Abuse of any kind is demoralising. Not just to the woman or man in the abusive situation but also those who are bystanders be they children, friends or family.
To get a fuller picture of this, one only needs to watch movies like Sparkle to understand the far reaching effects of abuse on women and those who love them.
This far reaching effect can be summarised as the emotional cost involved in having a friend in an abusive situation.
On this issue, there are divided schools of thoughts amongst feminist women. Some advice to stay on and offer help and others advice to distance yourself because it can lead to danger even for those who want to help.
But what about hearing from the women themselves in these situations? What is the emotional cost and what is the way forward?
To answer these questions, Urban Woman Magazine recently asked some women to share their experiences with having friends or loved ones in abusive situations.
Read their responses below.
CB
If I were to advice women who have friends in abusive situations it will be this: Help them see reason to leave. Because a lot of women don’t know they deserve better, or that they can be better if they leave. Help them overcome that internal fear, then they will gain perspective.
ML
As someone who is loved so so much by my friends and was in a thoroughly abusive relationship, I will tell you that it affected my friends. It affected them much more than I can ever put to words. I will just say that in hindsight, they wore themselves out a lot trying to save me while I was just stuck and bound by trauma bonding and learned helplessness.
At some point, my friends had to be careful to avoid anything that will make them talk about him, and the ones who couldn’t overlook the abuse I was putting up with and unwilling to leave just stopped talking to me gradually.
At the end of the day, having a friend you care about so much that is in a toxic relationship would affect the relationship you have with your friend cause victims can’t just up and leave; its hardly ever possible that way. The concept of abuse is one that I will probably never fully grasp cause you see trauma bonding? It complicates the entire dynamics.
EL
My advice? Leave or die. Leave or slowly lose yourself and die. Leave or get up in a crime and perhaps still die. But you might do small jail first.
GI
I’ll advice this: As an empath, learn to hold yourself from falling too deep, to dissociate from cases after a few trials of helping and supporting, else you burnout from the emotional drainage.
Give the person some distance after especially if they choose to stay in such unavoidable situations but like to share their painful stories with you.
Angel Nduka-Nwosu is a writer, journalist and editor. She moonlights occasionally as a podcaster on As Angel Was Sayin’. Catch her on all socials @asangelwassayin.