are really in that this
isn’t this isn’t truly you.
It’s it’s time for a change. Where are they? Typically in
Where are they? Typically in
the process, survivors abusive
relationships on many levels
over periods of time. Sometimes
they come to us after the
violence has occurred. Look,
they just want the physical
violence today than there are things that lead up to it.
things that lead up to it.
And it’s those tactics that
we mentioned, you know, putting
a gun down saying, you know, if
you don’t do this, I might use
this telling them they’re
crazy. Know that didn’t happen. That’s where vision U.S.
That’s where vision U.S.
history. So it really survivors
are very confused. Often times
when they come see us about
what has happened. Again, the
whole point of the reason we’re