How To Recognize Abuse

• Push or shove you?
• Hold you down to keep you from leaving?
• Slap or bite you?
• Kick or choke you?
• Hit or punch you?
• Throw objects at you?
• Abandon you in dangerous places?
• Subject you to reckless driving?
• threaten to hurt you?

• Ignore your feelings?
• Make fun of or insult people of your sex?
• Insult your family or friends?
• Embarrass you in public or private?
• Refuse to do fun things with you?
• Call you names and shout at you?
• Make all your decisions and control your actions?
• Lie to and manipulate you?
• Ruin your belongings or injure your pets?
• Threaten to hurt you with weapons?

• Tell jokes or make demeaning remarks about your sex?
• Treat you as a sex object?
• Get very jealous, saying you would be sexual with anyone?
• Insist that you dress in a more sexual way than you want to?
• criticize you sexually?
• Call you sexual names like “whore”?
• Publicly show interest in others of your sex?
• Force unwanted sexual acts on you?

Source: “Getting Free” by Ginny McCartney, 1985.