"I found that she would always empathize with him, regardless.”

Imagine that you’re a victim of intimate partner violence. Maybe it’s the first time you’ve been abused, or maybe the abuse has been going on for a long time. Your partner probably blames you for the abuse, and you feel ashamed that you’ve “let it happen.” Still, you know it’s wrong and are scared for your safety. So, you decide to reach out for help, whether that is to the police, a mental health professional, or some other professional or organization in your community.

We know that there are many great, helpful organizations and professionals in communities all around the country and the world that know how to help provide support and resources to victims of intimate partner violence. We heard how valuable this support can be from many of the participants in our research.

At the same time, our research also provided a number of examples of the problems that can come up when victims reach out for help and encounter untrained professionals and others who increase the stigma and challenges surrounding their abuse.

Our goal here isn’t to imply that all professionals are unhelpful and stigmatizing. We believe that the majority of professionals want to help and do their best to do so. However, we also heard some very unfortunate stories about times when survivors reached out for help and were met by harmful responses from the professionals who were in positions that they could have provided help.

With that in mind, consider the following examples from some of our participants:

One of the first sources for help for domestic violence is often the local law enforcement agency. The following two statements provide examples of harmful responses that some of our participants faced from law enforcement:

• “One of my neighbors said that he had been talking with one of the cops in the neighborhood about me because something had happened on my street and they’d been called but it wasn’t me, but he says, ‘When I heard that on my scanner I thought it was [participant’s name].’  And the cop’s like, ‘Oh one of these days we’ll find her strung up in a tree in the backyard.’ So there was definitely a stigma of me being an unstable, alcoholic, overweight, basically middle-age, washed-up useless woman.”
  
• “I had trouble getting the police to listen to me, to believe me. He was from another culture...And I had cops make comments to me well, you know, before you marry someone from those countries you really should know what you’re getting into. The fact is I know people married to [people from that culture] that were very happy.  Because their husbands weren’t mentally ill.”
  

Other aspects of the criminal justice system also may leave survivors feeling stigmatized and unsupported. For example, one participant had the following to say about her experiences with her attorney and the court system:

• “I used to feel pretty angry that I didn’t feel that my testimony was taken seriously, or that there was a question of its accuracy.  And I thought, you know, I felt like I was fighting this uphill battle with the judge and my own lawyer, that there was a question of how true this was.”
  
  

Stigmatizing experiences can reach far beyond the criminal justice system to others professionals as well. The following two participant quotes show that mental health and other professionals also can respond in harmful ways:

• “I’ve had therapists that didn’t believe me about my life because they look at me and say, ‘You’re successful, you don’t look like someone who’s been through this and has all these problems. How do you manage to work?  How did you manage to go to school?  How did you manage to move out at 17 and make a life for yourself?’  Well the only thing I can say is, it’s God. It’s God. It’s God. And, I give him credit.”
  
• “When I was uncertain of things about my relationship with my husband, I stopped mentioning them to [my counselor].  I stopped really talking about him at all in counseling.  Even though he was a major part of what I was going through in my life at that point, because I found that she would always empathize with him, regardless.”
  
  

The fact that these sorts of experiences happen--ever--is an indicator of how much more work is needed to eradicate the stigma surrounding intimate partner violence. We invite you to join our community on Causes and help us take action to ensure that there are better, more helpful, and supportive responses to intimate partner violence.

Every survivor who reaches out for help should be met with supportive, knowledgeable professionals who can help them be safe and end the abuse in their lives.