I’m so sorry you never had that private time. It sucks how well abusers are able to hide the behavior in public, then claim they “ lose control” when they don’t have anyone watching. So glad you’re out now though.

Reading the comments here, I just want to say that I am so glad you are out and safe.

I’m sorry you weren’t immediately believed. That is really unacceptable. I’m happy that you got out and are now safe. It’s a hard thing to do.

That’s awful. At my doctor’s office, they wouldn’t let my husband come back during the first appointment until after they’d spoken with me privately and asked me all those private questions. They specifically asked me about any previous pregnancies, miscarriages, abortions, children, or abuse while he was in the…

I am so sorry you had to go through that. Mine also shadowed me wherever I went, and then would act so bored and put upon. It wasn’t until I started therapy, and he was NOT invited that I started seeing what was really going on with him.

Man that is rough.

I’m sorry you experienced this. I’m really glad you got out.

My abusive ex and a I shared the same hairdresser - a friend of the ex first. Had the hairdresser ever taken me seriously when I “kind of” reached out once, I probably would have been very grateful for help. I moved in with the ex from out of town, so Ex’s friends were my friends to, by default. At first. None of them…

And this is one of the most important comments here.

You’re missing the point. This isn’t saying that hairstylists are supposed to act as social workers or DV investigators for their clients. If a hairstylist sees bruising on the scalp indicating their client’s hair has been yanked repeatedly, or if a manicurist sees bruising around a client’s wrist, if a hair removal…

Jesus. I hate that even in the presumably more progressive larger city you had to show the receipts. Kudos to you for doing what needed to be done to make it out. I admire your courage. Take care.

I think one of the issues is that non-medical professionals are already shouldering this responsibility so it makes sense to me to give them training on how to deal with it. When I was teaching one-on-one English in Japan I was really surprised by how often clients disclosed really personal details to me and my…

I am a domestic violence counselor. I think any avenue that give resources to a person experiencing violence is a good thing.

I broke my ankle a few years back - nothing exciting, just mis-stepped carrying things down to the basement - and I think every single medical professional who saw me at the hospital asked me if I was alone when it happened, where was my husband, had he been with me when I tripped, and so on.

A lot of rural physicians express hesitance to screen. Screening routinely is very very rare.

It must depend on the community the hospital is in. Growing up my family lived in rural Michigan, and there were a couple of times members of my family had random accidents (my mom fell down the stairs and my sister fell off a chair - all totally accidental!). On their respective visits to the doctor’s office, they…

My at the time girlfriend broke her arm snowboarding, and they asked her a dozen times if I did it (I wasn’t present when they asked her)

The more people who are trained to support women who experience IPV, the better in my book. Women are often hesitant to talk about it - and it takes many many times before they are ready to leave for good (and are in danger when they do try), so the more people they can talk to, the better.

Ah, nope. Research on this has demonstrated that many MDs are hesitant to even broach the topic - for many reasons like lack of time, lack of knowledge of how to screen, barriers to screening, etc. - and they don’t know the community resources. I did a survey of MDs about this, and even though we are in an urban…

WOW. I am a librarian and would have loved to know how to recognize and help and abused woman or child. My worst experience in my life was seeing a child DIE from an asthma attack partly because I didn’t know how a nebulizer works.